1. I've long contended that austerity doesn't save money. It merely transfers costs from one group (the very rich, who would otherwise pay more tax) to others. Last night was a powerful reminder of that. Before I go further, I should say I’m fine. Just a black eye, cuts & bruises, no serious harm. 🧵

For a long time Taylor Swift didn’t register with me at all, just a singer with some catchy / annoying tunes on the radio, but TTPD really drew me in, and am interested for 3rd Oct now

My aunt is interested in family history, & is confident that my great great great great great great grandfather’s big sister was Janet Cornfoot, one of the Pittenweem Witches; and now I’d quite like to know whether this is true or not. blog.historicenvironment.scot/2023/03/pitt...

👏👏👏 Paris built 115 school streets in a year. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN. 😳😳😳 Edinburgh built one school street 5 years ago, and it remains dilapidated and temporary to this day

As mentioned earlier by @seatsixtyone.bsky.social the Paris-Berlin/Vienna night train might be axed from December What's happening, and why SNCF never really cared about this train, but why alternatives are tricky, explained on my blog 👇 jonworth.eu/sncfs-half-h...

The sculpture of "Homeless Jesus"'outside St Mary's Cathedral on Picardy Place is a well positioned reminder of the Beatitudes and a highlighting of our responsibilities to our neighbours

I do love the way you type into Google what’s in your fridge, and there’s always a recipe littleeatsandthings.com/one-pot-meat...

Harry Enfield and Ronnie Corbett's "My Blackberry is not working" sketch. God, it's *exquisite*. Not a line out of place, everything works beautifully and there's some free Harry *almost* corpsing thrown in as well. www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG3...

A Paris, le « périph » à 50 km/h : moins bruyant, plus fluide, mais peut mieux faire, selon une dernière étude

Oh, I see it’s been prompted by this report: www.enlighten.scot/publication/...

This was page 1: www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

I bought The Times today for p1, but pleasing to see a Leader on the modern face of coolness 😉

The thing is "digital ID" as a category is absolutely freaking enormous. It could mean *all sorts* of things, which are all quite different to one another, but it cannot usefully include every single technology imaginary that is being bandied around in think tank papers and op eds

I’d hoped to coax child into cycling home from Aberdour after his matches, but thanks to the 10k diversions we missed the train over. So jumped the Aberdeen train & cycled the super NCN76 from Inverkeithing. Then back to visit friends in Dalgety Bay. Finally going home. Wouldn’t happen in a car.

Can anyone recommend any excellent books, for children age 10 to 12, that covers basic strategy / positional play in #chess? #chesspunks #education 1/2

Support your local shops or they disappear. Good luck trying to get the internet to fix a broken gear system or a punctured tyre.

I like everything about Taste of Italy: the warmth, the food, the screen, the staff, the clientele, the music, the high tables for knocking back espressos, but it’s let down by one thing; its wine list, which is far from amazing.

One morning Toad sat in bed. “I have many things to do,” he said. “I will write them all down on a list so that I can remember them.”

In my head (perhaps only in my head?) I spend a LOT of time cleaning the kitchen. And yet I look round now, and there’s uncleared breakfast, a food processor, 7 books, an unemptied dishwasher & washing machine, about a dozen orchard apples, a half-made broth, three notepads, a plastic bag corner..

A Cadillac has just glided past me, playing Chuck Berry’s You Never Can Telll through the open sunroof. A strangely cheering sight for Cambridge Avenue, somehow

And…. it’s back again. Looks really young. We startled each other, but I clearly frighted it 😔

Post holiday weekend feeling has set in:

LLMs are ingesting the output of LLMs which makes them vulnerable to classic instability. If you have a cluster that's slightly more likely then it will be generated more often and reinforce itself in the next person. It's essentially the same mechanism that causes water to condense into droplets.

Over on X, I used to try to use one slightly less common word per tweet, like a tiny pinch of spice, or a talisman against cliché. But actually I don’t think it worked well, over all. Maybe seemed a bit affected (which it possibly was!)

I’d like to think it’s that all human communication* is an attempt to bridge an appalling existential and experiential void. We’re all stuck in our own heads desperate to connect, to share, to be not-alone. Our language seeks out connection and adapts to any communication it meets. 1/n

Came across a convolvulus hawk moth when packing up the tent today. Scared the living daylights out of my son, who had thought it was a piece of wood.

10 years is approx 130 full moons. Given that several of those would have been obscured by rain, snow or cloud, then 10 years is actually quite quick!

Today would be a very good day for the UK govt to delete its accounts on X.

If social media takes every strand of social feeling, twists it, distorts it, reductivises & amplifies it, until eventually lonely, unhappy people are driven to take to the streets, then perhaps our better leaders *will* seem like Hamlet; & our bad ones, worse. It’s a feature, not a bug?

I think this is a moment for King Charles to speak up. I imagine many of the protesters see themselves as King & Country types. A short bland statement from Clarence House would sure provide back-up for the government. And Charles is the son of an immigrant, too.

This should be George Street, Stockbridge, Gorgie, The Shore or Chambers Street. #Edinburgh doesn’t uniquely need parking, merge pavements and tree-less streets.

I don’t know whether I can actually execute the camping trip checklist facing me. Housework. Feed child. Collect stove from A, tent from B, get petrol. Empty car. Pack car. Remember *everything* 😑. Leave by 1.30pm. Do we even have to go? (Road trip playlist suggestions welcome)

#todayswalk was a very brief wander around the palazzos of Merchiston. Rorschach blot:

First of all the bus that was being tracked was a different number, not the No 10, and now we need to be subject to not one but two diversions? #miniadventuresinpublictransport

We had joy, we had fun We had seasons in the sun But the wine and the song Like the seasons, have all gone Jacques Brel, 20th century #Photography #Wisdom #Poetry #Rivers #SpeirGorm #SpéirGhorm #Ireland #IrishSky #Eire #EastCoastKin #PhotographersOfBlueSky #ArtofBlueSky #LandscapePhotography

I wonder what is the Labour equivalent of the 1922 Committee. I’m sure someone wants a word.

Pretty sure ma hoose is at the foot of thon watergaw 😄. Also, someone just gave me a £160 discount 👓 because they’re ’a strong believer that discounts should go to the lovely customers, not just the ones who complain a lot’, which has probably made my week tbh.

As someone who has been Extremely Online for more than 25 yrs, whose working life is one long hunt for weak signals/what's next, my advice for folks in the UK who don't really need to be on top of the news on an ongoing basis is to spend some regular time tuning out over the next few days

Definitely time for sleep.

Wonderful article, and it's about a lot more than smartphones.

Me, a religion reporter: ah yes this is a product of the small but notable Palestinian Christian community, which also produces wine and some excellent arak. Me, a Millennial man: okay so what are we talking here — a lager? A golden? A hazy? What’s the ABV? Specific gravity? I need deets, people.

my entire apple harvest this year: (jonagold)

The mouse mill has been repurposed for crypto mining. Gabriel's banjo now benefits from autotune, although Gabriel himself has been replaced by Pepe. Madeleine works in PR for an AI firm, and Professor Yaffle has become radicalised on Twitter. Emily has got Bagpuss hooked on fentanyl.

Perhaps they could be converted into quiet carriages. Or play areas for children, now that Kid for a Quid is full time?

(Aargh! Just realised I failed to tap off on Sunday. Was coming home after a long day in Glasgow: boys, bags, tired, late…) www.heraldscotland.com/news/2543959...

“His life’s work is like a dark, glittering, ethereal yet earthy river of thought, full of angels, ghosts, nocturnes, animals. These are books as brimming with spirit & light as they are with eroticism & violence” —Seán Hewitt on John Burnside’s poetry & prose 💙📚 www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

#SlightlyDiminishABook Treasure Peninsula

Well that was splendid! A patch in the Edinburgh clouds cleared to see the moon in Pac-Man mode for the last 1/2hr #LunarEclipse. Got overly excited explaining to passers by that the upward motion of the moon was because the Earth turns, & the shifting shadow was because the moon is orbiting us 🤓🔭🧪

Remarkable that these plans for developing and promoting Irish in Belfast are far in advance of anything in place for Gaelic in Glasgow, Edinburgh or anywhere in mainland Scotland www.thejournal.ie/belfast-city...