After posting this, we return to the UK, and someone has crashed their car on the roundabout at Gatwick leading into the terminals in such a way as to completely close the road into the airport. Which must be causing some holidaymakers absolute heart attacks.

Things Greek drivers love, based entirely on our trips to and from the airport - being on their phones the entire time, judicious use of the horn, tailgating, and poorly thought out overtaking. Still, got there and back again alive I guess!

Both Miliband brothers and now Count Binface, my former alma mater is producing political heavyweight after political heavyweight

It's a hard life sometimes

In a bar in Ithaca and they're showing the football, and it turns out the Greeks show adverts at the start of the "hydration breaks", which is frankly undignified behaviour for Europeans. Come on, that's for Americans, you're better than that!

Missed all the football related stress by being somewhere were we couldn't actually watch the game. The big gang of Norwegians who rocked up yesterday at Sivota probably had fun last night.

I'm on a boat!!!!

Beginning my Greek odyssey

Just had the most stressful experience of my life - trying to work out the car park my partner booked us into at Gatwick, with some not super clear signage/instructions in our email. Think we might be coming home to about £500 in parking/drop off fines for all the mistakes I made...

Bloody Nora.

Just done some open water swimming at Sale Water Park, like I'm a feature writer at the guardian or something (it was fun though, I can see why they all bang on about it)

The Manchester Christmas Markets are getting out of hand, this is ridiculous.

Happiness is a cat with a banana toy filled with catnip. Enjoy these photos of Vinny and Desmond enjoying the toy, each in their unique fashion... And then them about to have a little play fight in the shade outside.

Vinny and Desmond have retreated to a shady, leafy spot where they can spend the day snoozing in relative comfort, and I have to say I'm very very jealous of them both.

This will get lost in today's national news, but the finding that Jeffrey Donaldson is guilty on all counts, only after decades of multiple people having concerns, speaks to how powerful abusers can use their status in a small society like NI to deflect attention: www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cw...

My partner's niece & nephew are over from New Zealand, and I've ended up teaching them a song my grandad used to sing on car journeys - "We're off, we're off, we're off in a motorcar, 60 coppers are after us and they don't know where we are!" From what I can gather, this is a very Manchester song.

Whenever I see Kovacic on the pitch it's nice to think we've both visited Istanbul (though for different reasons I imagine)

Boos in the Fletcher Moss pub as the hydration break comes into play, don't think that's been a hit with the average fan. Also fuck me, what a harsh VAR decision that was!

Is your child up at 9pm arguing about tram networks with the entire staff of the FT and some tedious Americans who are not familiar with the concept of a joke? This report make shock you.

Had a bit of time to kill whilst waiting for glasses frames to be repaired, and we spotted Bar San Juan had some free seats to treated ourself to a fancy lunch (San Juan is great, been in Chorlton for decades now I think)

The Marble Arch really is a fantastic pub (loved their beers, ordered several kegs during lockdown, for me and for my dad. Their Manchester Bitter is fantastic).

Watching Tip Toe, three episodes in, and where on Barlow Moor Road in Didsbury is this Italian restaurant offering a two course meal for £15 on a *Friday* night?! I need to get me down there! (For any non-Mancs watching, that price point is very generous for that bit of South Manchester...)

Alongside Jen's fab piece, for anyone interested I'd also recommend this recent @manchestermill.bsky.social piece where a walk through the (desolate) 80s city centre is recreated, showing just how much has changed (in the centre at least) down the decades. manchestermill.co.uk/a-city-on-th...

Desmond wanted some fussing as I started up the work laptop this morning which was cute, but good Lord I've never known a cat that sheds so much hair without going completely bald.

It's an impressive team photo, but the last time a load of Norwegians rocked up in the Americas in long boats, they had a terrible time and all ended up going home pretty quickly, so not sure it's necessarily something they'd want to emulate this summer...

If you read one thing today, make it @stephenkb.bsky.social's admirably clear and rational analysis of the police's actions following Henry Nowak's murder, from the @financialtimes.com Inside Politics newsletter www.ft.com/content/aa94...

Very late to this, but The Ethiopian Brothers, Selassie. Got me into buying a tonne of Mister Mushi 45s online from a record store in Germany, each one of which was also a certified banger (his version of Hard Lifetime especially). youtu.be/INiUYcz3E_g?...

The Whitworth has some fantastic exhibits on at the moment, most notably on Hokusai & Hiroshige (but with other ukiyo-e artists included too). Of course, in pride of place, they have two copies of the great waves (though I think my favourites were the fishermen, or this rather precarious bridge).

Vinny and Desmond enjoying the sunshine, without the excessive heat, this Saturday.

I see the Champions League final is still free-to-air on ZDF in Germany. I also see Firefox's built-in VPN allows you to reroute via Germany.

Friday.

Oh my god “Wealthy areas like the city centre” At least google some pictures of it in the 1990s

The hotter it gets, the cooler Desmond is...

Decided that today, of all days, was the day to attempt some gardening/tree surgery. God that was hot work. Still, tree has been cut down to size for another year!

My dad managed to blag a space at Manchester Town Hall for the celebration of the 100pt season under Pep (he's mates with a councillor). He spoke, briefly, to Pep telling him that his dad (my grandad) had managed to watch the best football of his life under Pep, before he died (he was ill that year)

MANCHESTERISM!

Gonna miss the guy

Been a roaring trade in match programmes today, for some strange reason...

Nice today in East Manchester

Think Desmond is a fan of lazy Bank Holiday Sundays...

Looking promising for the strawberries this year (we had no idea they'd last more than one year, we planted them back in 2025, so pleasantly surprised they're still going)

Vinny is king of the castle

Bank holidays, sunshine, Txakoli, Greek orange cake & friends, what's not to like?

Effective, and potentially helping maintain one of the UK's few success stories of the last few years. A Reform Mayor in Manchester would be catastrophic, damaging decades of hard work to Reform's horrible brand of pub bore, know-nothing populism and casual racism.

Sitting on the fake grass of Victoria Tap watching the trams coming in and out drink in hand, worse ways to start a bank holiday weekend

This is a wild story, well worth a read. And once again a piece of top class investigative journalism from the Mill which has already led to arrests

This piece is getting some deserved plaudits on the timeline - how Manchester has grown in recent decades, plus lots of Simpsons/Stone Roses references (I particularly enjoyed Styal Mill getting a shout out!) My wonder/worry is, with GM councils becoming more fragmented, will the success continue..?

Me Right Now.

Heard that my parents' local (Labour) councillor avoided the bloodbath in Manchester, and the fact he's a regular in the Fletcher Moss (everyone's favourite Didsbury pub) is, I think, no coincidence. (He's also a good lad tbf, so I'm glad he's been able to keep his seat)

Whilst many people on this site were worrying over local election results last night, I was at a wine tasting, which I can strongly recommend as an alternative for any and all other election nights. Here I am being sophisticated and suave whilst trying a nice Cabernet Franc...