Lovely morning - no rain, no wind. Just my pleasant neighbours to greet my pups and me on our morning walk.

Thank you, Judge Schwager. But it shouldn’t require a judge to say something that is so hugely obvious. To turn this argument on its head: if OpenAI had won, presumably it would be fine for me to go into their HQ and help myself to whatever I want.

Watching TOTP on BBC4 and this came up. I remember lying in bed as a child with measles listening to it on the radio … 60 years ago. Still word perfect, still makes me misty eyed. youtu.be/z4ZipKdI1sY?...

Rachel Reeves: if you’re serious about growth, rejoining the SM/CU is the only effective option.

It’s naked theft of intellectual property. To describe it as ‘controversial’ is absurd. If I were to enter the offices of @economist.com and steal items, would they accept me describing my actions as merely ‘controversial’?

Mr Buckley makes an excellent point.

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly love her more …

If adverts have to represent real life … they would be full of people consuming food and drink and saying, ‘This is a bit shit’.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s when comments like these were common. Who would have thought that half a century later, a politician could say this without being universally condemned?

Dawn patrol with my boys

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... ‘“When you need to move fast," reads a banner under the image. "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."’ Bravo.

This - for someone like me who knows very little about economics - is a fascinating read. The obsession with state deficits may be entirely wrong. I wish I knew enough to know if this analysis is correct. It is certainly well argued.

I am so tired of Brexiters moaning that this isn’t the Brexit they voted for. Oddly enough, it’s pretty much exactly the Brexit I voted against.

Slowly clearing the loft, found boxes of Lego. A quick EBay search shows these kits are ridiculously valuable. So I guess I’ll just have to reassemble them. What a chore.

If the theft didn’t involve robotic trousers and a rubber glove disguise, I’ll be disappointed.

‘Look, Sir. Dead Antifas. Hundreds of them.’

Shortly after moonrise yesterday evening. The rays spreading out from Tycho … that must have been a colossal impact.

I am Frogtifa.

Model making Bluesky: a question about panel lines and weathering. If I do panel lines using an oil paint mixture, how long should I let it dry before using a bit of solvent to remove the excess?

“Drawing on unpublished first-hand accounts, this is a gripping history of the experiences of the Commandos and their unsung allies in one of the bloodiest battles of the Burma Campaign.” bookshop.org/p/books/jung...

Happy Publication day to me! 🥳 Jungle Commandos is out now! @ospreypublishing.bsky.social

Absolutely 100% agree with this. Racism thrives because racists interpret the silence of others as tacit agreement. No child is born a racist; they learn it from hearing it unchallenged.

Kirkcudbright.

Hear me out, friends. This would be an absolute blockbuster: a final mission for the Mission Impossible team in combination with … Johnny English.

A good bit of baking.

If you haven’t read ‘How the word is passed’, I recommend you do so. A powerful, searing, poetically crafted book.

A measure of true friendship: when you have lunch with someone you haven’t seen for 40 years and you chat as if it was just yesterday. With @nicolettejones.bsky.social

Ms Bueltmann eloquently says what many of us who are not ‘indigenous’ Brits feel.

Well that sounds like an intriguing invitation.

Some mornings feel like a succession of chores - feed the pups, feed the horses, walk the pups, all before breakfast. But it’s worth it to catch sunrises like these.

Another beautiful Scottish morning

I guess that explains a lot

Sunrise this morning

Mist over the Abbey Burn this morning, pockets of frost on the verges.

Just beautiful. You can hear the hiss of the tyres on the road.

It wasn’t love at first sight. I liked ‘Local Hero’, but I only grew to love it over several years. Now it’s one of my top three movies. This book is a lovely read, and you can guess what I’ll be watching - again - this weekend.

My infinitely better half complains if I don’t label jars. She then complains that my labelling is rubbish. When I find a jar I haven’t used for a while, I begin to wonder if she has a point.

Please, take a moment to read this. Like @sturdyalex.bsky.social, I no longer feel that this country is the home I have known almost all my life. bestforbritain.substack.com/p/my-place-o...

When it rises this well, I’m always slightly worried that when I cut it, I’ll find a huge bubble in the middle

You fools! By now he'll have already discarded the red rubber gloves on his head and seamlessly blended into the crowd as a common penguin!

Publication day!

An example of how inflation figures often fail to reflect reality. The toilet roll on the left is from a multi-pack bought early this year. The other was bought last week. The pack has increased in price by 3%. But the newer roll is 25% lighter.

Yup.

At a time when so much discourse is dark and negative, this is worth a read.

Gavin does a magnificent job with the hedges

I must have skipped the medical school lecture about ‘mitochondrial challenges’. Still, managed a working lifetime as a doc without coming across it …

For all those saying that AI will revolutionise medicine: be careful what you wish for.

All authors: please take a few minutes to do this. A quick check will show you if your work has been stolen (it probably has been), and a few more minutes will pass your details to the class action lawyers. You may achieve nothing. Or you may add to the pressure on AI companies to behave better.

Increasingly, this is how the UK makes me feel. I don’t know if it’s always been that way and I was fooling myself, or if things have deteriorated. Perhaps both.