Very good points being made on my Xmas Day timeline but the latter is more urgent.

Fireworks on Christmas Day. Really not an argument for living in the UK. TBF, it's less irritating than the 4am helicopter convoy after last week's summit.

The big Christmas Day premiere. My article on Jean Delhaye, the saviour of Brussels art nouveau, has arrived online. Better than Paddington in Peru. www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/1892...

He's always in the churchyard when I'm back in the UK.

Joyeux kerstfeest to all 🎄

The Sun Says... make it Brussels (Exclusive) www.thesun.co.uk/travel/37718...

Sadly, Larry didn't have room to mention Brexit 😢

These guys. Not serious.

The f*ck is this? Opening soon at Broadgate Circus.

The King Charles I, CAMRA North London runner-up pub of the year 2025. Great alternative to the Queen's Head for a pre/post Eurostar pint. Best approached via the lovely Keystone Crescent from the mid 1840s.

An important thread about why Reform Ltd must be fought tooth & nail and defeated. (I figure that no one who is ‘Reform-curious will be here on bluesky reading posts)

I mean, you could stop in Ashford. Or just drive straight through at 170mph.

The French Brussels. Never noticed this before.

The 🇬🇧 spirit of 2016-19 returns. The gobshite John Longworth is back on the radio and people are talking about not being rule-takers or 'relitigating' the referendum. Make it stop 😢

Just heard a LibDem MP say there's going to be 'an EU Reset bill' in 2026. What's that about?

How do we get this useless ATM to spit free money out FFS?

Light at the end of the tunnel of 2025 in the Forêt de Soignes/Het Zoniënwoud this morning.

This is the real starting pistol for Xmas week for as long as I can remember.

Anecdote, data, anecdata, the urban uniformity of Europe and of the US etc... this is the Long Island Iced Tea of American think pieces on city-living. www.cnn.com/2025/12/19/t...

Bistrot Mousse Schaerbeek, coming soon. Hope this place does well after the horror that happened here. And that they don't ban headphones like the cafe bookshop opposite (instant boycott).

Such an interesting prospect. It's hard to overstate how identity-shaking this would be to many English people. Or how hostile some can be towards those who leave (depending on the perceived motive).

Ooh, I'm still at number one.

This experiment in providing Haussmann-type stone apartment blocks with inner courtyards but on a tight site for the lower middle classes of Montmartre looks very weird and a bit organic from above. C.1880.

Aerial view of central Paris in December 1943 on Google Earth. Les Halles covered market and Bourse de Commerce to the left. To the right, the Plateau Beaubourg, future Pompidou Centre site and number 1 among the 17 'îlots insalubres’, areas where unmodernised housing was zoned for clearance.

For the past few weeks Google Maps has been increasingly unreliable stopping me updating anything. To that end I've been quickly learning Open Street Map and I am now happy to share the link : u.osmfr.org/m/1334010/ This will the Guide map going forward. The Google one will remain but not updated.

What a dick Streeting is with this xenophobic, arrogant, entitled crap.

Nick Cave singing a Rainy Night in Soho at Shane McGowan’s funeral. It does not get more poignant, more beautiful. Just magnificent … youtu.be/oHLqEdsrVk8?...

😱😁

Whisper it but....

In which Tim Stanley experiences the "find out" phase of his arrant fuck wittering.

I keep seeing this kind of comment from anti-Brexit accounts. What does this even mean? What river, what is the nature of the disaster that befell Gibraltar?

And if you wonder what I mean by that...

Can't wait for my holiday in England 😬

The usual responses, so consider this: Gibraltar and its neighbouring region has the prospect of modernisation and new opportunities while the UK (of which it has never been a part) gets managed decline and culture wars driven by actual foreign interference. Happy 🎄

Kijk @vincenzodm.bsky.social, broederlijk naast elkaar in de Standaard boekhandel op de Anspachlaan in Brussel! 🤩 @ertsberg.bsky.social @karldrabbe.bsky.social

And it was all explained *very slowly* to Bill Cash's parliamentary committee in the summer of 2023 by the Chief Minister of Gibraltar.

The EU will control entry to the EU Schengen area. Whatever next? All of this was made clear when the draft deal was reached in 2020. You've had five YEARS to cry your tear ducts dry.

Estudiantes gaditanos descubren en Gibraltar cómo se abren paso las grandes firmas de auditoría

This is just utterly disgraceful and dangerous stuff from Badenoch. It's appalling that the leader of a major party should be engaging in this sort of rhetoric

#Rome has two new metro stations! This week, Line C opened the Porta Metronia and Colosseo-Fori Imperiali stations, which double as museums of Imperial Rome. #Roma #transit Here's an eye-opening plunge into Colosseo-Fori:

A 360⁰ balls-up. The new station staircase was just completed. Now work on the metro is totally blocked: no budget, no permit. ARAU wants to convert the completed part of the tunnel into a swimming pool and circus school. Will they provide lifeguards as well as clowns? www.bruzz.be/actua/mobili...

Hang on for the digestif.

Snap. Pro and anti-Brexiters united in the poisonous British class prejudice of 'not for the the likes of us/you'. Which played a huge role in the strength of the leave vote and the weakness of the remain campaign.

And they're leaving 🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜

And now the Council of State has suspended the demolition permit anyway. It's the Brouckère mess all over again but in even slower motion. And far more expensive, disruptive and important.

A city on hold. Brussels Commune asks STIB to halt work at the Palais du Midi in case, in the event of a new regional government materialising, it decided to abandon/pause the Metro 3 project. www.lesoir.be/717618/artic...