Nature, continuing to walk the line between 'I will amaze you (complimentary)' and 'I will amaze you (derogatory)'.

Made a perfect cuppa this morning (/humblebrag).

My therapist today called me as ‘a great person’ and I will now pay her whatever she charges, what a genius business model.

In case you, too, were thinking, ‘How do I let the BBC know that their choice to cut a pro-Palestine BAFTA speech (cause it’s a political hot potato) but leave in a racist slur (that the right wing is *dying* to bring back in circulation) was a terrible choice?’, here’s the complaints link.

Keeping the bay leaf in so someone can be king for the dinner.

Starting from the 1400 passage, I channelled my Middle English professor who would sway to the intonations. That got me through to the 1100s when the runes arrived. Not sure what it said; may have conjured the unheimlich.

Have spent the morning re-learning atoms, molecules and moles to help my kid with science homework. My brain is now cleft into 2 distinct zones. 1) yes, I remember this, this is easy, nay even enjoyable 2) I am old now and everything is hard

Just sitting here reading my Marcella Hazan cookbook like it’s a page-turning novel.

It’s Mardi Gras again (and, in some ways, 1958 again, minus the good tailoring).

17th cent. Quakers used fixed pricing in their shops because a) everyone is equal (so don’t charge some people more) b) honesty is paramount (so no haggling) c) excess profit is immoral (so don’t be a greedy grubby anti-reform Puritan) Our era = greedy grubby anti-reform Puritans but with tech

Washing machine: This cycle will take 1hr27mins Me: You sure? Last time you said that it took 3hrs38min WM: 1hr27mins Me: Promise? WM: Promise. Me: *watches it* WM: *time changes from 1.27 to 1.26* Me: *does 10mins of tasks and looks again* WM: 3hrs28mins

Happy birthday to this lovely writer’s group. They have been exactly who I’ve been looking for in a community - open-hearted, curious, welcoming. Hope to be toasting their birthday for many more years.

I look forward to never listening to the podcast hosted by him and Dominic Cummings

I’m an Ambassador for this brilliant charity, Bookbanks, giving away books with food parcels at food banks. There are two part-time jobs going for Regional Leads in London and East Anglia. Link below. Please share far and wide :)

I’m highly suggestible* so when Waterstones put this on their ‘have you considered?’ table I carried it to the till. Essays on Venice in the winter and its beguiling timelessness. The perfect way to fill the hole left On the Calculation of Volume leaves behind. *(when it comes to buying books)

Went to a store that sells clothes for a version of me I’d like to exist. ‘Buy it! Buy it!’ my teen said about this stunning overcoat. Never buy expensive things on a whim, I said. I’d like to pretend this was sage life advice but it was at least 50% based on my skin reacting to the wool.

If we do replace Starmer can we have someone who believes in something? …and before you get the monkey’s paw out, no, Streeting thinking trans people should be hounded out of society does not count.

the $75 million Jeff Bezos set on fire for that Melania propaganda piece could have funded most independent newsrooms for literally decades

I once asked my emergency room doctor what his job was like. ‘So many things in orifices’ he said, shoulders drooping.

Incredible news from Texas. Not only has a deeply conservative district voted Dem, but they’ve rejected the Wambsgans powerhouse.

Sometimes, I wish the me who puts important things in very safe places to keep them safe, and the me who would like to find self same important things, were the same me.

This odd puff piece just played on 6Music news. I don’t recall them featuring my toddler, for example, when she had 80 ham sandwiches in one year. But I guess 80 trips to Disney counts as ‘heartwarming story’ and not ‘propaganda for America’.

‘We need to revive the High Street’ yet ‘the 15-minute city is fascism’. Swathes of the population can’t link cause (I buy cheap stuff on Amazon!) with effect (where have all the shops gone?).

I see Stephen’s arrived at the finale. #traitors

My hope for the Traitors final is that Stephen wins because his outfits are a public good and he should have a funding stream for that beauteousness.

Made homemade bagels which came out ‘fine’ rather than ‘great!’ so did some light searching for homemade bagel tips and 10 mins down the r/Bagels passion-hole I realise I don’t have what it takes to bother improving.

I went to last year's Brussels Salon and had a wonderful weekend talking, listening to stories, sharing ideas, and finding new writer friends. Highly recommended.

You Europeans are SO superior aren't you? Well, would you like to know where you'd be without the good old U.S. of A. to protect you? The smallest fucking province in the Russian Empire, that's where!...If it wasn't for us, you'd all be speaking German, singing, "Deutschland, Deutschland überalles!"

Italian voice actor Carlo Bononi was the voice of all of the characters on Pingu. A trained clown by trade, he used a theater technique called grammelot, which consists of "speaking" in a mix of babbled gibberish noises. He improvised all the voices live and unscripted.

London backgrounds from 101 Dalmatians, 1961

“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.” As a piece of prose and geopolitical analysis Carney’s Davos speech feels history-making. paulwells.substack.com/p/the-carney...

Just spent 15 mins making a ‘what’s in the cupboard?’ lunch that’s so thoroughly chased away my grump that I feel I should run a bowl of it to Davos in case it does have magical powers.

I’ve been trying to spend some of my breakfast reading literature and this masterpiece counts as today’s entry.

Backing this because I want to laugh in a 'haha, that's funny!' way rather than a 'haha, that lunatic, he's going to kill us all!' way.

Supporting the war effort with absurd amounts of Danish pastry.

Yes. I often think, ‘what the world needs is *more* testosterone’.

I don’t know if menopause naturally produces more rage, or if the rage is a byproduct of *yet more* pain/problems being treated with a pat on the head. What I do know is I now have a name for why reaching down for stuff elicits grunts and winces.

With the NI accent it sounded like she said ‘I just think of my three beautiful kids’ feces’ which made the sentiment touching in a different way. #traitors

Line I just read in a novel: Women were calling out to each other and to their children playing below in a sibilant accent [she] found both jarring and seductive, like charred meat.

Among other sins, AI is such a bleak embrace of a life without the joy of chit-chat. This could have been a little back-and-forth at the counter about family holidays and how many bloody clubs he ferries his kids to. Instead it’s like clicking on stuff online, but in person.

January is truly the most January of months.

The FT got is architecture critic Edwin Heathcote to write about data centres and it's wonderful. www.ft.com/content/7692...

Facebook is doing well and the notification that I earned the 'breakout post achievement' for putting an old Ikea chair on my local swap group (which one person replied to) is a sign of its rude health.

Utterly damning report from Office for Environmental Protection - the Govt’s not only missing its targets to protect wildlife in England, it’s also failing on *almost all* environmental measures - and in some cases actively destroying the natural world through its obsession with growth at all costs

It’s true! Air pollution regulations actually do way more harm than good if you don’t count all the lives they save

The chart that crops up in the discussion of the book is fabulous. 17th century English farmer consuming 5k calories/day? Beef drippings on everything, I guess.

Feel like he’s breaking the 4th wall bc he realized this is kinda f’d up