Yes, @impq.bsky.social, THREE lead singers! Peter Gabriel came back for one night only in 1982. Phil retired behind the kit for the night. Imagine Paul coming back to Maiden for a charity one-off seven years after he'd left. It'd be emotional, wouldn't it? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_of_...

Micro-Prolog! Wow. I learned Prolog in 1985 and implemented my final year degree project in it in 1988. That’s what “A.I.” meant 40 years ago. I’d have got Micro-Prolog, possibly, if my Spectrum hadn’t been nicked in a house burglary during that period.

Chris Quentin Nigel Slater Peter O’Toole Nik Kershaw

An unexpected benefit of parkrun volunteering is that I (a Scottish Green) get to shout "Keep left!" at my MP (Labour) legitimately. And, boy, do I mean it.

I tend to forget that I live under a mile from a prison, and unconsciously edit it out of walking and running routes. I deliberately circumnavigated it tonight, yet felt no sense of the 923 men incarcerated within its walls.

Choices, choices...

Make a Doctor Who title less scary.

Today I made two posts. One was a phenomenally clever observation about a recently-dismissed football coach sharing a forename with a South African actor who appeared in Doctor Who twice in 1965. The other was "Woman off telly looks like other woman off telly". Guess which one did the numbers?

This is actually a 1978 hairstyle, known as a "Jenna Stannis".

Arne's lot.

Coconut.

“AAH’M DILL DANDIN’, BEDDA DAN AH EVAH DIYUD”

I’ve been parked outside a shop by spouse and cousin while they go in to collect something. There is a gospel group singing the word of the lord increasingly loudly over the road from me. It’s surprisingly exhausting to be anywhere near.

Alas, it was a...

I'm getting "Julian Glover or Christopher Neame as a late-career drag performer offstage changing wigs between numbers, delivering a seen-it-all speech to the audience via the mirror"

Marathon and relay behind me. Next job: Edinburgh Seven Hills Race. Luckily I live next to one of said hills. On this beautiful quiet afternoon, I've just run up to the summits of Easter and Wester Craiglockhart Hills. Clear views, legs working, Porcupine Tree in my ears. All just perfect.

Listening to this week's excellent @impq.bsky.social with its eclectic "Open All Hours" question and now imagining someone coming in to Arkwright's listening to "Living on the Ceiling" by Blancmange on a boombox and asking to buy an iron maiden. (which is hardware, so he might have had one).

Yes, that does say "Moon Base III". Of all the TV moon bases, they had to name it after that one.

I spent a long time rebooting my Macbook, turning home WiFi equipment on and off and replacing ethernet cables yesterday, and I honestly suspect that most of my network and CPU issues yesterday were down to the room temperature. I think it was actually throttling to try and cool down.

Chen is said to have spent the 400,000 Solar Credits on an Emm of Tarranium, a luxury "Spar" Space Yacht, and a pen.

ANITA RANI, you say?

Did it! Between us, we got round in 03:49:33 which is rather less than I would have been able to do all by myself on this hot day just five weeks after Manchester. #edinburghmarathon #emf2026 #hairyhaggisrelay

In 2006, I participated in my first marathon event, as a member of a team in the Hairy Haggis Edinburgh Marathon Relay. Tomorrow, 20 years later, I'll be doing it again, and it'll be my 20th marathon event. www.justgiving.com/team/kettleb...

I've just finished @grindrod.bsky.social's wonderful "Tales of the Suburbs". I was reminded of a paperback I had in about 1984/85 in which people gave their accounts of being lesbian, gay or bi, but I cannot for the life of me recall the title or author.

I can remember announcements over the "Blake's Seven" closing titles saying "Jan Chappell is appearing in 'The Rocky Horror Show' at <whatever theatre>". Presumably this was written in to her contract. It didn't seem jarring to me, so it must have been a regular practice. I don't recall it for DW.

I recently achieved parkrun karmic parity, a 1:1 ratio of volunteering to participating. I just have to do each of them ten more times and I'll reach a satisfying double hundred. This is what post-car me does instead of filling the tank up to exactly £20.00, or cheering as the odometer hits 10,000.

Introduce yourself with ten bands that don’t exist. Axis Phantachron Intelligent Seaweed Band of Musicians Dogs with Lawyers Concrete Jellyfish Pink Purple The Sound of Drugs Doff The Wankies

Sad to hear that Michael Keating's away. Vila was always the Blake's 7 character I was most drawn to, I always love a reluctant, morally ambiguous hero and Keating played him with such charm. Also, I met him once when I was the baby facedest 12 year old at the Edinburgh Doctor Who Group.

Just watched “Late Shift” (2025) which I felt a strong connection to, having felt the maudlin claustrophobia of darkness falling in a hospital night after night, not knowing when I’d be leaving. I fear I will not be a calm and accepting patient when it’s my time to be nursed. I loved the film.

Social media leads to anniversary overload. I'm reminded, to exhaustion, as a Genesis fan that it's 40 years since "So", "Invisible Touch" and "GTR", and as a Doctor Who fan that it's 30 since McGann in, Pertwee out.

As a kid I held a powerful loudspeaker magnet to the family TV's screen and distorted the colours. They stayed distorted, and I panicked. It was normal again in time for parents' news viewing, to my intense relief. I must have temporarily magnetised the CRT mask, sending the beams to the wrong dots.

When I arrived in Bracknell in 1986 to start my computing career, my landlady brightly told me “They’re all here - ICL’s, Honeywell’s, Hewlett Packard’s”.

I revisited JG Ballard's "Cocaine Nights" this weekend. I bailed out on it first time 30 years ago, but essentially hoovered it up in one go this time. It's "Twin Peaks" in an "Eldorado" setting, investigating not a murder, but a whole community.

Mark E. Smith elaborates on one of his staffing decisions using the crystal clear received pronunciation for which his was renowned.

Decided not to put cafetière in rucsac for weekend up north, and bought jar of instant. Forgotten how awful it tastes, plus worse headaches and diuresis. On train down Nairn to Edinburgh, entire jar evacuated into my rucsac, sticking to everything in there. I now hate instant coffee more than GenAI.

Pick a Bond from the photos you already have on your phone.

Gotta have a system…

Harris, Murray, Smith, Dickinson, McBrain, Gers.

The Timeless Child In Time and Relative Dimensions in Space Trucking #purpleWho

I've been too distracted by the forehead getting higher for the last few years, but is my nose getting bigger as well? It looks as though it comes off with my glasses here.

I went to see "Iron Maiden - Burning Ambition" this evening. It was preceded by a trailer for "Northern Soul: Still Burning" which seems to have a similar remit, and also the word "Burning" in the title. It was disconcerting to suddenly have Ian Levine projected before me, telling me his truth.

Oh god, yes, people who shout “Speech!” They’re the same ones who’d start singing “Why are we waiting”. Life hecklers.

This month, my pals and I are running to help Edinburgh Leisure Active Communities Programme, which each year supports over 14,700 people affected by health conditions, disabilities, poverty and inequality to improve their health. Can you help us help them? www.justgiving.com/team/kettleb...

A bloke in the gym this morning looked the perfect spitting image of Patrick Stewart as Sejanus in “I, Claudius” but I refrained from sharing this observation because I doubt any of my fellow exercisers would have said “Oh god, yes, Dave, you’re absolutely right. Well spotted.”

I've just booked to see "Iron Maiden - Burning Ambition" at the Cameo later this week. I had my pick of all the seats in the cinema except one, which had already been taken. I felt a strong perverse urge to book the one next to him. (Yes, I'm pretty sure it's a him).

Oh no. Now I've got to fill in and submit the deposit return forms for every single @edinburghgreens.bsky.social candidate who stood in Holyrood on Thursday, because they all polled many times over the threshold. I was so hoping I wouldn't have to. What a personal disaster. (I am being sarcastic).

I'm feeling a bit like Mr Benn this week. What adventure will tomorrow's hat lead me to?

My colleagues and I put in a solid shift for the last six months or so, all of us contributing in whatever way we could, and it’s been hard, tiring work sometimes, but the outcome today has put huge smiles on all our faces.

One of the voters I spoke with today was a lovely respectable headmistressy lady who surprised and delighted me by proudly showing me the beautifully-lettered “TRUMP IS A CUNT” sign she kept by her front door.