An epic read. I tore through this, couldn’t put it down. It’s truly helped me understand a huge part of history that I’ve never really grasped (shockingly!). The epilogue’s final two paras about the dangers of corporate power are incredibly relevant. #corporatepower #india #history

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... This was a fascinating programme - as an only child I’ve long tried to understand the family dynamics of those friends with siblings. #siblings #rivalry #psychology

Yesterday I witnessed something extraordinary: the author Sarah Wynn-Williams sitting silent on a stage at @hayfestival.bsky.social. And she got a standing ovation. I hope the attempt to censor her backfires magnificently. I have just ordered her book. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Despite wearing factor 50 & sitting in the shade, I have somehow managed to “catch the sun.” I also have a heat rash on my neck. AND IT’S STILL SPRING. Wishing for #sunshine-glamour but instead I get #heatwavefail 🥵

Chichester cathedral today. The sky is impossibly blue.

Wish I was going to Hay Festival this year. Instead I face a slog of a weekend doing DIY due to another water leak. www.hayfestival.com/home

These take holiday beach stone collecting and painting to a whole new creative level. ❤️

Always worries me when 86-year old Dad decides to have a tidy up “to get rid of stuff.” He gave me 6 little coffee cups with saucers, sugar bowl and milk jug yesterday - they’re just perfect. Must be from the 70s??

Stupid-but-beautiful-mid-life-crisis-of-a-car.

“No nation, no religion, no economic system, no body of knowledge, is likely to have all the answers for our survival. There must be many social systems that would work far better than any now in existence. In the scientific tradition, our task is to find them.” ― Carl Sagan

A gentle reminder Nigel Farage said the National Minimum Wage £12.71/hr for 21+ £10.85/hr for 18-20 is too high.. also His Reform run English councils are pants

Just watched Kate Bush’s 1993 The Red Shoes film with Miranda Richardson. Amazing, esoteric, magical, witchy. Listened to the album so much when I first bought it, & I remember some of the individual videos. But I don’t recall this film & how it ties it all together. #theredshoes #katebush #magic

Spotify on shuffle. Janis Ian’s At Seventeen is an emotional roller coaster of lyrics! #seventeen

The @hornimanmuseum.bsky.social gardens looking splendid today. Just so beautiful and fragrant.

A friend loaned me these at the weekend. I let another friend know on whatsapp what I was on my reading list and she said “ooh look, old bird books!” Is there such a category? Maybe there should be. #reading #biographies #nobadbooks

I know it’s spring and #hotcocoa drinks should be off menu, but there’s no delicious @greenandblack.bsky.social cocoa to be found in local big Sainsbury supermarkets this week! 🍫☕️

Oh for a fancy dress party, I’d go as the Countess of Castiglione!

Last week, a gentleman returned this rather dilapidated copy of this famous book to us after 50 years. He had found it in his attic! Presumably this means there is a pristine copy somewhere in our libraries....

This is some angry looking tulip. #spring #tulipmania

Another foray into #watercolour with a thank you card for a friend. Used paper from @choosingkeeping which has been in a drawer for a year or so. #art #colour #artfear

The #watercolours are back out after god knows how many years. All I wanted to be was an artist. I buried my creativity. I’m striving to find it again.

#redhead sketch

Hungary 🇭🇺. Yes!

It’s too hot for a job interview. It’s not summer yet.

Question: is it wrong for someone with a stammer to be made to do a lecture/presentation at work. Genuinely asking for a friend who is dreading what she has to do on Monday.

The ending of Burn After Reading came into my head this morning. Sums things up well. (profanity warning, though nothing you haven't heard from Trump)

#nomowmay The woman in the big Victorian detached house near me mowed her front lawn (not a euphemism!) yesterday. All the lovely natural primroses gone. The lawn was full of them, just beautiful. I was going to say something, but was too chicken. Lawn looks meh. www.plantlife.org.uk/campaigns/no...

Love this article. Fascinating. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Everyman cinema for an 11am screening of Project Hail Mary. Everyone was eating and drinking. Is it wrong of me NOT to want to hear someone CRUNCHING REALLY LOUDLY in my ear or burping gassy cider into the ether? #misophonia

Setting up a new Mac is torturous. We are in password and account passkey hell. #mac #hell #passwordidiots

#moon songs for today - The Guardian missed out Family Coach by @thelilactime.bsky.social A must listen for today. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

REALLY?! Tell that to the King on what will be a truly hideous state visit. BBC news website: “US President Donald Trump lashes out at the UK and other countries, telling them to "go get your own oil" from the Strait of Hormuz.”

In what world is it okay for the Defense Secretary to make multi-million dollar investments in defense companies: a) Ever; b) In the run-up to starting a war in the Middle East FT has the scoop: www.ft.com/content/744e... In a functional democracy, he would offer his resignation tonight.

“Trying Times” by James Blake has just come up on my playlist. CRIKEY. THE LYRICS. Listening to it on the Windrush and so want everyone to hear it.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... I ❤️ this series so much - it’s a musical odyssey, taking you to new tunes & places you’ve never been before. The knowledge & excitement & passion is contagious.

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign... Lovely article. Not the kind of art school I recall from back in the day. 😳😐

An urban Orion - faint on this iPhone camera, but SO bright in real life! Beautiful. #Orion #constellation #twilight-ish

This evening’s 1989 #totp best tune was Keep on Moving. 💯 classic. Everyone’s jeans were horrid though.

Unprimed art boards and a small blank canvas = art fear #nervous #art #outofpractice

This day six years ago, the place I worked at started its working from home policy due to #Covid-19. The world felt crazy then. And even more so now.

A compromise we can all get behind surely

Fascinating morning @londonmuseum.bsky.social The history is gobsmacking. The brutality of the human trade for sugar, tea, coffee, chocolate, spices etc etc etc…

I went to the @londonmuseum.bsky.social today. Amazing. But I saw something that will stay with me. I got off the tube at Canary Wharf, & as I left the station, I saw a smart young woman holding up an A4 sheet of paper with all her quals on it ACCA, Business MSc. Made me so sad. 1/2 🧵

I listened to Jessie Buckley on Desert Island Discs today. So impressed with her drive and confidence at just 17 to be who she wanted and needed to be. Lovely. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Listening to BBCRadio4’s #BroadcastingHouse and shouting at this relentlessly shitty news. To all the raging mad politicians out there happy #iWD2026

Isn’t it weird when you hear your name on the radio? But obviously it’s not you being interviewed. It was a much more cleverer professor from Oxford, my name #Doppelgänger. I’ve spent the last few minutes listening to her as I brew a herbal tea wondering what it’d be like to be THAT Helen!

#DIYDISASTERS Why did I start decorating the bedroom? Because there was a bit of flaking paint & I couldn’t resist picking it, resulting in 2 whole walls being stripped. Tedious prep, expensive white paint dries patchily, & the plaster I sanded for hours still shows as an ugly blob.

Myth made real. Beautiful and somehow weirdly moving. From the glorious book Divine Might by @nataliehaynes.bsky.social

Marylebone was beautiful this lunchtime. Winter was gone. Diners sat at pavement tables, groovy pub goers standing outside basking in the sunshine, sneaking a swift pint.

Had #breakfast out this morning. Asked if a particular table was free and if it was ok to sit there and the trendy waiter said “I don’t give a monkey’s”. We stayed, but I do wish I’d told him how utterly charmless he was. And he got the coffee orders wrong. 😑