I was at a business dinner last night - about 20 of us in a smart London restaurant, lovely food and wine etc. I was one of the last to leave. But as we went, the waiter came running up. “Excuse me sir, would one of you mind paying the bill?” The host, a lovely chap, had completely forgotten.

I was at a wedding today with one of the best musical menus ever: I was Glad Zadok the Priest The WidorToccata Personally I wouldn’t have chosen Lord of the Dance as the side-serving but it was a great musical occasion despite that.

I Played My Cat Some Magnificats, And This Was His Response: An Entirely Unacademic Study. Rubbra in A flat - Very excited meowing. Stanford in C - Purring, meowed when it stopped. Murrill in E - No audible reaction; he looked out the window. Gray in F minor - Meowed and left the room.

Everything can be improved upon by contributing one of two things: 1) Penguins 2) Cheese

No-one expects the Spanish acquisition!

Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday. I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric. Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.

Today would be a very good day for the UK govt to delete its accounts on X.

I use the Skritter app to learn Chinese. With each new item of vocab there’s a simple example sentence. Today’s word was “peach”. I couldn’t make sense of the simple sentence at all. It turns out it was this:

If these contraceptives get sent back, I think the US can expect some ribbing.

Have a fantastic Friday! Make plans to watch birds this weekend, autumn migration is happening now! Millions of birds are on the move, enjoy them. Be kind today. King Penguin. #FridayVibes #birds #birdwatching #birding #Penguins

Despite easily being the most British fighting vehicle ever developed, the mock-Tudor AT-AT programme was sadly cancelled due to budgetary concerns

Slightly diminish a book The picture of Dorian: Gray

My 82 year old mathematician dad needed to text me a passcode number. But mobiles aren’t his thing and he couldn’t work out how to text digits. So he sent an elaborate puzzle of historic dates and Roman numerals, together with a second puzzle as a check, which I eventually managed to solve. Sweet!

The most important news from today's reshuffle:

I just found this little guy cowering in a basement under a shop window in Glasgow. Wondering whether to rescue him.

Here, have some birds perched on appropriate/delightful signage. You're welcome. 🧵 ⤵️ 1. Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) by tysmith on iNaturalist

Heading to Scotland overnight!

Brilliant typo on the BBC News website

🎶 Sound that my microwave makes when my food’s done Goes before “bong” on the tannoy at Luton Monica Chandler The Crosby who sings These are a few of my favourite Bings 🎶

The bad news: I think I have caught COVID. The good news: I can effortlessly sing the Bb just over two octaves below Middle C.

An octopus you can put into an espresso machine is a coffeelopod.

the scenario we all feared

Staying the night at the Hilton on the perimeter of Heathrow. Beautifully soundproofed against the planes taking off overhead. However, not so soundproofed against the drums of an Indian wedding party on the ground floor… I wanted an early night! Argh!

American Airlines website is wonderful. You go into your reservation and, for security, it replaces details with asterisks ****. When you exit the page, there’s an error because those boxes contain asterisks ****. So you can’t save your changes to other boxes. Was this written by a 5 year old?

One of those social media juxtapositions we long for:

Tom Lehrer made all of his music 100% public domain so if seeing people sad about his death makes you want to check them out… it’s free. he wanted you to share them. tomlehrersongs.com

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so moved by a celebrity death. Thank you for a lot of fun,Tom Lehrer, and RIP.

This is one for @quiresandplaces.com

Just verified my age by confirming where they drink Um Bongo and who can’t drink Ki Ora.

At an airport I once saw a bunch of transcendentalists boarding a flight they’d chartered. At least I assumed they were transcendentalists because they were on a hire plane thank you please enjoy the weekend ahead.

London today is monochrome.

BSky scanned my face for age verification and now it's set my default language to Latin.

The heavy thunderstorms have tested my house to the limit… we have water gushing into the utility room through a hole in the wall, as if it were from a tap.

Spending the weekend in a cottage in Snowdonia. And the owner has thrown in free local transport.

The Asphalt Path A couple, through no fault of their own, are thrown off Birmingham’s No 11 Outer Circle bus and resolve to complete the circuit by foot. In doing so they have the spiritual awakening of spending half the journey walking towards Solihull, and the other half walking away.

Apparently after the recent market movements, physical copper producers are using derivatives to hedge price risk on their production. Or as they say The one who smelted it delta-ed it. (Ok it’s a niche joke for those in the intersection of financial markets and UK playground humour. Sorry.)

Evensong: A Spotters' Guide to the weird and wonderful folk you're likely to find at an Evensong service. [probably need to click to embiggen]

I was going to wash the dishes but Tesla’s blocking the way.

Turns out this bar in Southwark is where all the cool chicks hang out.

every sunday harry liked to come to the park with a big bag of werther’s and feed the old men

Not enough has been written about Schrödinger’s assistant, Otto.

I agreed with Mr19 that I’d collect him and his belongings from uni at 8.30 this morning. So here I am at 8.40 and he’s just stuck his head out of an upstairs window to tell me I can go and find a cafe for a bit while he gets ready…

No way around it: summer evenings in the city can be cool.

Nights are drawing in.

I have a joke about Callimachus but it … under the … [wept] until … nobody laughed [1] [1] or alternatively, only the dog laughed (Murray’s conjecture)

PSA: when your phone rings at 30,000 feet, the correct response is to reject the call and switch your phone to flight mode asap. It is not to say in your plummy important sounding voice “Hello! Yes, I’m on the plane. Yes, marvellous isn’t it….” Etc. Grrr

But decor featuring Roman emperors as football stickers, among the great Italian players? That I can get behind.