this is the simple answer to people who keep saying NATO expansion matters. Sure, it matters because it presented an obstacle to Russian imperial ambitions. Putin didn't invade because he hated NATO expansion, he hated NATO expansion because he wanted to invade

Alas! It is 31 years since the world was deprived of one of its more colourful culinary characters: Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey – better known as double bigamist, child abandoner, amphetamine user, dangerous driver, and celebrity cook Fanny Cradock

What ‘friendship without limits’ looks like. 🇷🇺 🇨🇳

Pilot: There’s a loose… Engineer: Tape. P: And some rivets hav… E: Tape. P: Also signs of metal fatigu… E: Tape. P: And a panel is missi… E: Tape. P: Hydraulic failu… E: Tape. P: Th… E: Tape.

Indie 45s from 1979/1980. Some awesome records - but you'd need to pull a gun on me to play the And The Native Hipsters single again.... #weekendsingles

#DavidsMonthOfMusic Day 27: a song with a one word title. Motörhead ‘Overkill’.

small islands : BIG paper Want to know more about the fascinating #archaeology of #Greece’s Cycladic islands? We’ve just published the results of fieldwork on 14 small islands & each one tells an amazing story about island life over the past 6,000 years! Check it out: doi.org/10.2972/hes.... 🏺🇬🇷

Picked up a few bargains here.

THREAD. A collection of photographs of excellent trees I have met on walks. You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.

THREAD. A selection of haunting encounters I have had with folk horror creatures and ghosts during walks in the British countryside. You will find the full descriptions of these disturbing incidents in the alt text. 1. Weeping Fence Banshee.

Boxing over this. #NowPlaying #JackieMittoo #TheSoulBrothers #LastTrainToSkaville #Studio1

Vindolanda in snow. Merry Christmas, all 🥳🎄🎍✨️ #RomanFortThursday

From c. 3,600 years ago, an ancient Egyptian bead in the form of a hedgehog curled-up in a ball! 🦔❤️ Blue faience, c. 1985 -1650 BC. National Museum of Scotland www.nms.ac.uk/search-our-c... 📷 by me

What shall we do with the drunken sailor?

Merry Christmas, everyone! Enjoy the Yuletide spirit in this picture from 25 December 1944 of Wrens Whitney, Woodcock, Catchpole, Mace, and Brannagan, cutting the Christmas cake and enjoying a well-earned celebration. (Imperial War Museum A 26892)

Conquistadors in action.

11 years ago, I finished the 1st Ed. of my translation of the Poetic Edda, meant to make the original stories of the Norse gods and heroes available in today's English. Now the revised, expanded 2nd Ed. is out. A long way to go to the 5000+ 5-star ratings for the 1st, but reader response seems good.

The Regina Ip Burberry boycott has officially ended.

The report says the People’s Liberation Army aims to achieve “strategic decisive victory” over Taiwan, “strategic counterbalance” against the U.S., and “strategic deterrence and control” over regional states media.defense.gov/2025/Dec/23/...

Amy Hawkins in @theguardian.com on leaked video of secret trial of general who refused to follow orders regarding sending troops into Beijing in 1989 (with comments by @josephtorigian.bsky.social among others) www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Woman in a shopping mall: What do you want for Christmas? Little boy: I want all the sorry to go away.

I don't believe that old saying about writers hating writing but loving having written. The writing is the best part. When you're in it, it's pure magic. The non-fun bit is the stuff that sometimes goes with it. A publisher running off with £20,000+ of your earnings, just to pick one random example.

⬇️Here’s a ready-to-use “pull out the report” refutation kit you can deploy whenever you run into abandon-Taiwan advocates. The core move Don’t debate vibes. Cite bipartisan U.S. legislative intent + concrete policy recommendations. ⬇️

I wonder how Andy’s inability to sweat is holding up to this? ‘Epstein files reveal messages between his accomplice and a man who appears to be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’.

One of the cooler churches I’ve checked out in Taiwan. A church shaped like a ship! Jhangyuan Presbyterian Church in Changbin Township, Taitung

Ukraine 🇺🇦 Greenland 🇬🇱

Trump will get to see first hand what a ‘friendship without limits’ looks like. “China and Russia have expressed support for Venezuela as it confronts a US blockade of sanctioned oil tankers, while Donald Trump continues to ramp up his pressure campaign on…Maduro”.

Also Macron: “I deny everything”.

A hundred cars from Guangdong province are expected to enter Hong Kong's urban areas on Tuesday - the first batch of mainland Chinese vehicles to drive into the city under a new cross-border travel scheme. In full: buff.ly/3M4vcYm

‘Decision comes amid growing public support for Guan Heng – who secretly filmed detention facilities in China – after he illegally entered US by boat’.

#DavesMonthOfMusic Day 23: a song with an animal in the title. Adam & The Ants ‘Dog Eat Dog’.

#DavidsMonthOfMusic Day 22: a song with your favourite lyrics David Bowie “Kooks”. ‘And if the homework brings you down, Then we'll throw it on the fire and take the car downtown’.

It doesn’t happen often but just occasionally you go on a walk, photograph two inosculated sycamores which strongly resemble a man with branch hands raging at a cruel sky, and a few weeks later you magically have a book cover.

When you’ve driven home for Christmas one final time. Chris Rea RIP

Pre-Christmas present... 🤪 The APPAG Inquiry into Detecting report is out. #Archaeology #Detecting #Treasure 🏺 1/3 appgarchaeology.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

Off out for some final musical gifts? Or, fancy treating yourself to make up for the hell of all other shops? You need my final @clashmusic.com column of 2025 to help you make some excellent choices: www.clashmusic.com/features/jus...

As we approach Christmas, for this #MosaicMonday I'm sharing one of my favourite decorative mosaics. From Combe St Nicholas and sadly no longer surviving. Hand-coloured engraving from Samuel Lysons, Reliquiae Britannico-Romanae I.IV (1813-1817), pl. VIII. AncientBlueSky 🏺

Wait for Macron to ‘deny everything’.

The black and white geometric mosaic in the tepidarium of the women's bathhouse at #Roman #Herculaneum / #Ercolano We're not sure what's depicted in the panel closest to the camera but we have a nasty feeling it's a *thingy* 😬 A thingy with a bell on it 😬😬 📷 Sept 2023 #MosaicMonday

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. - Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Today is the day I start drawing up a list of people I'd happy yeet head first into a woodchipper.

It's #Saturnalia ! Here's the satyr Silenus, companion to Bacchus the god of wine, who's inebriated face appears on this 3rd century AD #Roman copper alloy wine jug Found beneath Dorchester Marks and Spencers in 1936 and now @dorsetmuseum.bsky.social 📷 May 2021 Happy #FindsFriday #FridayFeeling

'Gurnards Head.' (1947) Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a small but vital component of the St Ives school, arriving in Cornwall in 1940 just as Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo and Barbara Hepworth were transforming the small fishing town into an unlikely hot-bed of British modernism.

the vice president is a klansman

Oooh I have some fun material here. One of the things HKers did to support the paper financially was to buy up classified ads, which became a whole new genre of soft-protest. A small thread -

China's buoys and structures in the Korea-China PMZ and vessel harassment mirror Beijing's "creeping sovereignty" tactics used in the South and East China Seas. @csis.org @victordcha.bsky.social gives policy recommendations for U.S. and Korea. Read here:

The Badger cull is continuing even though: • TB levels in badgers in Cumbria (Area 73) are low • There is no clear evidence that badgers pose a meaningful ongoing risk to cattle • Rising cattle TB cases are linked to cattle movements, not wildlife open.substack.com/pub/protectt...

The Winter Solstice alignment at Stonehenge today. Photo credit: Nick Bull x.com/i/status/200...