Kevin has insisted that we watch the Star Wars Christmas Special and I do not know how this ever go made.

Julbord ready for Christmas Eve, and Grabbity is hoping to be our official taster.

Been a while since Grabbity wanted to dance. Honestly, Solensia is a miracle drug. We had a little sing and a dance and she gazed lovingly at the tinsel she can’t reach (because she’d eat it).

After Kevin coaxed the dishwasher into action yesterday, I am hoping he can do the same today. It's not playing ball, though.

SIGN THE PETITION! c.org/gsxVMrWW8T

Victorian footwear has been washing up on a beach, but surely they shooed know where they came from? Perhaps das boot? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

When I first got a smartphone, the advice was not to put geolocation on your photos as it was a security risk. I just realised I have a decade and a half of photos with no location info at all, and for some reason that's made me sad.

With all the fuss about how crap the delivery companies now are, I was kind of hoping that it might change the prevalent "you can get it online" mentality. Because it's actually less hassle going to the shops.

there’s a woman across the aisle on the bus crocheting a pocket onto a cardigan *that she’s wearing*, incredible, a thing of beauty

TAWDRY CLICKBAIT UPDATE: Millionaire Hollywood Stars Take Tax Payers’ Money for Vanity Project An £18 million grant being given to Wrexham to help build the Kop has been twisted into the most ludicrous of news stories. It’s easily twisted into cheap clickbait: “Millionaire Hollywood Stars Take Tax…

Ah, lovely. Three days before Christmas and the dishwasher has died. *sigh* It's a good job we're not entertaining much. Just two friends over on Boxing Day.

HOW does this keep getting worse?! And when do we get to personal liability for people who approved the prosecutions of sub-postmasters, on what seems to have been a totally false basis?

Chris Rea has finally arrived home for Christmas. Go in peace, Chris. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...

Generalists are great! But it feels like an impossible task to convince employers of that.

The work that scholars and researchers actually do is the work that people *think* AI is doing. You read all sorts of things. You make connections. You notice where the holes are — what *hasn’t* been observed, questioned, investigated. You synthesize it into something that has never existed before.

And that digitising requires highly-skilled staff (often wildly underpaid) to do a lot of work in arranging, describing and preserving both the OG documents and digital surrogates. Nothing works without good metadata & long-term thinking.

Back in the days before digital frequency readout and podcasts, radio stations used to play a distinctive melody, called an interval signal, before their broadcasts to help listeners tune in. An artist has created an exhibition of interpretations of some of these melodies https://intervalsignals.it

And that’s a wrap on a year of watercolour #WildflowerHour: 365 flowers painted within a week of blooming. Mostly wildflowers, with a few garden escapes, and a whole lot of joy.

Excellent dissection of the penultimate Game of Wool episode, which asks serious questions about the production company and C4's exploitation of contestants and their total failure to act as contestants suffer racial and other abuse online. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrW_...

Just been up there - apparently they've been told to be out by the end of January, after 44 years. They're fighting hard, and really want people to sign this petition. Please spread it wide! c.org/gsxVMrWW8T

Your reminder that the sunrise isn't the actual solstice - that happens just after 3 this afternoon www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...

8 hours twenty minutes to go before #newgrangesolstice 2025, folks! The good doctors Clare and Frank will be back again to accompany the winter light slowly illuminating Newgrange’s burial chamber. Go here for details of where you can watch. www.gov.ie/en/office-of...

Nothing like being awake for an hour in the middle of the night. Have given up trying to sleep and got up. Have immediately been sat on by a cat.

Writing is hard. That's why so few people stick at it.

Time for the annual watching of White Christmas, this year with a slightly grumpy cat.

shout out the guardian photo editor one time

I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite

Search your camera roll for “hell”.

The PR optimist at HC, who hoped the Walliams news would go largely unnoticed if it was released late on the Friday afternoon going into the last weekend before Christmas, must be disappointed.

Out of Office is On.

As predicted the online safety act has succeeded only in making us less safe. Admit your mistake. Repeal it now.

This is fascinating. I've stopped listening to podcasts when I walk into town, which has resulted in a bit of rumination, but I guess that's the dark side of DMN. I'm not saying I'm about to become mega-creative, but I was feeling that I was thinking too much and not daydreaming enough.

In today's @theoverspill: according to an AI system being used in Florida schools, this isn't a clarinet - it's a deadly rifle. Reassured yet?

I have a theory that Grabbity's been howling at night because she perhaps can't see as well as she used to (she's had two corneal ulcers), so I have put two nightlights in place, and we'll see if that helps. If I'm back here at 3am, you'll know it didn't.

Berry Bars

I've just finished my brand new bird photography blog post! 😀 Please click the link and take a look, it means the world to me and makes it worth the hours I spend on each blog! 🙏🐦 ko-fi.com/post/Birds-a... ❤️

Looks like flu is wave is likely to be "normal bad" shifted earlier and not bigger this year after all. Latest hospital data came out this afternoon.

Did a quick write-up of the Big Comedy Conference from earlier in the month. Better line-up than last year with more craft-oriented sessions and more actionable advice. Met lots of lovely people and now have lots of ideas for developing Fieldwork. fieldworkpodcast.substack.com/p/big-comedy...

Awww, bless www.worldofmoose.com/products/sou...

I am feeling like I am really not on top of the whole Christmas thing this year.

Welp, it seems that the deadline for second class post within the UK was today. I'm sure it didn't used to be this early.

I have eaten half a dozen frogs today and squished several tadpoles, which means that it's now officially Christmas playlist time!

➡️ Banning exploitative zero hours contracts ➡️ Sick pay for all from day one ➡️ Expanding paternity, parental & bereavement leave ➡️ Strengthening protections for pregnant women, whistle-blowers and victims of sexual harassment ➡️ Making flexible working the default ➡️ Repealing Tory anti-union laws

🚨BREAKING: Employment Rights Bill passes in the House of Lords and will become law. This is an historic day for working people across the country, and the trade unions who represent them.

oh, no

in the history of cops sitting on their own dicks, no dicks have ever been sat on as hard as the cops have in this case this is art

Give this man a knighthood immediately