📋 I’ve created a #SPFBO11 Finalists Reading Challenge over on The #StoryGraph, to go with a set from the past few years (search for “SPFBO”) Get your #SPFBO reading on at: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/00ae7966-aefa-4d47-899f-c8e43fa09c4f 📚⚔️ #FantasyBooks 🪐📚💙 #BookSky 🦋

🎧 The one with the tier list that isn’t for RPG-heads but does feature a LEGO™️-set tie-breaker! 🧱 Plus someone gets a kicking from the shape of his selected ball! 🤭 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #Podcasts 📻

🎧 The one that considers visiting familiar places or strange new worlds, including “it would be nice to have Fallout in your area.” ☢️🧟🤭 But also! Also!! ULTIMA!!! I do love a good @davevelociraptor.bsky.social #Ultima segment 🤗 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #RetroGaming #RetroComputing ⌨️ #Podcasts 📻

🍞 It is ever so slightly cooler today than the past week, so I am thinking I should take the opportunity to bake a loaf of bread 🤔 I have been without throughout the #UKHeatWave 🙁 Currently 26ºC inside at 8:30am rather than approaching 30ºC 😰 Need this 🏡 heat soak to dissipate.

🥵 Oh noes… Here we go again… 🇬🇧 #UKWeather ☀️

🌻 Some sluggies have been demolishing some of my flowers, including devastating a Sunflower. Took my camping light over after dark and found a solid handful of the 🤬-ers, proper big ones too! 😳 They will not be troubling my flowers any further…🥾 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #FlowerGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌱

What is the best gaming event you’ve ever been to? Answers may be printed in the magazine

📖 It was hearing @mrjamesob.bsky.social on @quietriotpod.bsky.social the other day (“From Brexit to Burham”) that reminded me I’ve read some but not all of his books. Thought I’d nip back to “How To Be Right…” which I read way back in 2019. 👨‍🏫 #NonFictionBooks 💡📚💙 #BookSky 🦋 #HammockTime 😎

🏍️ Spicy #MotoGP #DutchGP Sprint Race with lots of team-on-team action going on through the head of the pack 😁 Very tasty. BAG got robbed too 🤏 🏁 #Motorsport 🇳🇱

🌶️ Another very hot Chilli that I’d like to showcase is my Moruga Scorpion. I’ve only got one of these as I gave the other away, but it has been doing well. This is best I’ve grown to date. ↖️ Early March (plant no.4) ↗️ Mid-May ↙️ Early June ↘️ Late June 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌶️🌱

🌶️ Purple Power Pods! 😍 v.Buena Mulata - one of my absolute favourites that I grow every year, without fail. This is a very prolific and early variety, and this plant is still young and mid-height. I have several of them dotted about 🤗 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌶️🌱

📆 Four days left in the month and I need to pick something new to read 🤔 Do I go with something short to squeeze it into my June stats 🤏 or get ahead and commence work on my July TBR 🧐 or maybe even go wild and pick another mood read as I had been thinking the other day 🤷‍♂️ 📚💙 #BookSky 🦋

🌶️ For a while there my “Testarossa Orange” Chilli plants went through a rough patch when the aphids were making them sticky and yucky. But they’ve definitely pulled through now, and are looking absolutely splendid ☺️ ↖️ February ↗️ April ↙️ May ↘️ June 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌶️🌱

🌻 The eye shall soon open! 🫣 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #Flowers #GrowYourOwn 🌱

🧊 Guess which precision instrument of sharpness just realised he still has ice cubes leftover in the freezer from the last heatwave? Yup. What a tool 🤦‍♂️ 🇬🇧 #UKWeather ☀️ #UKHeatWave 2.0 🌡️

🥗 Harvested a fresh Gem Lettuce and some Rocket from the garden to make a simple Lemon Lettuce Salad for lunch. Added some chopped 🍋 and a 🍋🍯/Mustard/OliveOil dressing, finished with some Parmesan Cheese grated on top. Simple. Fresh. Delish 😋 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌱

🎧 The one where @jonnelledge.bsky.social notes “at some point [environmental views] just became quite left-wing coded and so therefore right-wing forces hate the idea of doing anything to stop the planet literally burning to a crisp and ending up like Venus.” 🇬🇧 #UKPolitics 🗳️ #Podcasts 📻 #UKHeatWave

🐛 Found this fella wandering about the garden! No idea what it is, but I moved him on to a shadier spot so he can live his best life, whatever that involves 🤷‍♂️ Hopefully which will involve less munching on my Lettuce. 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌱

🌿 Got some Golden Purslane growing in the garden for the first time. Will be trying this in a salad at some point 🥗 Looks like it’s getting ready to flower. 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌱

🎧 The podcast that should be put in charge of appointing the Cabinet! 👏😆 🇬🇧 #UKPolitics 🗳️ #Podcasts 📻

The Steam Machine is $300 more than planned. The five-year-old, 10GB RAM Xbox Series S is up to $500. Even Apple is jacking up prices with threats of more hikes to come. And it's still going to get so much wo... https://kotaku.com/man-its-going-to-get-so-much-worse-before-it-gets-better-2000710540

previous record set ***yesterday***

🗞️ Reading all the #RAMpocalypse news and associated 💷📈🆙 makes me glad a primary interest of mine involves physical items that store their information in a marvellous invention called paper, instead of requiring RAM and storage to function 😬

The St. Louis Zoo has a dedicated penguin elevator for transporting their Formal Chickens™ to behind-the-scenes areas where they can get medical checkups, enrichment activities. Kicking myself for becoming a LAB biologist when I could have been a Penguin Elevator operator. (📷: St. Louis Zoo)

I can’t understand why people say there are no tangible Brexit benefits. I’d say five million quid was pretty tangible. 😀

🚀Citizen Sleeper 1 and 2 are OUT NOW on Nintendo Switch 2! Play the critically acclaimed series in its smoothest, most beautiful, handheld form: CS 1: www.nintendo.com/us/store/pro... CS 2: www.nintendo.com/us/store/pro... Enjoy higher resolution and framerates, with a free upgrade for owners ⭐

EU citizens in the UK are our friends and neighbours. They have built their lives here and contribute to our economy and society every day. Reform UK's plan to target them is appalling. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/25/reform-uk-plan-target-eu-nationals-britain-brexit

📚 Reading an author, enjoying their work, reviewing their web-site bibliography, trying to figure out what’s in-print, from where, and at an affordable price (£22 for a ~370pg paperback gives me great pause 😮). Looks like I may be on a SF scavenger hunt… 🫵😜 📚🚀 #SciFiBooks 🪐📚💙 #BookSky 🦋

Your regular reminder that not a single new reservoir has been built in England since privatisation. Water companies have increased our bills above the rate of inflation and made 10s of billions in profit.

We’ve provisionally broken the UK record for the highest June minimum temperature🌡️ Bute Park, Cardiff only fell to 23.5°C overnight, making it the highest June minimum temperature for Wales and the UK 🥵 Plymouth only dropped to 23.0°C, making for a new England record 🌡️

This is why cities need trees. Hard surfaces and parked cars can reach extreme temperatures, while shaded grass and tree-covered areas stay dramatically cooler. This is the urban heat island effect in one image: hard surfaces absorb and radiate heat, while vegetation and shade reduce it.

And I rather suspect this is how it's going to be for most audiobooks soon - rich people being paid for no work, no one else getting any money except the tech companies. Audiobook prices likely reducing so royalties don't even increase much as sales do. www.thebookseller.com/news/michael...

BRITISH HOTTEST JUNE DAY IN HISTORY Provisionally 36.1C at Gosport Also let's credit LUXEMBOURG to re-break its June National record: 37.9C at Potaschberg But it 'll probably be rebroken again. HUNDREDS of records in UK,France,Spain,Benelux,Germany,Switz. tbc

Excellent thread debunking the UK's endemic "this is just summer" nonsense.

📕 With a few days remaining in June I am going full-on mood-reading for the rest of the month. Since I had a great time with “The Flight of the Aphrodite” by @comrademorden.bsky.social I decided to follow up with “One Way”. Neat setup already! 📚🚀 #SciFiBooks 🪐📚💙 #BookSky 🦋 #HammockTime 😎

DELTARUNE Chapter 5 just came out Debug #10 Digital Edition is now free Enjoy! debu.gg/10

Now the UK’s hottest June day on record, climate crisis fans.

I've been listening to @dorianlynskey.bsky.social and @iandunt.bsky.social on the origins and definitions of think tanks. When I started work at a think tank, my Dad struggled to understand what this meant. He made this and gave it to me for Christmas.

"When a child born today becomes a parent, the average temperatures of summer 1976 will be normal. When they become a grandparent, they will look back and think that the summer of 1976, or even the summer of 2025, were remarkably cold." - Professor Ed Hawkins 50th anniversary of the 1976 heatwave

🎧 “Happy Brexit Day!” calls @emmakennedy.bsky.social To @anandmenon.bsky.social “It’s about as welcome as a return of an anal polyp.” 👏😂 🇬🇧 #UKPolitics 🗳️ #Podcasts 📻

🐌 While moving a tray of 🥬 for watering I noticed the evidence of slug movement ⬅️ Peering under the tray, I found our unwanted guest ➡️ 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌱

🎧 The one that chats with @d0kk.bsky.social about Jeff Minter. “It’s really exciting to explore this world [of indie games dev]… But there’s so many other fantastic things out there too. I get a huge kick out of sharing it. And I hope other people enjoy it too.” 🎮 #VideoGames 🕹️ #Podcasts 📻

🥗 Gathering garden veggies for a salad later 😋 We’ve got Spring Onions (v.Ishikura), Basil (v.Basilico + v.Cinnamon) 🌿, Lettuce, Rocket, Sorrel, early 🫑 (purple! 😍 from some mixed variety), 🥕 and Courgette (v.Zephyr), plus 🫛 (v.SugarSnap). 👨‍🌾 #Gardening #VegetableGrowing #GrowYourOwn 🌱

🥵 Another sweaty day! And it’s going to get worse in years to come! 🤬 Must remember to Be. More. Cat! 🇬🇧 #UKWeather ☀️

📺 Cruising just below 5d behind on my YT subscriptions, but trying furiously to reduce it while the 🏡 is an inferno inside 🥵

Reform UK councillors have introduced a motion to rescind King's Lynn and West Norfolk's climate emergency declaration and deprioritise decarbonisation efforts The council were going to vote on it on Thursday But the meeting has been postponed due to extreme heat

Happy 10 years of Brexit 💃💃💃

#MotoGP’s top riders got to test the new Pirelli-equipped 850cc bikes for the first time at Brno. Spy shots included 👇 go.motorsportmagazine.com/4uPzhaM

📬 Got my June #JudgeDredd Megazine in just now (23rd). It’s about a week late (not a problem at all!) but sometimes Royal Mail are extra slow and leave me wondering if it’s lost or not. However, this time it came with a flyer advising of the downgrading of 2nd class mail, which this was sent via.