Obviously I knew that Maria von Trapp was a real person. It had just never occurred to me that they would have met.

every story about the Riyadh Comedy Festival sounds like the premise of a sketch

As the sun comes down and Yom Kippur ends, please help show our Jewish friends and neighbours that we share in their grief and will not let terrorists divide us.

To everyone in Britain's Jewish Community: you are not alone. We will not let hate or those who spread it win. We stand with you.

Kemi Badenoch saying “the last time I checked, Northern Ireland did vote to leave” is so on-brand it hurts. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Timeline cleanser if you need one.

This invitation is to join in sending messages of solidarity and support to Jewish people in Britain at 723pm tonight (& beyond). In your own words, or by sharing this message/image from Together if you would like to use it

There’s a really good reason I rarely post about where I’m going to be or where I am physically until I’ve left

While saying they want to "preserve nature" the Conservative Party have just pledged to scrap the Climate Change Act. This makes no sense. How do more floods, more droughts, and rising temperatures "preserve" nature? That's what scrapping the Act will lead to.

My wife is supposed to be doing synagogue security duty on Saturday. It's terrifying.

You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.

Literally been chatting with a friend about how we’re all waiting to find out if it was the Islamists this time or the neo-Nazis this time or a door number three

It was just completely fabricated on X (alongside a truly insane £100 billion price tag) and got widely shared there and here, and just…believed uncritically. I also heard it multiple times while at Labour conference, including once from a political staffer. People *do not check*.

A former chapel with a bell tower, porch, railings, staircase, a red brick wall with climbing maroon foliage, pink Japanese anemones, euphorbia, orange dahlias, yellow heliopsis and 2 sculptures at Hidcote. #ColorADay #YellowThu #Cotswolds #Photography #Gardens #Flowers #Bloomscrolling #Sculptures

These World Cup ticket prices may look high, but don't forget the US ones include a month-long stay in an ICE facility.

A world in which the Chinese Communist Party adheres more closely to evidence led policy making than the British Conservative Party. A national embarrassment.

Lichen, algae, funghi ‘Plants and how they Live’ (1965) Artist: Ronald Lampitt

Have the planners, and I say this from a place of love, SEEN Eynsham?

I recorded a short tribute to the great poet Tony Harrison today for Sunday night's 'Last Word' programme on @BBCRadio4

You can find out more about our #NMCCbiodiversity work by tuning into Gardeners World this Friday, at 8pm on BBC TWO. 📺 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

A visitation to the Bungalow garden - a wondrous, Palaeozoic ariel spirit - a Common Darter hen soaking up some late sunshine, occasionally whizzing off to tackle an intruder in her mental space then returning to a warm spot. #insects #Odonata #dragonflies #Suffolk #biodiversity

"Hidden" is doing some heavy lifting here

RIP to one of the all time greats of conservation.

A lot of pieces and people who visibly have forgotten that the quarter of people in England and Wales who are not white British or white English are also people, with electoral concerns and interests.

In 1945, the Allies faced a tricky question: where to hold Nazi war criminals until the trials. A run-down hotel in Luxembourg was quickly converted to a prison ("Camp Ashcan"). The hope was to keep the nature of the prisoners secret. In May 1945, this failed, and almost turned into a disaster. /1

Queen Alexandra's Birdwing - Ornithoptera alexandrae, the world's largest butterfly, male wingspan 19cm female 24 cm. Swallowtail - Papilio machaon, Britain's largest butterfly, wingspan 7cm. Print from a recent painting www.richardlewington.co.uk/album.php?id...

I don't know about everyone else, but humiliating slightly hapless US commentators talking nonsense about UK politics is very much Real Britain.

A cartoon from my new book PHYSICS FOR CATS which comes out a week tomorrow! Preorder at you local bookshop or online: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

My ten favourite names for a coffee shop… 10. Pour Decisions 9. Mug Shots 8. Sip Happens 7. Perks and Recreation 6. The Roast Office 5. Ground Support 4. Baristocrats 3. Brewhemian Frapsody 2. Java the Hut 1. Has Beans

My contribution to last night’s ‘C’ themed raffle at Locally Sourced Comedy new material night. The raffle was won by host Will Adamsdale and the winning ticket was selected by a dog. It was that sort of a night. I can draw one for you if you like www.worldofmoose.com/products/cra...

Anyway, food is nice. Eat stuff that you like, including occasional deliciously bad for you stuff; make sure you eat your greens and some fibre, try not to eat too much of anything. You're going to die of something eventually anyway.

I hope the Riyadh festival kills the self-serving pretence that comedians are typically fearless truth-tellers, taboo-busters and champions of free speech. A few are. Most are just entertainers who like attention and money

Can someone ask Farage or Zia Yusuf why, if they're so concerned about incitement to violence, they had Lucy Connolly as a guest star at their conference?

Oh! A Pink-footed Goose is waddling through your feed. How very silly. 💗

Some good news. London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces. The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

Made a joke at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Didn't go down well. Guess it cut to close to the bone.

(solemnly) You've had mail.

Here's an even older plastic bag that we found during a recent beach clean. According to the very helpful folk at the M&S Archive, this particular bag was in use in their food halls c.1973 – 1976. It even had the remains of a 50 year old tin inside, hence the discolouration.

Ignore the matching feet and beak. Ignore the larger than life pose. Nothing extra ordinary there, anyone can do it. But the splash of dazzling velvet across the face ... that is what makes you a fashion icon. African Pygmy Kingfisher 📍Bahirdar, Ethiopia 🪶 #nature #fashion #colors

That‘s the spirit. Well said, that judge.

Q: What do you call a vigorous speech to Labour party conference? A: A start.

A lot of people ask us how we got into archive work but basically we just started watching Horrible Histories and ended up here

Authenticity really matters. It’s been one of the huge problems with government messaging up to now.

JD Vance - ‘an amalgam of ALL the kids who disappeared on the Wonka tour’

The River Itchen approaching Hockley Link, Winchester. In the background is the beech clumps on St Catherine's Hill (hillfort). This is a chalk stream river and has exceptionally clear water; a rarity nowadays. HedleyThorne.com

Fortunately I'm a Mets fan so I'm safe from this problem. No real team could be that bad.

I may have said this once or twice previously, the way to counter Reform is on their *weak* issues. People are still struggling with crap public services and high inflation. This is supposed to be Labour's strength, show what you are doing about it.

I don't know who needs to hear this but you are important, you are loved, there is an opossum living in your attic which is why your socks keep going missing, you are valid & you matter.

Jonathan Powell writes of the Blair 2005 speech in defence of immigration 'it didn't gain us any support, but without it our vote would have been driven down', and we're living through the proof that he was right.

It's not that the US can't find some way to tax its own citizens for consuming foreign movies. They can. It's that the US probably doesn't want to fire the starting gun on the "let's tariff services" conversation for the same reason Saudi Arabia didn't bankroll Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."