Obligatory: youtu.be/NHG_OS08JyE

One of the quite good things about being at least nominally an adult is that, if the mood takes you, you can have a glass of wine and a bowl of salted caramel ice cream with a sprinkling of cinnamon, outdoors with your cat, and nobody can do anything to stop you 🐈🍷

Afternoon 🐈

Repost with the Russian agent that spies on your posts

The last two times we've been relegated I've stuck £50 behind the bar of my local, just to pay for whoever was next and to demonstrate a bit of West Ham class. Fucked if I'm doing that this time though - and these days £50 only buys about 8 drinks anyway.

Hey ho. Always in doubt. Sullivan out now.

Yes mate.

Liberal England... Aiye-Keta: Afro Super Steve Winwood plays "world music" with Remi Kabaka and Abdul Lasisi Amao in 1973 - and it's perfect for this weather.

Ahhhh...bugger 🔊

High Hopes 👑 #PinkFloyd

When all else fails, Aqua da Valencia really does do the business. I first saw it when Sara Pascoe & Richard Ayoade tried them in Travel Man. We've since made them at home, & I'd say their reactions were bang on. This is not a drink to be trifled with... youtu.be/bp7E89Ayanw?...

Mornin'.

We're all aware of the massive Nowhere Man in Birmingham, aren't we?

Daisy Daisy Molly 🐈 #Caturday

Music festival down at the pub. They've got both kinds - country AND western.

A visit from an old, old friend is time travel. Nobody else can take you back to the person you were when they were your whole life.

Its going to be a lovely weekend. Don't use a disposable bbq please Choose better 🙏

We have an early evening visitor/raider.

Weather update:

Lawn mowed, loaf baked, big shop done, cat wrangled, all in 27° heat. I've definitely earned this - the only good billionnaire 😎

Baked my first Bloomer today. It turned out a bit wide & squat - I think I needed to have made it a bit longer & thinner for the second prove - & the scores look more like gouges. However, it's still perfectly serviceable, tastes great, & has a decent "crumb" as the bakey types like to say.

It's a bit hot for small, marmalade, furry people 🐈☹️ (though admittedly there are numerous cooler places around the house where she could nap 🤷‍♂️)

Mowed (some of) the lawn, lads. That time of the year where the brief is "make the lawn look neat but, oh, keep lots of the daisies and buttercups too". Also, it's bloody hot out there 🥵

Introduce yourself with 7 cats that you have known. Molly Ollie Hector Orlando Harvey Oscar Hiawatha (the cat that raised me as a child & made me the man I am today). All 7 are/were ginger 🐈 Hiawatha to Ollie were my Mum's cats. I have no idea why they were given names alternating with H then O 🤷‍♂️

Time for another of these - view from my seat.

Thank you so much to everyone for replying to this, it does mean a lot.

About this time yesterday a good friend died, in hospital. He was such a good man, so intelligent, kind & clever. He'd had increasing cancer related issues for over two years so this had been coming, though still so saddening. I never thought about people dying at quarter past five in the afternoon.

Last week - Florence & Lucca 😎 Today I will mostly be visiting... Mablethorpe. Hey ho 🤷‍♂️

Today is J. L. Carr’s birthday. “If I’d stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvelous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies.”

Quote post with a fictional band that is not Spinal Tap.

Sheeps!

Forget sharing the last picture you saved, I want to see the very first picture on your phone. Scroll back until your fingers bleed.

Our first ever night in Rome, in 2004. Arrived late evening, starving, checked into the hotel, wandered up the road - they were serving the thinnest, simplest pizzas we'd ever seen out of a hatch in the wall. Sat on bollards in the square to eat them. Oh my God they were divine.

New series…same brilliance…👍 🇮🇹…

Saint Etienne, by a country mile. youtu.be/P2yRxQO4rGs?...

This week's theme is 'People of London' - a celebration of ALL the people who make and have made London the beautiful city it is. ------ 'The London Underground' (from 'This Is London', 1959) by Miroslav Šašek

If you see this, post your getaway vehicle.

Scott Hastings, a man of integrity, honesty and empathy. A player who never gave below his maximum. There is nothing more you can ask as a legacy. RIP

With West Ham on the brink of relegation, naturally I am having a (cornichon) martini. Anything less would be inelegant. Cheers

The first cat I've seen in 10 days and she's obviously overjoyed to see me too. Oh.

I've been through Pisa airport at least five times but never been into Pisa itself. Looks nice though

Latest from Pisa airport - queues so long to get through passport/biometric control that the tailback went to the top of an escalator, which then became a safety hazhard as people couldn't get off. Eventually they opened up a few more gates to non-EU passengers, & it was then relatively quick.

Dune Cat Budget Version

Pick a Bond from photos you already have in your phone.

And then the weather changed (again 🤷‍♂️), but fortunately we were in a lovely bar by then. Stayed for a few wines, talked to the ownwe about the music, the Lucca festival (the Stones played in 2017) and he gave us this. Which was nice.

Sparrowlet!

Heron! (but still not a single cat in 8 days 🫤)

The weather has been variable to say the least, but for our last day in Lucca the sun is shining. And I have fallen in awestuck love with the city walls (I like big bastions and I cannot lie) - a mere 144 years in the making (but never needed for actual defense purposes).

I was having a quiet little coffee and bruschetta classico in a quiet little square. And then some Americans tipped up. Why are they......so? 🤷‍♂️ Anyway 😋