It’s a little known fact that St George and the Dragon were originally flatmates, and their dispute started when the Dragon decided he couldn’t stand listening to George’s shitty banjo-playing for another second.

Spring doing its best to sprung in Southwark Park today.

Instant mash. Bog standard supermarket own brand. Boiling water, bit of margarine (not sure I'd even tasted real butter until adulthood), stir in some cheddar cheese so it melts into the mash. Be liberal with the ketchup. Quicker than toast and you don't even need to chew.

Gonna need a new hobby on Monday to replace 24/7 watching curling. 😭

Curling boys into the final! 🙌 What a tight match. Love how emotional Bruce is now that it's over. What am I going to do with myself on Monday when the i Olympics is over? I guess just count down the days to the Winter Paralympics start on 6th March.

My answer to this will *always* be Titanic. Hugely popular, much-garlanded, absolutely toss. And soooo long....

Genuinely laughed out loud at 'dinner trainers'.

Is this in the rules? Do the International Skating Union pick a different era of musical cheese out of a hat every Olympics? "For Milan 2026... 1990s wedding music! For Vancouver 2030... mid-1960s bubblegum pop!"

I'm Too Sexy, Everybody Dance Now, Men In Black, Pretty Fly For a White Guy... the #WinterOlympics Figure Skating qualifiers are being soundtracked by a 1990s wedding DJ. Just need the American pair to come out to Let's Get Ready To Rhumble by PJ & Duncan.

Show me the most French accessory you have for the new electric Renault 5 No, that's too French

#5thofFebruary #JFSP youtube.com/watch?v=WJBr...

Friends visiting from America next week, when the forecast is for solid rain the whole time. 🌧️🌧️🌧️ Can anyone suggest things in London people can do when they're not interested in art galleries and museums? Because that's what I'd be doing, so I'm at a loss. It can't just be pubs and John Lewis. 🤷‍♀️

@redscharlach.bsky.social On til early March if you fancy checking it out.

I love Stephen. The face of a doomed WW1 officer and the wardrobe of John Travolta. #thetraitors

Absolutely brilliant telly. I whooped! The BEST possible outcome, that the best players won. So well played and deserved by both of them. 👏👏👏 #TheTraitors #TheTraitorsUK

Based on what we've learned from previous series of #TheTraitors - that the dumbest Faithful always makes it to the endgame - surely Roxy is a dead cert to think she's won and then be shocked that her best mate's a Traitor.

Harriet's whole plan seems to have been 'go big and sell a lot of books'. I bet she had no intention of trying to make it to the end. #TheTraitors #TheTraitorsUK

Vera looked around the room. Not another chicken anywhere. And then it struck her—this was a hay bar.

Ah, 7 January – or as it’s otherwise known, 88th anniversary of the time Samuel Beckett was stabbed by a pimp on the streets of Paris in the small hours, causing him to meet his soulmate and giving rise to the phrase (and recipe) ‘assassination custard’ 🧵

I've now fallen into an inevitable music videos wormhole. It would be easy to share more of the best from their 80s heyday, but instead here's some 21st century music videos I enjoyed, also sorry for the ear worm: Metronomy/ Salted Caramel Ice Cream: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBRD...

Same year, 1987, a VERY different music video: Fight For Your Right by Beastie Boys. Nowhere close to the genius of their later videos (Sabotage! Intergalactic! Body Movin'!), but for me and my friend Julia they were our first musical love. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBSh...

Impossible to narrow down to just one favourite music video, but one of the earliest I remember watching aged 12 or 13 is True Faith by New Order. Imagine seeing this madness on TOTP between all the big-shouldered pop stars of the day. New Order/ True Faith: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfI1...

NYE suggestion: In memory of the great and beloved Rob Reiner (and his wife Michele, his meeting of whom forced him to change the end of the movie) we're watching When Harry Met Sally this evening, starting the film at 10:30:27 so that the chime of the New Year bells line up exactly with tonight's.

If you're looking for a last minute present, I just bought one of these delightful things from Muji: it's a Fortune Can! Celebrating the Year of the Horse, it costs £20.26 and you get a £20 gift card and one of seven different lucky charms handmade in Japan. uk.muji.eu/pages/fukuka...

Not a word, but I still recall with an icy shudder the time I made a new cool arty friend at sixth form college and responded to a mention of Joan Miro with "Oh yeah, I really like her stuff!"

Job interview

Really sad about Martin Parr. My friend and I discovered his photography via the early 90s TV series Signs of the Times and Tales of Modern Motoring when we were teenagers. Have loved him and his work ever since. Clearly a mensch too, judging by the huge outpouring of love for him today.

Someone posted this 1910s bat brooch on Tumblr, and since I love a blingy little guy, I had to draw him.

Textile artist Britta Marakatt-Labba's embroidery of Sami culture, Indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting the Arctic #womensart

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

156 years ago #onthisday, Top the wombat died. He was the pet of the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti who, upon Top's passing, created this self-portrait in mourning. More on Rossetti and co’s curious but longstanding fixation with the #wombat here: publicdomainreview.org/essay/o...

Attention, Finnefans! There's a lovely interview with Roger Allam in The Guardian today: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

I keep seeing adverts for the new Tom Daley knitting show 'Game of Wool' and I realise this must be some sort of pun but my meno-brain just can't figure it out. It's been weeks now, somebody help.

If Jonathan Ross and his gigantic fucking ego survive into a third week, I swear... 🥾📺 #CelebrityTraitors

We know it’s early… but it’s never too early to start planning your trip to see THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL at The PCC this December! Catch the musical re-telling of the Dickensian classic in special SING ALONG performances from 28th November - 24th December. 🎟️ tinyurl.com/445yb7k9

Re-reading my old Harry Potter fanfics from 2007-2012 on Fanfiction.net. Forgot I'd written half of them, but they still hold up well, I think. Some lovely recent reviews too, but even if I hadn't moved on to other fandoms (Cabin Pressure, tennis) HP would be dead to me now.

3 things I enjoyed this week: 1/3 - The Traidar podcast: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t... Matthew Keeley and guest do a deep dive into each episode of The Traitors (they also cover other Anglophone versions). Some good insights into the show, plus MK has a lovely mellifluous Scottish accent.

Simon's in a thing!

My friend has gone viral for an excellently silly reason.

Any excuse to repost a bit of JFSP:

It's MERINGUE WEEK on #GBBO which is unfortunate because I don't like meringue. On the other hand I really enjoy hearing the word MERINGUE repeated MERINGUE over and MERINGUE over again until it MERINGUE ceases to MERINGUE have any MERINGUE meaning.

3 things I enjoyed this week 1/3: A film - 'See How They Run' on C4: www.channel4.com/programmes/see-how-they-run Saoirse Ronan (using her real Irish accent!) turns out to have excellent comedy chops and Sam Rockwell can do a very good British accent.

Watching 'Eva Longoria: Searching For Spain'. It's your standard celebrity foodie travelogue, except for the jaw-dropping intro in which she presents her expertise as: 'Eleven generations ago one of my ancestors left Spain for the New World and a new life. Four hundred years later, I'm back.'

Have belatedly discovered the excellent 'A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs' podcast. Chronological, hour-long (sometimes multi-episode!) deep dives into great songs from rock history. It started in October 2018 and still hasn't reached the 1970s. 500songs.com/podcast

A lovely thread for those of us who enjoy research, and old things.

#NationalPoetryDay #poem #poetry #birds "Flappy Git"

Yay, Portrait Artist of the Year is back tonight! Always enjoy watching creative people doing creative things on telly, whether that's pottery, baking, painting, or tasks.

All the awards for the person who added this coda to the Simon & Garfunkel Wikipedia page.

Unfortunate choice of image accompanying this advice column on 'masculine inadequacy' - Lautrec's painting being famously of two women in bed. I assume the picture researcher (I was one for 19 years) didn't bother reading the caption. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...