Haha nicely done www.instagram.com/reel/DTNfCiQ...

Is it only celebrity chefs and Nigel Farage who call pubs ‘boozers’? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call a pub a boozer in real life. Also, are all ‘boozers’ ‘nice’ and ‘little’?

'Morning,' I said to an old man with a dog. 'All right, lad,' he replied, as if calming a startled horse.

Off home to watch Foyle’s War 👍

All this unfettered free enterprise and what do you end up with? A black car, a black puffer jacket, fluorescent teeth, bits of fruit in your cheese and your parcel in a wheelie bin in the next street

Please do Join @ronanhession.bsky.social at 4pm on BBC Radio 4 as he chats with James Naughtie about his debut novel _Leonard and Hungry Paul_ @theguardian.com @thetimes.com @bbcworldbookclub.bsky.social @thebookseller.com www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Simpler times: keeping an eye on Omicron vimeo.com/658946150

Morning

Oof, that wind’s cold!

I wonder if the reason that these big-tech parcels (Amazon, TikTok etc) are so poorly packaged is because they do most of their business online and don’t understand the ‘real’ world. They rarely seem to consider the way gravity impacts the weighty contents of a cardboard box with no packing.

But what does funniness even mean? youtu.be/7qy1XdJsNg4?...

A man just stopped me in the street. I thought he was going to ask for directions but he didn’t. He asked whether I knew that in the time of the Roman Empire the 15th of every month was considered to be a cursed day. I said I didn’t. “Well you do now” he said and he wandered off again.

Morning

Working at a clay pigeon shoot on the moors when my bored mate fired his cheese sandwich out of a trap. He went hungry because his dinner was blasted to bits by a farmer with saggy pockets and a side-by-side 12-gauge but it still makes us laugh thirty years later. There’s a lesson in there somewhere

Last chance to order my latest book in its publication year. www.saggingmeniscus.com/catalog/a_cr... "...erudite, profound, witty, and wide-ranging.” - C. D. Rose, author of 'We Live Here Now' "...a cheerful guidebook, an idiosyncratic map, and an energetic paean” - Nuala O’Connor, in Books Ireland

Overheard in Huddersfield A: Good Christmas? B: Apart from a bit of flooding in Vietnam but then we went to Switzerland and it was gorgeous

Spending as much time as I regularly do delivering promotional flyers advertising conservatories to the occupants of a big block of flats could be soul destroying were it not for my appreciation of the absurd

Had to stop being an artist when I ran out of space. This was the last time I saw these paintings before I buried them under the carpet in the back room in 2009

Thrilled with my film of a cormorant 🎥 🏆

Be nice to plot regional variations of these before they’re lost to ubiquitous ‘Mate’ ‘Pal’ etc forever. Round here (Huddersfield) the go to vocative was ‘Love’ from and to both (all?) genders. Still common with women. Rarer now for men esp man to man tho not yet obsolete. How about where you are?

Musical landscapes

Be nice to plot regional variations of these before they’re lost to ubiquitous ‘Mate’ ‘Pal’ etc forever. Round here (Huddersfield) the go to vocative was ‘Love’ from and to both (all?) genders. Still common with women. Rarer now for men esp man to man tho not yet obsolete. How about where you are?

Ink Splash / splat. An example from a collection of ink stains in the sea found on maps in various libraries.

Lucky me got The Best of Les Rita Mitsouko on vinyl for Christmas (from my daughter with very excellent taste) It features this absolute classic which in turn features probably the best use of a cow bell in pop/rock/anything ever youtu.be/1zWlnzFXcKY

Vocative terms used to refer to me while out on delivery so far today. Will add more as I go. You don’t want to miss out on this thread! Pal x 3 Mate x 2 My man Hon (hun) Sir Postie

Children gaze open-mouthed Taken by surprise Nobody down below believes their eyes 🎶

A few years ago the kids came home for Christmas and made a spontaneous Huddersfield parody of It’s a Wonderful Life. Being encouraged to watch it again at inopportune moments when you’ve not got your glasses on has now become a treasured family tradition

🎅 ⛄️

From the diary of Reverend Kilvert, a Victorian clergyman in Wiltshire, Christmas Eve, 1874

Christmas Eve

…"Gen AI" is a bullshit engine, in the strict philosophical sense of the term. All it *ever* does is statistically correlate what you ask it for and how you asked it with the words, phrases, connotations it's been trained on, using the weights and instructions in its programming. …

Simpler times www.themostdifficultthingever.com/2019/12/what...

When the cat finishes her book this will be her author photo

Mine too unless it REALLY goes downhill in the second half. Great book - so far : )

Very sad to hear about the death of brilliant Lorraine Cheshire. Here she is carrying one of the best scenes from a sitcom ever

Pheasant nipping next door for a cup of sugar

TFW you pop on episode 5 of ‘The Last King of Elmet’ podcast and, 5 minutes in, there’s an account of a conversation with a mysterious customer in your local bookshop, and that mysterious customer was you. shows.acast.com/the-last-kin... cc. @kevinboniface.bsky.social @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social

Help!

We can’t answer the door right now but if you’d like to leave a message you can do it now Please ensure the handbrake is applied when leaving the vehicle

Round About Town Dec 15, 2017 6am An old man who smells of weed stops me in the street to wish me a Happy Christmas. He puts his hand on my shoulder and starts humming a tune. “What’s that then?” I ask. “Music” he says and he wanders off over the road.

According to this article in the Guardian even Marlon Brando was "a victim" of bacon neck. Of course I don't know for sure but I wonder whether he'd have thought about it in that way, or indeed at all. www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025...

Cocky crow in the yard this morning again

Woke up with this going round my head for some reason. Very catchy youtu.be/m-pTWCFsViY?...

Today I visited Royal Mail in Huddersfield to see what goes on behind the scenes in the sorting office at Christmas time, and to thank postal workers for all their hard work – particularly in this busy season. See what I got up to here!

Commercial academic publishing profit margins typically in excess of 32% ... #AcademicSky #HigherEd #journals #libraries #scholarship

Fifteen years ago today I was on the same round but I started work two hours earlier and someone had built a large snow sculpture of a cock and some balls on Moor End Road www.themostdifficultthingever.com/2010/12/on-m...

Accidental comedy: just remembered the bloke who told me he was blown away with the new desk fan I’d delivered. And the woman who told me that the bottle of One Direction perfume she’d bought for under a tenner wasn’t to be sniffed at.

Anyway someone's put this on Youtube so there's that 🤷‍♂️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j70...