Last time I went to Pieminister in Oxford the guy behind the till said, seemingly impressed, "That's the fewest questions I've ever had to ask" when I placed my order. I admitted that I had been going there, on and off, for nearly 18 years, so I have my routine down.

Bad news: not only am I still finding good resources to recommend for the Bodleian's LGBTQ+ History LibGuide, more than a year after attending the event about it, I am now finding stuff for the Disability History LibGuide and recommending those as well.

No Jeopardy no it was more like 75,000 copies max!!!! Jeopardy the presses of this great nation simply could not have handled 120000 copies which is just a number Paine invented anyway!!! What is no pamphlet ever from 1776 Jeopardy!!!

Looking dubiously at the book I'm currently reading (Consuming Passions: A History of English Food and Appetite), which claims that the ancient Romans ate guinea pigs (a South American animal).

Amazing sentence in the acknowledgments section of The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan: "Thanks to my brother, [name], who helped me navigate the centrality of symbolic castration in our upbringing".

Watching a TV programme where most of the characters have (US) American accents while we have southern English accents meant both Rob and I spent last week's episode of Starfleet Academy trying to work out if the Vulcan character could *really* be called Bobby.

I'm currently reading my ninth Cadfael novel; the man really does attract star-crossed young couples like a magnet.

The exam board OCR was formed in 1998 as the result of a merger of several other organisations, one of which incorporated the Midland Examining Group (MEG). Unfortunately, this led to problems. From the "Controversies" section on its Wikipedia page:

Just encounted a "Mac Forehand" competing in the Olympic skiing, bravely turning his back on his tennis-player destiny. xkcd.com/2022/

Panel five is my favourite. xkcd.com/1016/

Baked cookies in preparation for my sister visiting tomorrow!

I'm glad lots of people are enjoying Starfleet Academy (I am also enjoying it!), but I'm seeing a lot of posts taking the opportunity to disparage Discovery while they do so, which is disappointing. It's possible to praise something without also saying that you think another thing is shit!

Termly hell meeting (for which I have to take notes and do admin but am not permitted to contribute in the meeting itself, because I am not on the committee) was as awful as usual, overrunning by 35 minutes (it is supposed to take an hour). It still didn't manage to cover the full agenda.

My colleague wants to do a Valentine's Day book display with an "anti-hero/anti-love" theme, and suggested a list of books with "themes of anti-heroes and questionable protagonists".

Another useful guide from your friends at Buckinghamshire Archives

Busy and stressful day at work, but there wasn't a massive riot between town and gown, so taking that as a win. Happy St Scholastica's Day! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Scho...

Reminder for anyone who wants to participate!

Hate-filled fake videos about London are everywhere. We've obtained a recording of a TikToker confessing to secretly filming Londoners in their homes for clicks. He says it's not political. He just wants to make money from far-right anger. Read what he says: www.londoncentric.media/p/london-tik...

I've spent years shelving and cataloguing various issues of Treitel's Law of Contract and didn't know either of these facts. Something to think of every time I encounter it from now on.

Feeling, from reading the news, like there are so many people out there who hate women and girls or just don't think of us as people, and it's really not good for my mental wellbeing.

Never got the hype for Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’. Okay, you wrote down—word-for-word—exactly what happens every year all over the south of England in hundreds of small villages like the one I grew up in. What next? ‘The Divorce Auction’? ‘The Mandatory Mayoral Amputation’?

Thinking about doing yet another job application; there are several reasons for not doing it, but one big one is that the application has to be done through a third-party portal which looks slightly soul-destroying.

“I’ve been cast at the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony” “What are you?” “A stovetop espresso maker.”

One of our students emailed the library asking for the difference between being a librarian at a college library and being one at a different sort of insistution.

An autistic woman who stays up to date with current affairs still remains convinced that she’s worse than anyone in the world, sources have reported.

I am not a new year's resolutions person, but have decided that I'm going to set myself up as a Wikipedia editor this year, because I love sharing information and correcting errors (and Wikipedia is a precious resource which must be supported). I already have a list of things I want to fix/improve.

Rail replacement bus between Didcot Parkway and Oxford always makes me more committed than ever to rail travel rather than road (despite the many flaws of the former). It took the bus an hour and fifteen minutes to get between the two stations this morning. The train takes about twelve minutes.

Advertise your account with one image:

Today my Gen Z friend and I were talking about vintage tech, and she asked me what “the box under the screen” was called. I feel BAD about how loud I shouted “THE COMPUTER???” (“No, the box the screen sits on.” “THE COMPUTER???” I shouted again, even more rattled now)

Told a colleague that I refuse to put my work email on my phone as a matter of principle ("if they want me to use a phone for work, they can provide a phone"), and the reaction I got felt very much like "better humour the opinionated weirdo".

Once again trying to channel the "Hey, chief" conversation from Cabin Pressure when communicating with my colleagues. (I am not doing well at it, but I have managed to never once respond with profanity, so I'm taking that as a win.)

Peter Mandelson's Wikipedia article includes the statement "Mandelson considers himself a good role model for gay people because of his success in public office". Not convinced I'm with him there.

Rob and I went to the Design and Disability exhibition at the V&A today, and I really enjoyed it. www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/...

It's been a year since this furry angel came to live with us.

@erceldoune.bsky.social I found Wages for Housework really interesting (and well-written, which doesn't always go along with the first quality). Lots of ideas to think about, like the way in which wages for housework is something that affects the wellbeing of all workers, inside the home or not,

Seen in the credits at the end of Terminator 2: "Don Stanton - Lewis the Guard Dan Stanton - Lewis as T-1000" Always fun when they use identical twins for identical characters!

Maybe one day I will be able to hang out with Rob's family without getting into an argument with his brother (yesterday: me saying that I think it's ludicrous and immoral to use ChatGPT for things like "writing an email to your boss to apologise for being late").

Rob's parents recently went to the cinema to see Hamnet. The cinema was also showing Hamlet.

Reading Libraries now reassured that I am still alive.

Starfleet Academy keeping up the proud Star Trek tradition of throwing in an intensely homoerotic scene every now and again.

Intrusive thoughts about Canadian fictional characters : at one point Wolverine and Anne of green gables were alive at the same time

Happy Threshold Day to us all.

[walking into a cold, dark, entirely empty passageway, with some ominous crunching underfoot] Gimli, the most optimistic person to ever live: Soon, We Shall Feast With My Friends, In Their House :)

Being a journalist is sick: I just contacted a pre-eminent jaguar conservationist in Argentine with a question that has been weighing on me for ages and he wrote back right away with an informed answer.

My chest is tight and my stomach hurts, and I am having fun trying to work out if it's an oncoming illness, general life stress, or a response to the stream of distressing news which doesn't let up for a single day.

Spock on unification: Vulcan logic will uplift the Romulans Actual unification: Together, we will unleash a level of bitchiness the galaxy has never before experienced

Bear Grylls has an alarming answer to the regular Q&A question "Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought?" www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Everybody shut the fuck up and pay attention to the most important thing happening at this moment.

Gardeners are coming shortly (9am on a Saturday) to prune some stuff in the garden that's too high for me, and I am reminded of why it has been years since I last did this: Rob and I both get stressed out at the thought of People In Our Space. (A sign we're not from the domestic-help-having class.)