Imagine being a player in the World Cup final with your momentum drifting and muscles stiffening cos Justin bieber wanted to sing that catatonically boring ballad

While I'm rhapsodizing about portable mp3 players and music you can own and play ad ad-free... ...and it's my 20th summer playing ukulele... Here's a uke-only version of my album Driving Through America at Night. Name your price! (The price can be zero.) michaelmunnik.bandcamp.com/album/drivin...

This has been a big success already. Overheard 13yo say to his mum, "And there's no ads!" This is how we change the world.

My youngest is 13 today, and his sister gave him an mp3 player with wired headphones. The noughties are so back, baby!

Ace win for RLS.

🎶Ain't no mystery why I'm so confused The one day you're happy, and thr next you're misused Just don't ask me why I sing the blues It's because of you🎶 youtu.be/-anaB3iKYTE

🎶Ain't no mystery why I'm so confused The one day you're happy, and thr next you're misused Just don't ask me why I sing the blues It's because of you🎶 youtu.be/-anaB3iKYTE

Probably more helpful to think of them not so much as “Canadian wildfires” but rather “climate change wildfires currently consuming Canada”

classics profs today: [silently, to self: it's good they're taking an interest in Homer. it's enough that they're taking an interest in Homer. build on the interest. don't waste the opportunity] [aloud:] well heh the notion we have of "character" now is actually a modern [silently] stop stop

What fiction can do in the real world.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #wales

I managed to escape the heat to visit the @mcmichaelgallery.bsky.social yesterday with my daughter. She loved the artwork and we managed to get a quick picture here, where the painting and the view out the window are strangely synchronous.

If you do have beef with the ukulele for whatever reason, it won't please you to know I did a daily uke back in the days of lockdown and have smooshed several of them into sampler videos. This was a montage of my personal favourites, for your edification. youtu.be/wpz8qxN5zWM

How could anyone hate the ukulele?

We lost an absolute giant in the scholarly community. Dr. Esposito did much to counter the errant public perspectives on Muslims and Islam in the aftermath of 9/11--and he uplifted a generation of scholars trying to do the same. May his memory be a blessing. www.linkedin.com/pulse/memori...

Maybe you all just hate the ukulele. This is a real possibility, even for a diverse and welcoming place like Bluesky. Anyway, here's a video of a song I wrote, performed live on the uke. Click the link and watch the video. Or don't. I ain't your pop. youtu.be/-anaB3iKYTE

Hermanus Wardrobe

I hate this. Elite England football players rolling around on the grass. The BBC commentators gurning along with it. It's so cynical.

If you're after yellow-sticker action in Waitrose, may I suggest cruising the aisles ten minutes before an England match.

This is a post about Buttertubs Caradine. And football.

Isn't it weird that this week a currently sitting president had to pay a woman MILLIONS of dollars for *raping* (and defaming) her—and the media has forgotten all about it? There was a time that this would have been the ONLY story—until the rapist was driving from office.

Yeah, I was also struck by that line at the end of the article. Besides wondering where he got the evidence to support that statement, it just illustrates such an impoverished mind when it comes to the act of creating.

Is it, though?

It's the 3rd anniversary of Grace Lilly's site This Song Changed My Life: personal essays on the eponymous theme. Songs are a great vehicle for storytelling. You should check it out, and you can start with my piece on *finally* figuring out guitar music. www.thissongchangedmylife.com/p/aerosmith-...

I do rather feel that they are attempting to set themselves up as sovereign citizens of Catholicism which, like, we already have they're called Protestants you can break away from the Catholic Church and do whatever you want, buddy. be the Henry VIII you wish to see in the world

After Zia Yusuf accuses critics of endangering Reform politicians with violent language, he is read a list of quotes where he called Reform's opponents "lunatics who deserve extinction", "sick arsonists" and "traitors" who will face a "reckoning". He says these are in "a totally different category"

Well. I would have preferred a better *match*, but I'm not at all disappointed in the outcome. Felicidades, Spain.

Everyone knows Jules Rimet as the man behind the World Cup. Fewer know he was a First World War veteran, and that the war shaped everything he built afterwards. HALF TIME thread 🧵⚽ 📸 Wikicommons

Okay. They breeze has died down. Back to supporting Spain.

Hey, you bastards. I put a new video up today. Click the link already - you'll like it. youtu.be/-anaB3iKYTE

E. Jean Carroll receives $5.63 million owed by Trump in sex abuse case reut.rs/4bKwUPN

Disgusting that they didn't offer me a chance to comment before publishing this piece. I expect a right of reply.

New ukulele video for your tea break! I'm celebrating 20 years playing the ukulele this summer, and here's another original from an open mic in Cardiff. "It's Because of You" was born out of industrial action, though it also works as a bluesy love song of someone done wrong. youtu.be/-anaB3iKYTE

Man, I have the best students. Llongyfarchiadau, Class of '26.

It's that time again! Dusting off the white bowtie, preparing my "yes, well, PhDs from Edinburgh don't *wear* a hat" responses. What can it be but graduation? Actually chuffed to be here, despite it all. This year's Year 3s have been bloody brilliant.

New ukulele video for your tea break! I'm celebrating 20 years playing the ukulele this summer, and here's another original from an open mic in Cardiff. "It's Because of You" was born out of industrial action, though it also works as a bluesy love song of someone done wrong. youtu.be/-anaB3iKYTE

I know you know this on bluesky, but I posted it on insta so I thought I should post here too. And if it makes someone second guess using AI for these things then maybe it helps.

PLEASE SHARE: The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion has immediate opportunity for new Executive Officer. This part-time, remote position pays $55k. Details in attachment. Apply here https://bit.ly/SSSR-2026-EO.

Being in the media, you have to be careful about what you say and how you say it. I just laughing with the partner cuz a few years back I did an interview about mental health. I was explaining how there are different types of depression and how they manifest differently and affect us differently.

So, after Netherlands, Canada, and Scotland were all ejected from the World Cup, I've put my support behind Spain. But just this morning, I've decided to change allegiance again. I'm all for This Breeze Blowing Through My House This Morning. All the way to the final.

Best “remove glasses to look at something unbelievable” in cinema history.

Really good, smart, well-written piece on the dangers at the parliamentary level of Farage's resignation gambit.

Just a simple biblical observation

every dead senator gets a thoughtful obituary lauding their “courage” and then if you look it up the courage was filibustering the Give Medicine to Cancer Kids act

If students are simply uninterested in the core bargain of a class like this, it’s hard to know what to do. You teach the material because you think it’s important they know it; they don’t give a shit, but want the credential; and the university wants their money. Your main option is “pretend”.

It’s my Summer of Ukulele. Twenty years since I picked up the 4-string wonder, and it properly changed my life. Here’s a new song I wrote for it, performed at s-tier Cardiff open mic at The Canopi. It’s called “More”, and my kids would say it’s a bop. youtu.be/s1lXxY5M_40

A humpback whale well known in the Salish Sea is no longer entangled in fishing gear, thanks to combined efforts on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Pop Tart, a 10 - female, spent about a week with a buoy & 30M of rope wrapped around her pectoral flipper www.timescolonist.com/local-news/c...

I had replied to the below: Paper maps are great. Never run out of juice, let you see the close-up detail and the big picture at the same time (because they're three feet wide, unlike your phone), and the more you use them the more you learn your way around without them, unlike obeying a machine.

Periodically sharing because no one's going to do it for me, I posted a new song on YouTube this week! It's a uke-driven groove called "More". It comes down ambivalent on the subject. youtu.be/s1lXxY5M_40