How’s your day been?

Mr and Mrs Hudson are, well, somewhere…

Enjoyed a wander around the Scottish National Galleries, mostly because I know diddly squat about Scottish art. You’ll be pleased to know that it doesn’t all look like this.

The shop is called Mr Purves Antiques. Read that as you will. #Edinburgh

Arrived finally. Just resetting our clocks to local time. I think it’s 1707.

Someone should do a series on airport smoking areas.

Today wasn’t the day for trying to get to Edinburgh by train then.

I’d like to see more companies adopt a no generative AI stance. It’s the only permissible approach to widespread theft.

Biggest news of the week?

Shocking, but sadly not surprising.

Why do I keep hearing about young people supporting the far right?

That’s interesting, Labour reported membership has dropped 49000 since I predicted the Greens would overtake them before the end of the year (at the current growth rates at the time). Greens now at 150000 incidentally.

These two media organisations are all too keen to emphasise when a crime has been committed by an asylum seeker or refugee etc. Meanwhile they’re also underplaying the dangers of crime by white men - to a quite extraordinary degree as outlined in this thread. Draw your own conclusions.

A corner of Autumn colour in the tiny garden.

Salviamo il delfino.

“Look at Ukraine. Look at Gaza. I haven’t changed a solitary thing. I mean it. I feel as if I’ve been riding on other people’s pain over the last 60 years, and their pain hasn’t helped prevent this kind of tragedy. We’ve learned nothing.” www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

All eyes on Jamaica folks. It’s about to be battered by the worst hurricane in recorded history. Reject the current political/ media discourse minimising climate change and normalising racism by helping in any way you can, even if that’s just an expression of solidarity and compassion.

When did the UK start turning into Italy? Illegal waste dumping has been a mafia staple for years.

Ceux qui descendent, ceux qui montent 📷 #MobilePhotography

Zoe Williams, as she sometimes is, being quietly brilliant.

lateafternoon as the sun left - 10 minutes between brightsky & darkling thrush (30 mins of light will seep away this week), woodcock in headlights in the lane

I suspect a Reform government will communicate entirely with flags.

the wild ocean in a stone wall

An enormous majority for the fash on 29% of the votes. First past the post really sucks.

I’ve come to realise that I want/wanted to capture the experience rather than the actuality. #photography

“Underlying all these results is the inescapable fact that significant and damaging inequalities persist across all parts of the UK.” Does the Labour government understand this? They show few signs of grasping it www.independent.co.uk/news/busines...

Some early morning Leiter www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

"The days are getting shorter and colder, but I ask you to remember: even as the Winter comes in, there is Hope and there is Light." ~ Seamus Heaney Towards Another Summer series, 2017.

“One of the reasons he matters so much to so many people in our disenchanted world is that, as in that rapture on the Flaggy Shore, he keeps open our back channels to transcendence.”

Possibly the final vase of flowers from the tiny garden until spring - it’s in the hands of the weather gods.

That’s a pretty convincing win for Ireland’s new left wing president, Catherine Connolly.

Moment de rêve.

Climbing Town Hill, Montgomery.

Excellent analysis from Will here. Key takeaway for me is the cratering of the Labour vote may mean it’s difficult for Plaid to find enough partners for a coalition government. It’s PR, so it’ll definitely be a coalition.

Good take. The question for Plaid is were people voting FOR them or AGAINST the far right? Either way, an emphatic win against the peddlers of hate and division.

Well done the people of Caerphilly. I grew up there so this was personal.

Personally, I think it’s a bit too generous. We should be taxing them a ton more than that, given they often pay a marginal tax rate of hardly anything for doing very little and having no social benefit.

Well, my bank did ask for feedback on setting up a new ISA.

I see those leftist radicals writing for the Financial Times have finally(!) reported on the Conservative’s shiny new immigration policy. Here’s a few choice quotes:

Whatever happens today, it’s a huge relief that we have proportional representation in Wales. It means no party is likely to get a majority in next May’s countrywide elections.

“As suddenly the whole world would slip back into a mollifying, untormented dark; their aching bodies knew its calm.” David Jones, In Parenthesis. Mametz Wood series, 2013-2014.

“A policy of such madness and moral depravity that it should condemn those who support it to perpetual social ostracisation. The fact that this kind of policy can be published without a chorus of condemnation indicates that we are in a very dark place indeed. We are sinking fast into the swamp.”

Labour finally find their voice 48 hours after the Tories announced their new beyond extreme immigration policy. It’s worth noting that Labour’s belated (reluctant?) rhetoric and their actual policies don’t accurately align.

“We do not forget that so many of the laws, charters, and conventions established to safeguard and protect all human life were created in response to the Holocaust,” the signatories write. “Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

I’m going to be referring to Trump as HRH King Donald from now on, just to annoy the monarchists.