The spectacle on Eurovision of Lordy singing Save Your Kisses For Me will stay with me forever.😊

I had the weirdest convo with a market trader earlier. Big soily hands, few words, sells shedloads of plants. I asked him which he thought better? Moneymaker or Ailsa Craig tomatoes? 'Dunno mate,' he said. 'I don't grow them.' I bought an Ailsa Craig and a Tumbler from him. Research now needed.

As a languages graduate when the ark last floated, I've read 12 of the Guardian's top 100. And most of the 12 were either written in German or translated from Russian. One was written in French. I'm not actually very impressed by the list.😂

Yes.

And so much for being busy. Up at 5.30, laundrette at 7.30, market/coffee at 9am, washing pegged out by 10. Then I fell asleep in my armchair. Just woken up. Pitiful!

Anyway, bored to death with leadership elections. What's going to be next week's fad? Oh.....

Not convinced by this. A key shortage at junior and middle management grade levels in Whitehall tends to be their lack of front line operational delivery skills and expertise. By the time you get to director level, they're all wanking along happily but incapable of ordering a box of biros.

"Thank you for your order. I'll push it off the edge of the counter when it's ready"

Such marvellous vetting procedures.

Ethel likes this.

Dang. My turn to drive out to a cafe for breakfast tomorrow. You know what this means? I need to dust the dashboard and vacuum the carpeting.😡

The Labour Bloodbath Begins! JonathanPie.com youtu.be/83IYfRzlYv8?...

I've had to pull the car over to let you all know I've just spotted a van advertising a doggy day care centre in Norwich called... Scent-a-Barks. SCENT-A-BARKS

Solid growth of 0.6% in UK economy at start of year Jan-March, even taking in the first month of Iran War. Compares well internationally… some clear resilience shown here.

Wandering lost round the middle aisle in Aldi looking for his mammy.

I am so bored of “allies of Streeting” (lol) leaking to the press. We had enough of that with the last government. Resign or don’t resign, you’re not going to suddenly become massively popular by “preparing” to. Shit or get off the pot, man.

20 May 2026 is National No Chris Mason Day. People are asked to come out on to their doorsteps and clap or bang saucepans in support of the many excellent journalists at the BBC paid a fraction of £270k-£275k and don't churn out tedious theatrical political coverage masquerading as journalism.

Bloke on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio2. Sounds like Matthew Parris. What a pillock. Says journos like to jazz politics up to make it interesting, because politics is boring. Little self awareness going on here.

PS: it rained on my washing while I was in the cinema. PPS: It's a gorgeous film. I loved the talking sheep. Take hankies.

The sound in this cinema is too loud. And if it's too loud for someone with a hearing impairment, then it really must be loud!

Had enough of today. All that I ask is that it doesn't rain on the handwashing that I put out at 11am, and that The Sheep Detectives charms me. (Didn't actually get to see it last week, despite threats, so I sit almost alone in the cinema this afternoon. Should have brought chocolate.)

The line Politics is Showbusiness for Ugly People lands on more than one level, but particularly in the realm of ego and ambition outstripping talent.

I'm going to spray some weedkiller today, and cut back or remove the unwanted. Seems appropriate after last week's local elections.

I don't think my garden shears and I are going to make it outside. I have sat down and hesitated. A snooze, a crossword then a gin perhaps?

Just passed through Sainsbury's and the bakery lady had just brought out some savoury pastries, still warm. Oops.

I definitely rate this book.

I concur.

I often wonder how many continentals on the mainland are as stupid and intellectually inarticulate as we Brits.

What a lovely morning. Up at 5.30 in the sunshine, out and over to Cambridge by 9. Walking and shopping already completed. Usually coffee is first at 11. Today it's my last pitstop.

Probably a good day to goto the pictures to see The Sheep Detectives?

Lacking critical analysis skills: bywords of Reform.

Bought a papillon lavender today. Not in bloom yet. Needs hardening off. No garden should be without lavender.

Gorgeous.

😊

Ooh.

Yerevan?!

Going to be a boring week in politics. Endless teeth clenching and grinding, baring of souls, weeping and wailing. If the weather forecast lifts, I might drive to the seaside and talk to the little birdies nesting along the shoreline. But not tomorrow. It will be a bank holiday hellhole.

Yours for £5m. #NigelForSale

😊

Quite.

Read.

Anyone spare tomorrow in the Guidlford area - Sancho&Me - For One Night Only.⁦‪@YvonneArnaud‬⁩ Be grand to see you. www.facebook.com/share/v/18YC... #IgnatiusSancho #Theatre #BritishHistory #BlackBritishHistory

I usually asked reception staff to let me know pdq if candidates were rude to them. To be honest, they didn't usually live up to their applications anyway. If you interview them properly, the deadwood falls away. Good interview techniques will out you. theconversation.com/the-duolingo...

Worthy of deep investigative research. Incredible that the momentum to follow through has built so slowly.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... Good luck to Dippy. Lovely little creatures.

I commend Buttercup Syrup. It's sorting out my virus ridden windpipe. Thank you Mother for bringing me up on it. It cures everything.

The thing that really got me this week as I wheezed and dozed was how many series of The Brokenwood Mysteries there are on Ch 4. I missed whole chunks of individual episodes but it didn't matter. There are others piled up and waiting to go, like the skeleton army in Jason and the Argonauts.

Righto. Horrible non covid virus but enough is enough. Three days in bed has me fidgety. Cleaning the kitchen then going for a wander round the market. Bored! So I must be stacks better. And I've just washed all the dishes.

Cosmopolitanism is hardly new. In late Ottoman Constantinople, large populations of Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Sephardic Jews, Arabs, and Balkan Christians lived together. But Stuart Hall nailed it in the 90s when he said "The capacity to live with difference is the coming question of the 21st cent."