Recovered the 99% 🥳

Another great concert by Stafford Orchestra tonight, featuring the first performance of a double concerto written for our flute and piccolo players. We always program uncommon music, but this was incredible!

Interesting, as the Gospel at this afternoon's Enthronement is to be read in Spanish (a translation is provided)

Whenever I need cheering up I look to see what @henselpushers.bsky.social is up to.

Science is a product and reflection of the society it's part of. Western science therefore has a history of misogyny, colonialism and racism. No-one should pretend otherwise.

If you're not already following MERL, today is a good day to start.

The BBC News app lets you pick topics and locations to get news about. Amongst my choices are Stafford (town in England) and Wrexham (city in Wales). The Stafford news is all from the last 8 hours. The most recent story from Wrexham that's not about football is from last November. Five months ago.

Happy #TECHOGNITION Day @techognition.bsky.social This is a national celebration of technical support staff, recognising the importance of their essential roles in school and college education. techognition.org

Commemorating the Unnamed Day:

Holding monarchs to account since 1215

Incidentally, terrific Evensong for Ash Wednesday from Merton Oxford on Radio 3. Well worth seeking out on the iPlayer.

Two more calls... And apparently the cheque is in the post! Resolved in under a year. I'll take that.👍

Managed to speak to someone about this... another hour on the phone that I won't get back. Daring to dream that the end may be in sight though

If love and acceptance have felt out of reach, I hope this image invites you to reconsider that story. For those who don’t struggle with it, I hope it affirms what you already know.

I have a lot of important things to do, and the time to do them. So I'm sat here eating cheese.

Small crowd watching a boat go through the canal lock this afternoon. Quite common in tourist season, but not so much in February! 🤷

Damp mordy creepit from behile the darklymost gloom of night. No sunshile, as cloudboles deposy more raindropples, all trickly-how onto squelchit lawns and tappity-tap on umbrellodes like Gene Kelly. Folly folly. On the plus side, puddle-stampy. Deep joy!

For the rain it raineth every day.

I think we know the context...

This is how it's done, people. Please do it. Thanks.

Spent a silly amount of time over the last few days looking at the accounts spreadsheet of the orchestra, trying to work out how the balance was £25 over the bank balance. #TreasurersNightmare Why did it never occur to me to look in the cash tin? Idiot.

I don't know if anyone's interested, but it's doing me good to tell the story... Had a 45 minute chat with a BG agent today. We agreed on a way to calculate the bill. Waiting for a call back so I can tell her they owe me almost £500. Plus the compensation.

I love Stephen. The face of a doomed WW1 officer and the wardrobe of John Travolta. #thetraitors

aaand here we go again! New bill just landed (5.30 on a Friday, well done lads). Calculations still make no sense, but apparently they only owe us £130 now. Nope.

O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace.

Just spoken to BG again. They cancelled the *correct* final bill, bc it's apparently wrong. They did that before Christmas. Didn't think to tell me till now. New bill hasn't been calculated yet. 🤦

So, for tea tonight we had (amongst other things, obvs) home-made burgers with cheese melted on top. Cheeseburgers. No, says child; a cheeseburger has a bun. This is just a burger with cheese. Opinions?

👍 💯 recommend!

Good grief, it's not just me! (Still waiting, btw) BBC News - British Gas took 15 months to refund me £1,500. It's absurd - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage

I just hunted down my favourite Robertson Davies quote, so here it is, for no reason other than it delights me (and makes me feel Seen)

Bloody hell, @wrexhamafc.co.uk , don't do that to me after a power cut and that episode of The #Traitors. Good job I'm not doing Dry January!

"hopeful we'll be done by Xmas" ... Not a chance. Seriously considering legal action against British Gas

Preaching to the choir, mostly, but there are still a number of folk here who also have an account over there. Perhaps they (you?) will now take that final step...

PSA

Lord Chancellor of England. No thanks.

If you enjoy being outdoors, have a read of this. Very sensible.

Can confirm. 😃👍

OH MY GOD I’M NEVER EATING AGAIN for two hours

Merry Christmas, fanatics!

Remember: It ys okaye to be lonelye. It ys okaye to feel lost. It ys okaye to be sad. It ys okaye yf nobody ys arounde. It ys okaye to have no plannes or just small plannes. It ys okaye to have big plannes that seem exhausting. It ys okaye to be a mess. Take care of thyself. Thou art amazinge.

Dug out and dusted, ready to see action again tomorrow afternoon!

I suspect that my (denied) request to see my late father's service record is collateral damage in this. I've asked if I could have it with the medical sections redacted. No reply yet...

Love this, not only because I learned so much on the way to my favourite, Winchester "let's make the foundations out of wood!" Cathedral (& it's not even no. 1)

Carolling in freezing fog. Not the most fun for the fingers, but very atmospheric! And welcome mulled wine after 🍷

Legend.

In 1931 in Kiel, Germany, Rachel Posner, the wife of a rabbi, took this picture. On the back of the photograph she wrote: “‘Death to Judah,’ so the flag says. ‘Judah lives forever,’ so the light answers.” The light will continue to answer the darkness. Happy Hanukkah.

This afternoon's concert venue is a cut above the average! Lovely acoustic too.

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

Visited a large market town today, that I haven't seen for 20 years or so. Sad to see what a dump it's become. Not so different to where I live. You don't notice when it's gradual.