The mere fact of being in Copenhagen makes your book automatically match your clothing.This does not appear to happen at home. I will maybe just stay here.

Sitting in the garden in the sun, reading a good book, I'm remembering when I was in my early 20s and my dad had retired, and he'd sit out in the sun all afternoon with his coffee and his fags and his book, and I'd worry he was bored. Now that makes me want to laugh so much. You won, Dad, you won.

Well done to the P&J for not letting this one be hidden away. Despite police advice, 6 male councillors vote to allow a taxi license to be kept in the name of a 47 year old male taxi driver found guilty of raping an 18 year old female passenger. All 4 women on the licensing committee voted against.

I have been asked for a list of my favourite booksellers, to invite to a party. Unfortunately, most of my favourite booksellers would be so horrified at the idea of bring invited to a party, I'm not sure I could put them through it.

It is not good when you are trying out a new recipe and all you can smell from the stovetop is 'wet dog'. Fortunately, no-one else in the family is on Bluesky. Although they do have noses.

The 1st in an occasional series of my favourite bike shelters/stands. Singleton of Ord Distillery. Very nice coffee, and a good place for a meeting (the visitor centre, not the bike shelter).

Writing the outline for the 3rd book of a proposed new series, I have just typed then deleted the phrase, 'unbeknownst to'. Calm down, Shona.

Good grief, I am so sick of the immigration debate. Some parts of the world are going to become unliveable; everyone is going to have to budge up. Also, pay care workers more. Pay them enormous amounts of money and build in training and impressive qualifications. Make it an elite profession.

Commentator has to stop talking about percentages. Can't believe anyone actually cares about percentages right now.

Doing some copyright searches and I have to confess to not being proud of my reactions on discoveing a writer or artist did indeed die more than 70 years ago.

Out in the sun, meant to be doing work reading, but must 1st watch pre-match rendition of Flower of Scotland from every conceivable angle, videos by all Scottish celebs (❤️ esp. Karen Gillan) and acknowledge every possible reference to the Blessed John McGinn. Sometimes it's hard being Scottish

Live footage

This is so stressful

My sister just sent me a photo of us in what may be one of the most 70s photos in existence.

Burning up the world every which way they can think of.

THIS is your sign to come and do #bookhistory research in Antwerp in the outstanding collections of Museum Plantin-Moretus and the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library. Apply here for the Nottebohm Fellowship by Oct 1: sl1nk.com/i61nfmk 💙📚 📜 Come and join us... It’s pretty great here! 😉

This 👇

I suppose this'll be you that bought this, @profmurdoch.bsky.social Have you drunk it yet?

ja fragt euch mal

Hurtling towards a huge deadline, I've almost totally run out of capacity for longer reads, but I found 'The Little Review' in @portybooks.bsky.social and it is brilliant. Really intelligent, incisive and entertaining. Like an old style review from yesteryear, but contemporary. And little.

Have come into the living room while the family is watching FBI. Surely the most spectacularly-over-acted programme on the telly. Husband and daughter love it, and I am having to try very hard not to make amusing remarks.

A long read and a story quite brilliantly done. Planning to use 'warly' and 'wonderly' and especially 'wroth' all the time now.

Couldn't make out the title of the book the guy in front of me on the train was reading. One day, when I'm old enough not to care what prople think, I will just march up the carriage and demand to know what everyone who is reading is reading. Then we will have an impromptu book club (with snacks).

I've never heard as much cheering at a book event as I did tonight @portybooks.bsky.social event at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh for Douglas Stuart bring chaired by Nicola Sturgeon for the UK launch of John of John. So much love and pride for this amazing writer. Also, Nicola's shoes.

31 years ago I was sent on a computer programming course in Norway. The SSNE database went live online & open access 30 years ago this month. It records over 8000 British migrants (mostly #Scots) in northern Europe. Enjoy www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne... #EarlyModern #WhatsHistory #History

I have just written the words, "a short excursion into Scottish medieval history cannot be avoided," which I do feel would be good as a general principle.

Hive mind help please! Does anyone have a copy of "Who Built Scotland: A History of the Nation in Twenty-Five Buildings" and could check a detail of a quote for me?

Vigorously shampooing the dog in the back garden after he rolled in *something* vile on the afternoon walk. The expressions "hideous reptile " and "AntiChr*st" have been employed, on both sides. Will be June before we're speaking again.

Just got the bus into town @13 miles. The sheer thrill of the £2 ticket. Bus drivers see some terrible driving by motorists on the dual carriageway, I'll tell you. And then, passing the BMW garage as we reach town, and there's a used car in there for £73 000, and the madness of it all is too much.

🧵On the site of an earlier church, the current Minster Church of St Gregory, Kirkdale is a late Anglo Saxon parish church from around 1060. Saxon stone crosses are built into the remaining original walls. Major modifications were completed in the 15th 19th and early 20th centuries. The

Aapproaching the end of a huge project I have realised that, should anything happen to me, neither the people who commissioned me nor my family trying to negotiate my study, would have a clue where to find anything. Hence the 'should I be abducted by aliens' note now taped to the lid of my laptop.

I don't really watch nature films or particularly read books on nature, wildlife etc, but every time he pops up somewhere these days, I think, 'Thank God for David Attenborough '. A good human.

Reading an old Literary Review, and the List of Contributors is a blissful thing: A is a senior specialist in rare books at Peter Harrington B a visiting fellow at All Souls, Oxford C a writer, film critic &photographer living in Belgium D writes plays for R4 ... E is a journalist living in Paris

You can find DON'T EVEN HAVE TO SAY HIS NAME on streaming services too waterboys.lnk.to/DEHTSHN #TheWaterboys #ProtestSong

It is quite distressing, as a British person to wake up and think, 'Oh thank goodness, there's something that isn't US politics trending' and then you discover 'Spurs' isn't even the proper Spurs. I'm not even a Spurs fan - it was just nice, for a minute.

Actor George Clooney in 2005 📷Antonin Kratochvil #BicycleBirthday May 6, 1961

Some campus novel or dark academia recommendations, please, especially that might work as audiobooks. Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter!!

I knew by p3 that this book was a keeper. The 1st woman we meet is cooking. Something is burning. She has frequently informed everyone that she is "not a *#@*%@! cook". She's "growling at the bread,which she shovels out of the oven". Am going to have a t-shirt emblazoned with "I am Jennot".

Tiny wee baby snail on the bin lid this morning. Have a nice day, little snail. Please do not eat my flowers, should I ever make it to the the garden centre and then actually get them planted.

In the white heat of a fast-approaching deadline, I have assured my husband (who just came in to check that I was okay), that I have a system, and I know where everything is. I did not tell him that should my index card box be in some way lost or destroyed, life as we know it is over.

Anne Boylen giving 100 % Christina Koch energy: Scientists believe they have found previously unknown sketch of Anne Boleyn share.google/fGjZmjoVpzzz...

Actual dream summer holiday.

'No mow May' is upon us, and my husband's joy when he realised it was something to behold. Grass-cutting is his job, and for this one month alone he is an environmentalist to his very core.

Want to attend @bloodyscotland.bsky.social this year but face financial difficulties? If you’re a member of The CWA? Then consider applying, in confidence, for this new bursary 👀

Am reading a history book in which the author keeps referring to a 5 year period as a 'quinquennium', and while I realise this is technically correct, I am also aware that this is the kind of thing that puts people off reading scholarly texts.

This book is very close to my heart - I happened to have it at home, on loan from @thelondonlibrary.bsky.social, when the pandemic started, and I went on to launch Manderley Press with a brand new edition in 2021. Since then ‘Edinburgh’ by RL Stevenson has become our bestseller by a country mile!

I think there are few things as grounding as language. I saw a neighbour this morning, a village 'lifer', and out it came from my subconscious before I knew it: "morneen". I was away 26 years before we moved back here, but even if it had been a hundred, that "morneen" would still have been there.

Thank you! btw, #SiobhanRedmond (!) reads... libro.fm/audiobooks/9...

Just seen 'Glenrothan'. V. enjoyable, & 'the Scottish Tourist Board really got their pound of flesh,' (OH). Surprised Alan Cumming didn't turn into a pile of dust when Shirley Henderson lost the plot with him mind. Also no-one will ever wear a Barbour International as well as she does in that film.