Despite not having properly read any of the poetry (war and schools), I still managed a B in O-level English Lit thanks to this and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Happy Ides of March for all who celebrate! One of those festivities that's even better done with friends.

I thought he thought we were all useless and US could go it alone, didn’t need our help???🤷‍♀️

Seems appropriate for our times! music.youtube.com/watch?v=KbbS...

I'm with my orange idiot at the park over the road from home to ensure he doesn't follow my wife and our dog on the morning walk!

And irony just died

TIL that there's actually a term for the Golgafrincham advertising executives in TRATEOTU arguing over what colour the wheel should be.

Excellent news, especially as it will build institutional knowledge that had been eroded in previous decades. Investment in a new generation of scientists and engineers as well as all the supporting industry and people.

This is a really good episode again! I did my homework and got the film off eBay in advance. Watching the film I realised that I knew absolutely nothing about Irish history. Doubly embarrassing as I have an Irish grandfather. I have to echo Rob's point about this not being taught in schools.

Narratively having Ever Given getting stuck in 2021 to set up Hormuz in 2026 is great foreshadowing. You want your audience to understand the basics of international shipping in a lower stakes context so you drop the real plot without a lot of saggy exposition about the minutiae of cargo logistics.

I'm wondering what would be the Iranian equivalent of "The Lincolnshire Poacher".

Went to see Britpop Classical at the Royal Albert Hall. A good night with some great performances but let down by the absolutely appalling sound quality. I don't know if it was the acoustics or the sound mix, but some of the performances were utterly inaudible.

Today, the Academy announced its final lineup of presenters alongside one truly earth-shattering revelation: Comedian, actor, musician, and vocal maestro Matt Berry will be this year’s announcer.

Dubai again.

The brain drain continues – the U.S. has lost arguably its most important scientific awards ceremony: arstechnica.com/science/2026...

Abolish the Home Office. And Mahmood should never hold a senior role in government again. This is bloody stupid. So much for British Soft Power.

Ultraviolet

The Tories also stopped further development of nuclear power in 1989.

Yesterday I filmed several baby birds walking across a street directly at my camera and asked Bluesky to suggest music Several dozen folks did Some even dubbed music over the original clip. I haven't been able to get this out of my head. So I give you A Bluesky exclusive: Reservoir Ducks 🐣 🪶

Rather apropos here! bsky.app/profile/bot....

Lookalike: Andrew / Android From the new Private Eye, out now.

love how we killed the old, frail anti-nuke ayatollah just to have him replaced with his young, healthy son who wants nukes and who just had his father, mother, wife, and child murdered on the same day by his mortal enemy. surely this will bring peace to the region

Spacehopper!

Rather unsurprisingly, one of the fellow members of the village retriever group has decided to rethink their plan to move to Dubai....

A tale from my favourite SC agent's trip to Earth.

"Fifty ways to leave your toaster."

Barney doing his ablutions. It's hard work looking good, especially as his tracker says he covered over two miles between midnight and six am. #Caturday

Fitted raspberry pi cameras to both birdboxes in the garden. One has an IR camera, one a colour one. I'm using the Naturewatch software. It does the job but another time I think I'll use my old scripts that I created for my original hedgehog camera. Just need the birds to move in.

A lovely sunny walk at the park with Barney and Mabel.

Happy Threads Day to all who celebrate.

Me and my sons (who are now grown up and taller than me) on holiday in France many many years ago!

Beautiful from Private Eye on the massive toddler-tantrum that Matt Goodwin and Reform are having, because they got whooped in Gorton and Denton.

How I arrived on BlueSky

The @projectmoonbase.com guys got there first. Crusades have been started over less.

"We called London a war zone and moved to Dubai by mistake"

US citizens are weird part 324! Yes, here In Britain we do know how to cook. We like using herbs and spices, and they are easily available.

They are getting the Ghosts gang back together! Woohoo. Friday keeps getting better and better!

Almost as if liberal-left voters want to vote for liberal-left policies, and not for transphobia, racism, and general petty nastiness.

also, concerning the outcome of Labour's "go fuck yourselves" strategy - we told you so, you fucking fools

As far as I can tell from afar the most positive campaign, the one that offered some suggestion of hope, won. And that has to be a good thing for politics, because yes we need to confront the trade-offs, but there has to be an underlying positive message.

End of an era. The UK has been operating weather research aircraft of one form or another since 1942. (My first job out of university was at FAAM's predecessor, the Met Research Flight)

Another "Use of Weapons" copycat. Just don't take the cover off the seat cushion. Or do! Whatever floats your boat!

Just back from walking the animals. For February, this weather is superb!

First set of laundry drying on the washing line today. I'm calling the end of Winter!

Happy birthday to Edward James Olmos! So this is the day I've been waiting for to share the Adama Maneuver for the first time this year. 😁

The first time I tried to read The Lord Of The Rings, twelve year old me was stymied by the Tom Bombadil section. Took me a few goes to get through it. Now I'm older, I'm reminded of the hypnagogic prose of Dunsany or Mirrlees. So whilst I don't love the TB bit, I've grown to like it.

Life goals!

This is how turtles flirt. Let me flutter my hands in your face!

We went up to London to have a pie to celebrate our youngest son's birthday. He then showed us his rowing club's boathouse. Unfortunately we couldn't then go on to make a Pilgrimage to Festing Road as the embankment path was a bit damp.