List 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep 1) choral music 2) restaurants 3) whole system health and social care capacity planning Right, that's a nice quiet day with no social interaction guaranteed #boring

Watched this excellent piece with Mr S, both of us hoping the payoff would be that the entrants include @bbcstever.bsky.social at the piano. Colour us disappointed Next year??? Please??

Just missed a call from the "Immigration Department" offering me a choice of English or Chinese for their important message for me Bugger. All that family tree research up the Swannee. 300 years of dull English relatives and I've missed the ONE THING that's clearly about to get me deported ☹️ #scam

Excitement as the national BBC weather forecast just now featured a picture from just down the road from here not anticipating a huge rise in tourism on the strength of it Excellent work by Hadi the artist!

Flu jab 2 days ago (work, a bit, for the NHS so qualify that way) Every year I forget I'm going to feel crap afterwards Just don't annoy me today OKAY??? Am at the stabby, fuck-around-and-find-out stage ☹️

What a fantastic winning garment! Yay for Caz #SewingBee... Thoroughly deserved PLUS thanks to Kit I discovered #SmoggieQueens is coming back for season 2 Win win!!

I missed this on the radio but it doesn't matter because it lives permanently in my head This was my dad's favourite album and on repeat, pretty much, in his final days I'm now reading #SusanTomes 's *excellent* book, Out Of Silence. Very very much recommended If you are on here, Susan, ❤️❤️

Everyone on best behaviour... Only 3 or 4 people had to be shown how to get the thing to stop Impressive, given the demographic for this stuff

Opened another box from the childhood home a) why does one person need so many rulers, even if that person is a road engineer; b) why does that person's daughter (me) decide to save *all* of them? One has dad's pre-war school stamp on it. There's another box with at least 20 more somewhere 🙄

This book is great If you don't already have one... Get one

Best one's the sea anemone in the followup post!

At about 4.10pm on this day 54 years ago, something weird started happening on Scottish Television. There was no announcement, and no credit was given to the person who had created them, but strange short films suddenly started popping up in the schedules youtu.be/AA9IdHtHk_0?...

I was in the UoExeter Chapel Choir in the early 80s and our most prestigious gig back then was being invited to sing carols in the home of Exeter's premier drug dealer when we, and he, left the pub after closing time

This is a masterpiece. Simply excellent www.instagram.com/reel/DMVGMIC...

Truly bizarre and excellent Roll up! Roll up! (I've bought non-bizarre stuff from this place before so can vouch for their actually existing)

I tried a st st in the round version, too fiddly and unsuccessful. So I unpicked it and reworked Please welcome Arnold the Slightly Bemused Emotional Support Pigeon to the flock

Love from Andrew (Please...)

Not felt as uninterested in watching the presentation since, I dunno, Sampras?? #wimbledon

Well that was a proper treat Can't remember the last time I read a book in a day! (Not quite a single sitting - short breaks for lunch, watering the garden and cringing at the tennis) Thank you @levparikian.bsky.social 🏅

The mad thing is, for like %99.998 of human history, nobody really spoke to anyone who wasn't born within a couple miles of them, and we're supposed to believe that *now* people's horizons are too narrow?

Shown to me and my entire primary school of 120 kids as an end of term treat in the early 70s. Cute otters! Lovely!! It ends with the otter being clubbed to death by a ditch digger By home time most of us were beyond hysterical. I'm amazed the school wasn't sued for collective juvenile trauma

#SundayPixWeather We enjoyed a majestic view of the Statue of Liberty as we sailed out of NYC earlier this year

#Wimbledon (to filter out the people who've muted) These automated line calls. Fully supportive. But think they should vary the voices. Am already sick of "Portsmouth bloke from the council" on the service line Would love to hear eg: Dick Emery, Ronnie Corbett, the late Queen, Edna Everage ...

Proper chilly here today Going to have to put a jumper on in a minute

Just checked and if anyone needs an Indonesian food truck name "Eric's Satay" is free, would be good for music festivals obv.

Bizarrely the easiest one for me is Rory McIlroy saying "you can get 5% on your current account" despite a) not being from Northern Ireland, b) not knowing anything else about him other than golf (meh) and Caroline Wozniacki, and c) not having any interest in banking with Santander then or now

A couple of farmers sleep as The Princess Royal tours cattle stalls in the Highland Hall during a visit to the Royal Highland Show in Ingliston, Edinburgh 𝘐𝘔𝘈𝘎𝘌: 𝘑𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘰𝘸/𝘗𝘈 𝘞𝘪𝘳𝘦

Also this. Can still sing every note, I'm sorry to say. Justly neglected bit of the Rogers & Hammerstein oeuvre

Ours didn't have the bit of masking tape #classy

Here's a strange but nice thing Was looking at old family photos, an ongoing mammoth sort and sift task My dad on holiday 1993 at the Taj Mahal And a snap from national service in India, 1946 The same exact spot 47 years apart. (He hadn't remembered the "before" even existed till we got back)

Time for my annual shout out in memory of my late dad, who loathed Father's Day with a passion as a cynical invention of the US greetings card industry (true) and flew into a foaming rage if presented with a card. So a really easy wind-up for me once I cottoned on Still thinking of you Dad 😉

Two members of Slipknot and I each had a very acceptable boiled egg from the same basket at the hotel breakfast buffet, Vienna, summer 2023

Smiled reciprocally at Nigel Havers as we passed each other on a zebra crossing outside the National Portrait Gallery circa 1987

Intended to read my book but instead I've just spent the last half hour wondering what it would have been like if Gladstone and Disraeli had had access to social media accounts

1984 My 19th birthday presents From my mother In retrospect, not sure which was weirder

@hertssid.bsky.social hoping you're doing ok? Missed you around here for the last few weeks

After 2 years in a new build house we hardly saw a bird other than rooks and pigeons This year, however... Today I've got up early to see who's at the feeder (hoping not just rooks and pigeons) In an hour today: sparrows, blue tits, blackbirds, great tits a-go-go Welcome, all

Lucian Freud, Rabbit on a Chair

Wiltshire Council's Refuse Disposal Operative Of the Year says "I'm not ready to retire yet. Not while I can still hoist a full wheelie over the barrier at the Trowbridge tip"

Excellent thread!!

Choose: a) aged 8 I wondered what'd happen if I put the end of my little finger into a pencil sharpener and twisted or b) aged 10 I found a pie on the kitchen table. I decided to pretend I was on a TV cookery show and grabbed it with both palms to show the audience. It was straight out of the oven.

Happy birthday @whenisbirths.bsky.social and @lissakevans.bsky.social Two of the people that make this a nicer place to be 🎂

Spent afternoon moving bird feeders to a more covered place to encourage customers other than crows or pigeons 15 minutes ago, watched crow chew through string, throw fat ball feeder to ground, break into it, remove 4 fat balls, fly off laughing Giving up

I just need everyone to watch this and understand I have been laughing about it for 24 hours

When I started taking my plate, cup, cutlery and napkin off the tray, setting them out neatly on the café table, and leaning the tray out of sight against my chair, before making a start on anything

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Watching Celeb Bake-Off and someone's suggested Cher should be on it. Mmm, could be interesting So here's our suggestion for All-American Celebrity #gbbo: * Cher * Nick Offerman * Megan Mullally * Barack Obama Alternative lineups?

In a post-viral coughing stage, so sitting upstairs at my choir rehearsal to avoid being lynched Here are the walls and ceiling behind my bit of balcony Guaranteed to cheer you up I reckon

Richard Tice and Rupert Lowe are sheer Rhodesia, aren’t they? Frederick Forsyth etc. Harare airport 1978. Sweating with suitcases. Bar. ‘You *fool* Tice! We’ll owe ten million rand. They’ll cut our ears off’ ‘For Christ’s sake calm down, man. You’re a hysteric! I’d never agreed had I known’ etc

@profanity.accountant go on then