My viola, played several times a week, is from the 1820s and I recently bought a desk that the seller claimed is Georgian (but I'm sceptical). "Oldest object I bought new" is another interesting question - I'm still wearing a few garments from the 90s...

We set immigration policy trying to reflect the views of people who understand the least about what's actually going on www.economist.com/britain/2026... It's the opposite of leadership! And not what representative democracy should be about

Innovative approach to UV protection from @westmidrailway.bsky.social

This beast has spent much of the day sprawled on kitchen tiles but now wants to curl up in my lap. Average cat body temperature is 38-39°C, apparently #SendLollies

Just noticed these two leaflets (Green above, Labour below). Both bar charts cannot be true. I predict there will be enough Green votes to allow Reform to unseat some or all of the Labour incumbents. Curses to FPTP. (Reposted without my address and with alt text)

Tempted to spend the day watching these to see if I can catch them bursting into flower. Grudgingly accept, however, that I have other things to do.

I had to look this up today so I thought I'd share. I didn't especially want an introduction to spontaneous autoamputation today, but there we go. (Warning: pictures within that are not for the squeamish - I've removed the preview) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainhum

@joannawyld.bsky.social in Oxford to see John Finnemore live and was fully expecting to see you in the audience

For Bridgerton fans - this is the letter-head of my local orthodontic practice

South Riding by Winifred Holtby - like Middlemarch but set in the 30s, lots of local government committees, some of the women have agency, and it's 500 pages but I wished it was longer as I wanted to get to know some of the characters better.

I was very likely to order from this new local restaurant before they delivered this, but the wording on their leaflet has absolutely sealed the deal

I watched this muted on a train and the message came across loud and clear.

"My doorbell won't work because a website is broken" is not the glorious frictionless future technology promised us, is it?

Stivichall/Styvechale and Cheylesmore in Coventry

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Three new followers in the previous month, then 20 in the past 24 hours... I'm not sure where you've all come from but hello 👋👋

Waiting for a delivery this morning. Delivery driver is called Igor. Terry Pratchett has a lot to answer for (but I will exercise self-control and not address him in the way my brain is tempted to)

If you are tempted to roll your eyes at this, press Play instead...

Looking for recommendations for a hotel in central Berlin, near public transport (we're going by train). Doesn't have to be super-cheap, but super-fancy would be wasted on me and the 12-year-old. We like good breakfasts.

Offered two jobs by two project managers at the same organisation today. One for a quarter of my minimum rate, and one for my full rate + rush enhancement. The heat must have got to them.

Once again, if you are pointing to a mob and arguing that their violence is a justification for doing what you want, it’s your mob and your violence.

This thread of museums chatting about spoons was exactly what I needed today 😊

I generally regard linguistic peeving as a waste of time with (sometimes) a touch of snobbery. But my son is making me watch an otherwise quite interesting YouTube video about the history of nuclear weapons and the YouTuber pronounces it "nucular" and I'm having trouble keeping hold of my principles

We are looking for a native French speaker to translate (from English into French) a document on Catholic responses to mining. Approx 20,000 words. Needs to be conversant with Catholic theology and intersection with ecology. Generous payment on offer. Any takers?

Quote a record you found in your parents' collection when you were young

　　　 🐟　　　　　🐟  🐟　　　　　　　　　 　🐟　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　　　🐟 　　　　　　　　　　 　　🌿🌿　🌿　🌾🌱🌾

Would love to know why I can't get Spotify to work on the hospital wifi. Having said that, I'm starting to feel that a few days without political podcasts has been good for me (though I do miss @quietriotpod.bsky.social )

Hey! I really felt the weight of everything last week, and I wanted a way to talk through it... so I've been working on (maybe the first???) choose your own adventure game set up directly *in* Bluesky. And here it is! Would you like to visit the Garden of Fortune with me? Enter the garden.

love when people get caught using LLMs for some important analytical task "to save time" and then they're like "don't worry we rigorously vetted the results." man....you either saved time OR rigorously vetted the results, but i promise you didn't do both

In hospital, and now the pain is under control, two medical students have been let loose on me (they did very well). One asked "what do you do for work?" and the look of fear on both their faces when I said "medical translator"...

This morning's office.

On my way to the ITI Medical & Pharmaceutical Network's workshop day in Cardiff - a morning of lectures and an afternoon working on translations, on orthopaedics this time. Looking forward to seeing colleagues!

Zelda Williams (the daughter of the great Robin Williams) sure had a lot to say about the “Studio Ghibli style” AI images that have been trending recently. I think those people should read these posts and really think about what they’re doing.

Text message from my son. The kids are all right.

Ugh, Piero della Francesca sliding into my DMs again with his unsolicited diptychs.

Honestly can't think of any bad Angelas, so perhaps it's me 😥

Roses are redde Noble are the manatees Yf we wante a bettir future Teach artes & humanityes

No, I don't need a bloody copilot for this document, thank you. Writing is, in no small part, a tool for thinking. If you outsource that element to a machine that cannot think, you shouldn't be surprised if, at the end of the process, neither you nor your reader are any the wiser.

So "liberals have lost the argument". Up to a point. Have populists won the argument? No. So why do these columns *never* discuss the risk to Nigel Farage (or, esp the Conservatives, if they want to govern while he is 14%) if he does not "move to the centre on immigration"?

I'll stop mentioning The Other Place soon, I promise, but a question for those who have left: have you deleted your profile and tweets?

I see people introducing themselves... a) I need a new profile pic; b) I post mostly in English, about language & translation and sometimes music; c) I learned today about #proofofcat

Happy to be here, having finally relinquished the other place. Getting loads of notifications of new followers, which is lovely, but I can't figure out how to stop them and my phone keeps binging. Any ideas? (Android app)

Books designed to be read only by human eyes are different from books designed to be read by machines, which is why Google will tell you that the phrase “shake my booty” can be found in an 1863 English translation of Don Quixote.

Long shot, perhaps, but does anyone here speak Twi (a Ghanaian language)?

*tap tap* is this thing on? Are we all watching the election coverage?