Current view: it's very pleasant here. Related: there should be more trees everywhere.

In an unreasonably warm Manchester to see Stewart Lee doing a thing. The Irwell is a little grubby and perhaps also a bit spiky, but its tempting today.

NEW Stewart Lee column Stewart Lee on Nigel Farage vs Count Binface “A comedy writer with a refuse receptacle on his head may be the only thing that stands between Britain and fascism. He’s just the man for the job”

An alarming but accurate message from my bank.

Have a very "that guy from Mumford & Son suggests we build a wall across the English channel" day.

Hello. I saw something bloody lovely today and now you have too.

Peg is an odd little peanut. A favourite thing is that she absolutely bloody loves a bench. We can't walk past one, or she'll cry about it, pulling back: we all of us have to sit for a bit, watch the world, have a hug. Shes a bright girl. Anyway, we got her one of her own and she loves it.

Hi, are you awake? You look like you're awake now. Can I have a snack? Someone stood on your eyes until you woke up?! Oh, no! Can I have a snack?

A walk from York to Goole, via the River Ouse, Bishopthorpe, the Trans Pennine Trail, Selby and Boothferry, 9am to 9.30pm Thursday 2 April 2026. An improvised, illustrated thread of indeterminate length, part reflection, part reconstruction. 1/

I went to Marks & Spencer today and wandered around the quiet floors. This was the last shop I went to with Mum. I grabbed a coffee in the cafe, sat and didn't read my book. I think I hoped I might find her there. There was just me.

I'm finding myself arguing with other artists about AI. A ceramicist who generates AI images of ceramics for inspiration: "why don't you look at other real artists? Then you can contextualise your work among a school of art rather than nameless, scraped nothingness".

I want you to listen to this: Last year companies committed to spend significantly more constructing data centres than they did on building family homes. www.silicon.co.uk/cloud/ai/ope...

Remember when Senile Satan was a “nurse” last June?

This man holds the world to ransom, gasslights, threatens shock, awe and terror, treats world politics like a television cliff hanger, makes families believe they might die on his whim. The spectacle has eaten north America up and it is spitting out bones over us all.

We must not become less of ourselves in the face of annihilation. We must hold to who we are, hold tight to our joys. i came into this world dead, grey and silent. I shall go out of strange, full of love and wondrous curiosity. I shall go a fully-grown changeling with a kiss of intent on my lips.

I finally got around to starting a substack for a little writing about place, rural and urban walking, history, anthropology, belonging and pissing yourself. If that sounds like a thing you might like, find me here: substack.com/profile/1630...

The dude is circling the drain. He’s now calling on people in media to be imprisoned for treason if they don’t report on the war to his liking.

Folk horror fans unite - we'll be bring four exciting new movies in the genre from all over the world on Saturday 21st March, with the fourth running of the DARKNESS IN THE FIELDS FILM FESTIVAL! www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/ditf2... #folkhorror #horror #festival #festivals #filmfest #filmfestival

I finally got around to starting a substack for a little writing about place, rural and urban walking, history, anthropology, belonging and pissing yourself. If that sounds like a thing you might like, find me here: substack.com/profile/1630...

Of course, some zines defy easy labels …

Grief creates two minds that run concurrent. There is the day. The sun. The bridge. There is framing a shot as a red kite calls above. There is the smell from the donut shop. And there is the scratch against my sternum. The birds inside my lungs. She is gone. She is gone. She is gone.

I'm suing Grammarly over its paid AI feature that presented editing suggestions as if they came from me - and many other writers and journalists - without consent. State law requires consent before someone's name can be used for commercial purposes. www.wired.com/story/gramma...

So apparently grammarly stole my fuckin identity

Away to the edges: the border between England and Wales. The age of the land sinks into you, here. Makes you ancient too.

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

I inherited this games table from Mum. Grandad made it for her: clanging and banging in the cellar of their red brick terrace until he emerged to say "I've made you something". He carved all the pieces: drew little faces on the knights. Its a legacy of love, isnt it.

Beautiful everyday Ladybird things. Boiled eggs and Cornishware (2nd Picture Book, 1970) Artist: Harry Wingfield

A local pub is accidentally growing its own wood ear. Entropy, listening at the threshold.

Hello void. Are you staring back?

Autism complicates grief. I process things by analysing and study things until I understand them. Then I can process them. I can't eff the ineffable.

I only add people I meet at least once on Facebook. Yesterday an acquaintance died. No need for condolences: she seemed brilliant, but that grief belongs to her closer friends and family. It made me think about the nature of the space there:

wow -- with Trump standing behind him, a man (not sure who he is) offers this prayer: "We pray that he would be mindful of the poor and that he would be invested in the alleviation of suffering happening in the families preparing to bury their loved ones in Minneapolis."

I am cleaning. Mum was in hospital for almost two months and my house became...interesting. its a terraced house so I can't burn it down, but boy am I filling bin bags today.

Cloudburst.

Tomorrow, I'll be painting my Mums coffin. She wanted cardboard, because she wanted to be sure she could lift the lid if there had been a mistake, because she was a wonderful loon. I want it to be the best work of my life but I know with the time I have, it won't be. This has been a hard week.

The first and greatest love of my life has gone. She was kind, thoughtful, lovely. Modern and timeless. A dancer. A child of the 60s. Protecter and carer. I'm so grateful for all of the kindness and love she poured into me. Go well Mum. You are the best human being I have ever known.

Extraordinary beauty this morning in Braemar. The Morrone birkwood is high enough to retain the freezing fog longer into the day. And then, even after the fog clears and the hillsides warm up, the Braemar frost hollow keeps the woodland cold.

Nothing could better sum up where we are as a culture

Unbelievably, #DuvetKnowItsChristmas generates such good will on social media that over the years we've raised somewhere approaching a quarter of a million quid for homeless charities. If you can spare a bob or two, sling some to Centrepoint, and here's the link: www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

I’m entering The Teenager as potential winner of #Duvetknowitschristmas He’s had to move from his bedroom to the unconverted attic Cardboard floor & headboard is a nice touch which I’m sure he appreciates He think it looks like he’s living in a meth den #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

Sigh. Twitter.

Start of an on-going thread of some of my favorite creators! Let's call it #ArtILove I'll tag folks if I know their Bluesky handle, so you can go enjoy/support them too. :)

Haven't posted this photo for a while - it's just over 5 years old, taken on the penultimate day of an incredible 50-day-long trip around #Iceland in 2020. Heavily processed, but sometimes you just have to! #IcelandicHorse #Canon5DIV

Epstein to Larry Nassar in 2019: "Our president [Trump] also shares our love of young nubile girls"

…"Gen AI" is a bullshit engine, in the strict philosophical sense of the term. All it *ever* does is statistically correlate what you ask it for and how you asked it with the words, phrases, connotations it's been trained on, using the weights and instructions in its programming. …

My work colleague asked me to text her when the Christmas meat hampers arrived at work. Turns out I took her number down wrong and I have sent a really ominous text to a stranger

There's still time to order from us for Christmas delivery to Sheffield addresses (postcodes S1-S17), and we're happy to gift-wrap books, if you like, at no extra cost. Orders received by 23 December will be delivered - by hand, on foot - on or before 24 December. longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

An image of the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool. I lived beside it for so many years when I directed plays on the Unity Theatre stage and taught community film workshops. Looking across the Mersey when I captured this photograph years later made me proud and emotional. A wonderful city.