I see Lake Valdai is in the news or rather fake news. It’s lovely, as I discovered 25 years ago.

Once you advertise you're committed! So here we go. George Harris: A Retrospective - Paintings from 1979 to 2025 St John’s Hall, Princes Street Friday 23rd January 4.00-8.00 - Saturday 24th 9.00 -5.00 - Sunday 25th 9.00 – 4.00 (Refreshments available)

Just finished watching It’s a Wonderful Life. Here’s hoping the America that Capra celebrated survives the uber-Potters of the present.

Very interested to hear @rory-stewart.bsky.social & @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social discussing the Incarnation on TRIP. You were referenced in my Christmas Morning sermon. Have a happy Christmas & thanks for a brilliant podcast.

Wordle 1,650 2/6 🟨⬜🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 A gift from the NYT. Have a blessed & peaceful Christmas, fellow skeeters.

A minor challenge of city life.

Americans- still struggling with the metric system? Here's some help!

Wordle 1,646 3/6 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 There was an an element of luck in this.

Wordle 1,645 3/6 ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 🟨🟩🟩⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Pleasing.

Influential neuroscientist Christof Koch on his Near Death Experience. www.youtube.com/watch?v=voUB...

Re-posting with alt text because the post accompanying this is obviously wrong, it's clearly a picture of a woman on a Crosscountry train having found a place to sit on the floor and read, her coffee cup beside her, folks queuing for the loo behind her

Satisfied follower after the Sermon on the Mount.

This is what is going to happen. There will be a thin top layer of non-digital universities — and all the tech billionaires will send their kids to those places.

"there's a new serif in town"

Knife crime? Ban the kitchen knives that are suitable for stabbing. Cooks don't need them. Read Dr Kohn Crichton on the subject. @drscottarthurmp.bsky.social BBC News - Knife crime: Police Scotland increase stop and search on children - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

RIP Frank Gehry

That over-polite interview had me spluttering into my porridge.

This ongoing toxic discourse has multiple real-life, everyday consequences It leads to the man sitting next to me on a bus not accepting I'm from Manchester as I have 'dark skin' Declaring, while gesturing around the bus- 'you can fool all of them, but you can't fool me' It permits open racism

I knew that the Scholls were influenced by their reading of Newman, but I did not know that Sophie gave her boyfriend Fritz Hartnagel a two volume edition of Newman's sermons when he was posted to the Eastern Front.

Wordle 1,626 6/6 ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 It soon turned into a guessing game. Phew indeed.

I finished reading this tonight. A fascinating and persuasive account of Vermeer's life and work. Graham-Dixon argues that the great majority of his paintings have a religious significance and were originally intended as aids to devotion.

BBC Radio 3 doing a brilliant job celebrating the First Sunday in Advent.

He’s taking a battering.

I said, 'AND the Son.'

Fairly certain Kemi Badenoch is hoping that nobody has noticed this. Pretty brazen...

Breaking news. Rachel Reeves has a sense of humour: “And finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are ramping up sanctions on Russia and we are freezing known Russian assets. But let me be clear, I don't actually mean the honourable Member for Clacton."

Wordle 1,622 3/6 🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨 🟩🟨⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Pleasing.

“The Motability scheme was set up to protect the most vulnerable. Not to subsidise the lease on a Mercedes Benz,” Reeves says. Misleading and nasty in equal measure.

There’s much misunderstanding on social media about Motability. It doesn’t only provide adapted cars. It also leases power wheelchairs. Those who lease them pay from their Adult Disability Payment (PIP south of the Border). Please ignore those who claim it’s all about disabled people getting BMWs.

This is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

Someone needs to explain to Trump that there’s no such thing as a Nobel Prize for Appeasement.

At a time when the BBC is under fire I would gently point out that the work of exceptional journalists on Inside Out in the NEast ( along with colleagues on the Guardian) that led to hundreds coming forwards and finding the courage to speak. #bbcnews #insideoutcj www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Irony alert!

Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?

Wordle 1,603 2/6 🟨🟨🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 A rare occurrence.

Why can Jesuits always get a table at any restaurant? Because they always have a secret mental reservation

You can rely on the Church Times to phrase this accurately!

"Crikey, that's tacky" - Liberace.

@bbcnewsnight.bsky.social The King is NOT the “Head of the Church of England”. That position is held by Jesus Christ. The King is the Supreme Governor, a significant but far less exalted position.

Murrayfield Stadium seems to be turning into a pop music venue that occasionally hosts Rugby matches.

This satirical verse about Caroline of Brunswick might be applied to a contemporary royal: "Most Gracious Queen, we thee implore To go away and sin no more Or if that effort be too great To go away at any rate".

Louvre robbery. French police release image of suspect.

Wordle 1,579 5/6 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Another guessing game.

My godmother knew Margaret Thatcher quite well when they were undergraduate contemporaries at Oxford. She once told me that most discussions ended with Thatcher saying “My father says…” (referring to Alderman Alf Roberts, not the Almighty). #Thatchercentenary

An excellent read for those who know or think they know the Netherlands.

The Bishop of Birmingham has written to the Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick about his comments about Handsworth

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.* *Unless you disagree with someone politically or theologically. Then let ‘em have it. —the Bible according to Christian nationalism

The appointment of Rt Rev and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to be given the role in the history of the Church of England, has been warmly welcome by Bishop Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Will the impending senior Tory defections to Reform knock the new ABC off the front pages?

Greatly enjoying this - a portrait of the Netherlands built up over a series of walks. Sharply observant & fascinating in its detail.