One of those Hard Day’s night helicopters flew over my head on my bike ride today. Bass notes. Scared the bejesus out of me

Lane Check Week-ago me was very clear: no bike rides until we're in a dry spell and the lanes are less wet and muddy. But I was sitting in the conservatory earlier today enjoying some winter sunshine when it occurred to me that I should get out there and fit in a bike ride in January's last gasp.…

Tell me 5 classes you had at university, and liked: - Introduction to Social Anthropology - US Detective Fiction - American Thought and Culture - Introduction to US Art History - American Poetry since WW2

Irish Traitors is very sweary 😆

Rabbit holes I'm tidying up my latest novel, doing a third pass, and spotting some of my more annoying writing habits along the way. I was running a search for the string "CID" in Scrivener, which was when I was confronted with the number of words in English that contain that string. Accident.…

So far, I'm keeping up with the physio exercises. Perfect week so far. They take about 16 minutes. It helps that there's an app that bleeps and bloops to keep you in time

I want a setting in Apple Music which is basically "always prefer the non-Deluxe version"

Everybody on the train in this week’s episode of Hijack (TV+) died of smoke inhalation in the first five minutes. They are all ghosts for the rest of the series, which is now called Ghost Train

Urgh. Klingons

Having a groovy day. This is a *very* groovy number When it all feels strange Do the words have no meaning? They will if we let 'em But first we gotta say 'em That means we gotta learn 'em You're not alone youtu.be/Krlm65xLTlA?...

According to this review, Apple TV’s Shrinking “risks making a mockery of the [therapy] profession” Be careful what you enjoy, folks. The Guardian is watching www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

I was not prepared to have my heart broken by Michael J Fox today #Shrinking

Question, Bluesky friends. What are the coloured blocks on the map behind the copper’s desk in this episode of Randall and Hopkirk?

If this many pigeons sit on your aerial, all the characters on ITV3 become pigeons. Inspector Morse? He’s a pigeon now. Foyle… you guessed it. Pigeon. On The Buses: they’re all disgusting pigeons.

I have company I was eating an almond croissant, and she was most insistent that it must be cat food

I AM SITTING IN THE CONSERVATORY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL

Mrs Merton: What was it about the enormous sums of money that big tech companies might throw in your direction that first attracted you to AI?

Let’s get physio Had an appointment with the physio yesterday, at our local cottage hospital. It's a small miracle that Buckingham retains this relic, which has an x-ray department, a physio department, and even a ward. I'd been angling for this appointment since my appointment with the doctor I…

Webby

Radio Times informs me that there's to be a Winter Olympics. Someone needs to tell those people that snow is cold and wet and horrible

Trisha Yearwood: The Mirror (Deluxe) The Country genre is awash with incredible voices. My own tastes always tend towards the great singers, and I have less time for the croaky, broken-voiced, or quirky "Americana" types. For example, I know that people absolutely love Lucinda Williams, whose…

Cat decided to climb into a broken box file

This video has it all. Misogyny, contempt, patronage, snobbery, sneering, sarcasm, everything! youtu.be/EpBjKXQun7k?...

Just spent a few hours shredding documents. Have now lost the will to live

How have they gone back to the Cs in the alphabet? I feel like I can no longer trust our institutions and I am going to live in the woods

Bobby on the Beat by Bob Dixon Not his real name, surely? The preface to this book mentions Dixon of Dock Green, which is perhaps the earliest British television police procedural, so I've assumed this is a pseudonym. As such, you might hope for some interesting stuff… The elephant in the room for…

Struggled through a couple of Big Story Arc X Files episodes (how I hate those three words To Be Continued). Please now reward me with a monster of the week

Turns out, 98% of applicants to the new British FBI were film nerds

Letter box It has been one of those weekends. You start with a job to do: in our case, it was to put stuff back into the garage now that it has been repaired. But then, you don’t want to just put back the same old junk that has been sitting there rotting and rusting, so you do a certain amount of…

OH is sorting through old box files. One of them was full of old letters from friends, including @roythirlwall.bsky.social. 90s ahoy! But one was a postcard from someone called Tara 🤷🏼‍♂️ Who the fuck was Tara?

Hoping to remove OH’s data from her old Nokia Windows phone. This was such a great operating system. I love its looks and for an old phone it scrolls smoothly

I need someone to stop me from buying a Mini DV Deck so I can look at those old videos

Watching Beyond Paradise Christmas special. Getting in the mood

Tonight’s special pizza, my second favourite. Some people object to pineapple on pizza, but what about fig?

Why is orange my favourite colour? Might this old photo have something to do with it? (Blog) robmcminn.uk/2026/01/24/s...

Charles Lindbergh, rolling in his grave since 1974, finally rests in peace

Bought some plastic shelves from B&Q. They seem sturdy enough for garage use, didn’t cost much and were dead easy to put together. Would recommend

Morning all? Thanks for hosting today. Token 1 jumped straight into my head on seeing the excellent topic; being greedy with double metal! Silver Threads and Golden Needles by Linda Ronstadt, such a great song and I love her voice. youtu.be/flLoj5qxURw?...

Good morning again! First choice please and I feel I need to get in early. Token 1 Pretenders: BRASS In Pocket

OH is purging the drawers, including the one with all my old pairs of glasses. But… but… it’s my history, I cry 😭

We've been restoring things to the garage, and shifting other stuff around. This small case contains my kids' childhoods on mini DV tape... Not that we have anything to view them on. There are also a couple of cassettes of my band's recordings, dating from the 1980s

I’m very fond of unnamed Volkswagen teddy. He has survived several culls by my OH

Things on this season’s #TheTraitors I would have noped out on: The carousel spinny thing The running down a dam The climbing up a dam Anything involving boats and water Being in a box with the lid down

Getting strong Noel’s House Party vibes from these dangerous stunts #TheTraitors It’s all fun and games until someone gets killed and the show is cancelled

TIL that Desmond Morris is still alive (97)

I think Bob Mortimer explaining the rules of Theft and Shrubbery is probably the funniest thing that has ever been broadcast

Congrats to Beatles Books Podcast on making 100 – a brilliantly simple idea done simply briliantly. I'm pleased to have been part of it.

New Trisha Yearwood album klaxon

Classic Guardian: Here’s Why That Thing You Like Is Bad Next week: kittens www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Trisha Yearwood Mary Chapin Carpenter Tift Merritt Little Big Town Maria McKee