Edward Seago made many painting trips to Venice between the early 1930s and his final visit in 1960. This work is of the Fish Market or the Pescheria, through whose high arches we can just glimpse the Palazzo Foscari across the Grand Canal.

Serious face

Dancing, fishing, and splashing - a busy egret this morning.

Cygnet siblings in conversation.

A rather different 1939-45 war memorial in the church at Marlow

The missing half of this picture is a small boy about to throw a tennis ball. This is grandfatherly multitasking - simultaneously keeping said boy from under his grandmother's feet while she cooks, and having the dog entertained and exercised.

Various views of and from Old Sarum (see earlier repost of Constable's painting).

John Constable's watercolour of Old Sarum: an Iron Age hill fort, taken over by the Romans, before becoming the early medieval Salisbury. The site was abandoned when the city grew too big for the enclosure. #HillfortsWednesday #Constable #landscape #watercolour #medieval #Wiltshire

'Mevagissey, Cornwall.' (c1914) Like many female artists working at the beginning of the 20thC, Doris Zinkeisen’s work traversed the boundaries between fine and decorative art; she was one of the first artists to enter the Belsen camp in April 1945.

A rather different 1939-45 war memorial in the church at Marlow

Heron catches the early morning light.

Law books in seductive colours in the OUP library. I read one of those once, cover to cover, to write a review. The only other book I reviewed was by someone called @barristersecret.bsky.social. I wonder what became of them - still writing, do you think?

People want bungalows but developers can't get high margins from them. Next time a housebuilder gets out of their large car and whines to planners about margins, perhaps they should be given a bungalow quota as they are (or should be) with affordable housing before they get the planning permission

Christopher Nevinson's view of London was painted early one morning in 1943 from the rooftop of the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, and looks south-east towards the Palace of Westminster.

Heron catches the early morning light.

A selfie by the Sheldonian?

Stone and glass with flowers in between.

Nice story with a good point. I rather miss the days when our boys did gigs in pubs.

Memorial in Wadham to the "libertine poet" Earl of Rochester

This condones the intellectual piracy that ChatGPT is based upon, ignores user privacy, environmental impact of data centres and hallucinations that are embedded in LLM usage, and disregards the free training provided by users to further pirate intellectual copyright. I'd hate tutoring now.

Ardnamurchan sunset across the mouth of Loch Moidart (March 2025)

Autumn leaves.

That mental Ping! when you see the name of somewhere you had heard of only because it was mentioned by Flanders & Swann in "Slow Train". The station was closed in 1964. The castle looks rather fine.

Just as I was applauding the space left around the buildings in the "Observatory Quarter", they are going to cram one more big building onto the site.

Keeping an eye on us.

Uninvited post on Instagram from someone with 37k followers. "A normal day in London" as men steal bags, followed by a "Normal day in Dubai" with valuables untouched. Caption "London: fear". Who is this aimed at?

The area round the new Oxford University Humanities Building. From left, the Oxford University Press building (1830), the Blavatnik Building (2015), St Paul's Church (1864), the Humanities Building (2025). The Radcliffe Observatory is in the opposite corner.

I am left alone to check two parcels of secondhand stuff for children. The metal engines are easy enough, but I will leave it to others to test the Thomas the Tank Engine musical potty.

An actual quote from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’ Look forward to Wes S saying 'too often people go to hospital to have operations' or Heidi Alexander saying 'too often people go to the station to catch a train'

Cygnet with a silver bow wave.

The area round the new Oxford University Humanities Building. From left, the Oxford University Press building (1830), the Blavatnik Building (2015), St Paul's Church (1864), the Humanities Building (2025). The Radcliffe Observatory is in the opposite corner.

Cygnet with a silver bow wave.

Couple weeks ago, someone asked me if I could do a thread on “the pros and cons of painting brick”, so here is that thread! tl;dr: no, don’t do that

Journalists at press conferences seem to love asking compound questions. But politicians love them even more – the second a reporter asks a compound question (when they’ve got no follow up) you just address whichever bit of it you like best and ignore the rest.

Sometimes I wonder why so much of the world's greatest fantasy was written in Oxford (Alice, LotR, Narnia, His Dark Materials...). Then I look out of the window.

I've never looked properly at the reliefs on the Radcliffe Observatory. My favourites - a bull with his foot breaking out of the stone frame, and a young couple dancing or paddling in festive clothes - are particularly good.

What is the greatest scene where somebody walks? www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNTT...

Mealworms go in a small feeder in a quiet spot outside the kitchen window. I thought it would be safer than the more open places. We have just seen a sparrowhawk sitting beside it, patiently waiting for its breakfast to fly in. Gone before I could photograph it.

Flypast

Maria Caulfield - one who moaned about "15 minutes cities" whenever a council restricted motor traffic in any way. She'll feel at home, intellectually speaking, with Jenkyns, Dorries, and Anderson

Flypast

Who cares if it's raining? You've got work to do throwing my ball, and you don't get out of that by skulking under the trees.

The last, and my favourite, of a series of photographs of this fine fence-sitter.

Empty bike racks awaiting the opening of Oxford's new Humanities building. The Radcliffe Observatory sits at the end of the vista created by two newer buildings.

Empty bike racks awaiting the opening of Oxford's new Humanities building. The Radcliffe Observatory sits at the end of the vista created by two newer buildings.

I, for one, am supportive of the recent broadening of recruitment criteria for parking enforcement officers.

Sunday morning walk. I pick up rubbish, including a Jagermeister bottle whose top sticks out of the bag. I meet people I know, but only from social media. Afterwards, I realise that a liqueur bottle half-hidden in a bag might imply not merely a drinker but a secret drinker.

Pinned post for every UK academic in mid-September.

Running on water