History has lured me here – a lining of moss on a crumbling log. This year, I'm hoping to release a 3-pamphlet sequence of haibun with @longbarrowpress.bsky.social. It has a Covid-19 theme, lockdown-restricted walking/writing process, & illustrations by my partner, Ruth. #HaveYouAlwaysBeenHere?

Rereading Autumn Journal. It’s never the *wrong* time, but right now, the shifts between reflections on everyday life, how the Ashes are going, domestic politics and a brewing storm in international relations feel uncomfortably topical.

Article about board game cafés in #Sheffield: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... We’ve been to Treehouse a few times (with our children, or as a date night): it’s a great space and a good way to try out a variety of games…

Best day of the year so far!

Really good post about the cancelled (sorry: ‘postponed’) Leeds tram. My question (that I don’t know enough to anwer but @tomforth.co.uk might) is: what can we learn from the Sheffield Supertram to inform thinking re the Leeds tram? (re likely success, risks, how to make it happen etc).

Did last DIY job of the year (fixing a replacement toilet seat) and had a successful rummage in the attic for the MacNeice Collected Poems (which I’ve tried and failed to find several times). So: Happy loo(uis) year!

I) Be stubborn. Be pigheaded. It's your art. Also read a lot. I mean, a LOT. Now, go write.

Hate freeloaders who join in the New Year's Eve countdown for the last 10 seconds. I've been doing this all year. Where were you back in May

"New Year is nothing more than the continuation of Xmas festivities by other means." -- Santaclausewitz

“Creating and then controlling complexity is a sign of human power” - Steven Kyffin (former dean of design and pro vice-chancellor at Northumbria University (alma mater of button-obsessed Sir Jonny Ive). From here: www.wired.com/story/why-ca...

In 1878 Edward Muybridge recorded "the horse in motion," the first motion picture ever made, and every single moment since then has been leading to this

Every time I see one of these maps, with its blue line passing close(ish) to my house, I think ‘I really should have ordered something, to make the most of the walk’…

One of our family traditions is giving our children ’charity presents’ on Christmas Eve (i.e. a donation to a charity on their behalf). Nothing huge, but a symbolic reminder to think of others first and to share.

Uh oh, the YouGov Christmas tracker has taken a turn in the wrong direction. This and more serious stuff in The Week in Polls, 6pm Sunday. Sign up here: theweekinpolls.substack.com

Holidays have started… (yes, this is me catching myself being characteristically ridiculous).

I was saddened to learn of the recent death of Richard Meier, winner of the inaugural Picador Poetry Prize in 2010. He was the author of three collections - his most recent ‘After the Miracle’ came out this year: happenstancepress.com/index.php/co... A fine man and a fine poet. #Poetry

Leeds being promised a tram…

The idea that mass transit is unaffordable in a modern economy is like saying shoes are unaffordable in a modern job. (Yes, times are hard: but you’re going to earn more with shoes than without them). But the government’s priority is growth, apparently.

Which will happen first: a) A space elevator b) A Leeds tram? I despair at the unseriousness of this country sometimes. Major cities without mass transit should be as unthinkable as major cities without sewers.

@robin.cantrill-fenwick.uk Cracking piece on AP. ‘Mark Anthony’ wasn’t the only line which had me laughing out loud…

The Hodge Report. Ooof. Where to begin …

Thank you to Lisa Nandy and the Department for Culture Media and Sport for publishing the Independent Review of the Arts Council today, and to Baroness Margaret Hodge and team for conducting the Review. Access the Review: buff.ly/5rqvntF Read our initial response: buff.ly/zPisSAk

To me it’s just confirmation bias. Like that time I wanted to believe people want to be alone on xmas day (since I come from a huge family), completely ignoring Home Alone being a xmas movie. This google trend certainly confirmed my belief. I learned later my tweet/bias got cited in a stats course 😆

Happy birthday to Jane Austen, and to this very on-brand Economist chart www.economist.com/christmas-sp...

Had my 11y/o literally curled up, rocking in a corner after I pointed out the hidden complexity of the verb ‘to be’… #ExistentialistLifeGoals

Ridiculous format…

The prospect of a FIFA peace prize, ridiculous as it is, does at least suggest the possibility of a Nobel Academy World Cup… (which would surely have a structure that would make more sporting sense than FIFA’s current 48-team model).

🎁 Please forget the mug, and ditch the novelty tat which ends up in landfill. This year, put your money where the music is. A £10 Secret Santa budget is a gig ticket. A real night out, and an experience that somebody might not have had.

Mishearing the words 'the big Heaney book', my wife formed the impression that the large tome I was studying was something called 'the bikini book'.

Re increased mental health diagnosis: Could one factor be that diagnostic approaches (rightly) take into account prevalence of a condition? If more people *have* mental health problems, then a given set of symptoms/tests are more likely to *indicate* mental health problems (b/c Bayes).

Given all these fruitless accusations, rather than resign, Reeves should claim a draw, based on threefold repetition…

…although if they’ve been following the #Ashes, it’ll probably be over by tea on day 2…

“The National AIDS Memorial, through a partnership with the AIDS Quilt Touch team, presents all 50,000 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in an interactive experience so people around the world can experience the beauty of the Quilt and witness the love and stories stitched into each panel.”

Huge fan of the classic understatement on this recreated vintage poster

My cartoon for this week’s New Scientist. p.s. I have a new book of science cartoons: www.tomgauld.com/comic-books-v2

Tynan on Stoppard: a long, rich and wide-ranging read…

I remember going on a school trip to see Stoppard’s Arcadia. Most of the group, as I recall, were baffled and somewhat irritated by it: “what was _that_…?!” But for a few of us, we came out fizzing with excitement at the mental stimulation and new possibilities: “what _was_ that…?!”.

Just took Coast of Utopia down from the shelf. May we live up to it.

One of my colleagues went to a seminar at Berkeley and when someone asked a question Derrida brushed it off saying ‘what you ask may be important but it is not interesting’.

My guess is it’s the skeletal remains of the patella from a troll-like creature, finally explaining the etymology of ‘Orkney’…

Any assessment of Budget impact on households which doesn’t include what tax is spent on* (as well as what tax is raised) seems pretty pointless to me. (*and not just re benefits/tax credits etc).

Milne is in the spotlight thanks to some amazing reporting from The Sheffield Tribune: buff.ly/8ZTPmDL

Finally got round to giving @benansell.bsky.social's latest. It's also one of his very best - especially if you want to understand the extent to which Reform voters (often talked of as 'the people' and, apparently therefore, representative of all UK voters) are real outliers, culturally-speaking.

I thought this series was insightful and sensitively made, with some evocative anchoring images (and poetical in its approach as a result). Well worth watching…

Oh, and info enviroment really matters and you have to actively fight and do things to improve that.

steve smith, you scored 17 on your specialist subject, "getting hit by jofra archer"

Microsoft: “we have cutting edge smart technology that will transform how the world works”. Also Microsoft: “We have no way of knowing whether a British person, based in Britain, using British English spelling is actually just consistently spelling American English wrong.”

Usually I find it liberating not being followed on here by any family members, but… Yes: this, please. (Sighs and adds it to the list to buy myself after Christmas).

Worth snapping up if there’s only a few left: would also make a good present for anyone who likes walking/the outdoors (or just really good poetry).