Light blue = #Greenland on the Mercator projection, or what #Trump and #MAGA *thinks* he's going to take. Dark blue= the *actual* size of Greenland and what all that hot air is about. A bit like the difference between Trump's grandiose claims to intelligence and the pathetic reality, in fact.

#MincePies: better in January than December. Always.

Lovely little programme of @robsongreen.bsky.social with #KTTunstall in the wonderful #EastNeuk. A joyous watch. Robson Green's Weekend Escapes, Series 4: 4. KT Tunstall: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002pht0 via @bbciplayer

'For Starmer, “the Labour party is a PowerPoint presentation, or it is nothing”.' Exactly right: zero strategy, just reactions, no explication, just...Powerpoint politics. Can he not *see* this? I'm not even a Labour supporter and *I* feel embarrassed for them!

What if #Denmark now unilaterally declared that it would share sovereignty over #Greenland and #Nunavut as one territory with #Canada? The US President would be invading #Canada if he landed troops. Even the most fevered, light-of-brain #MAGA -types would think he was insane.

The #LucyWorsley Murder Club thing seems rather thin - supposition upon supposition (with a good smattering of modern day tut-tutting at Victorian morals) builds something that is called a 'case'. No worse than the innumerable 'X was Jack the Ripper' documentaries, possibly, but certainly no better.

Gosh #USA, on the other side of this maniacal administration you've *got* to overhaul your Constitution. Limit Presidential power - no packing the SC with their own, no pardon powers, reduced scope for Executive Orders and more. Your Constitution won't survive much more of this.

This delightful #watercolour is attributed to John Brompton Cuming (1772-1851), who entered the RA Schools in 1790. #18thcentury

Multi-tasking, 19th century style.

When you're waiting for a focus group to show you what to think... BBC News - Starmer won't be drawn on whether US strikes on Venezuela broke international law www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

If the UN Security Council and/or General Assembly aren't in session to condemn #Trump actions on #Veneluela, he'll keep going. Stop this insane toddler before we all go to hell in a handcart.

Watching the #ChristmasUniversityChallenge match between, apparently, UCL and Frank Cottrell-Boyce.

Cheering on #MiddlesexUniversity in the Christmas #UniversityChallenge!

Watching this for the first time in years and...I can't stop laughing. #BenMiller, #AlisonSteadman and crew were in devastating form. Just open a bottle, sit back and enjoy. m.imdb.com/title/tt0401...

#BoxingDay walk near #Wokingham

Let me say this here as insurance that I never seek a visa to travel to #MAGA -land: #DonaldTrump is a pathetic corrupt whiny child with all the appeal of a sewage farm and less intelligence than a brick. There you go, #HomelandSecurity.

To @royalholloway.bsky.social tonight for @bracknellchoral.bsky.social #Christmas concert. Pure joy.

A small glimpse into a Victorian life in Wales. This Directory is inscribed 'Jas. Devereaux, No. 14 Townhill, Mt. Pleasant, Swanse[a]. If found please return And you will be rewarded'.

That's it. My long love affair with #highereducation ended here at Middlesex University yesterday - with 46 years in between of fun, challenge and periodic sector crises. I'm off now to semi-retirement. #Universities, you're really very special places. Good wishes from me for your future.

Should be open and shut: how on earth can you possibly defame Donald Trump? BBC News - Trump files $5bn defamation lawsuit against BBC over Panorama speech edit www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How convenient. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🎶 At a winter #Advent Service We've just sung appalling rhyme, While the metre of each carol Has this structure every time. Wesley is the worst offender, Lo! His rhymes are, truth to tell, Not just laboured but confounding And to sing they're simply hell.🎶

It's #StAndrewsDay dinner in oor hoos, jus' the noo! Predictably we've haggis, neeps and tatties with copius amounts of rich red wine. If you ever wondered 'why the #Saltire?' wonder no more. Catherine has her wheel, Stephen has his stones and poor old Andrew has...this.

#Wokingham Winter Carnival was lively, lots of excellent local charities to support - and (middle right) I won a bear, 'brother' of son's old bear we could never part with. He's now got a friend!

Really not sure about this at all. Cults don't have moments of enlightenment, they go to the end. Witless MAGA folk are not going to abandon him.

I know #quietquitting is a thing in the workplace these days, but our #innovation system's doing it. See the UK slide further down the #GlobalInnovationIndex in 2025.

Naturally. Everything costs more here: infrastructure, energy... BBC News - UK 'world's most expensive place' to develop nuclear power www.bbc.com/news/article...

If you work with the guy the famous #Trump irascibility must be a pain. From nowhere he might threaten Cornish pasty makers, Bulgaria, cheese, elephants, invading Greece or sacking people whose first names start with P.

Art in galleries doesn't need 'contextual notes' beside it.

Re #CovidInquiry, by the way, somebody needs to say it: thank you Baroness Hallett for digesting and synthesizing so much evidence and so many submissions, and producing a thorough 800 page report. The UK needed this, and you delivered for us.

The #CovidInquiry report talks of February 2020 as a 'lost month'. I *distinctly* remember overhearing, on a train out of London in early Feb 2020, a panicky phone conversation about a woman who'd returned to the UK from Vietnam with 'the Wuhan thing' and how she was to be treated. They knew.

Coming up on the 25th in France is this sober portrait by Boilly. www.interencheres.com/en/art-decor...

You know, I'm getting the impression this #MorganMcSweeney chappy may not be a genius after all.... BBC News - 'Head in hands': Labour ministers fume at No 10's self-inflicted chaos - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What a ridiculous man. What a ridiculous country to worship him. BBC News - Trump says he will take legal action against BBC over Panorama edit www.bbc.com/news/article...

Revelling in #HaymansWay from #STV - stunning, stirring north of #Scotland landscapes that leave you in awe and wonder. Genuinely beautiful television.

There's a bleak strand of #conservatism that relishes misery as virtue. They are very odd people. And if you *really* wanted to make your council more efficient you'd tell everyone to work from home and sell the offices. Being conservatives, to your mates probably. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Re #Trump and the BBC, threatening billion dollar suits is what this appalling man does, regularly. The BBC edits on Panorama *were* disgraceful. The BBC has apologised, heads have rolled. Probably more should. That ought to be an end to it. The idea his reputation is affected is laughable.

Yes the #Trump edits were wrong and frankly disgraceful journalism (they needn't have spliced, just made clear what the wouldbe dictator and anti-democrat meant, which was plain enough) but...the DG and Head of News sucking up to the Orange Idiot by *resigning*? Nuts.

Let me just say here how very, very much I loathe, hate, oppose and detest the #ASDA Christmas advert. Message ends...

Watching #TomHanks in #AManCalledOtto - which I missed when it first came out - and it is just brilliant, isn't it? The man's a brilliant actor.

Received with a bundle of minor prints was this tired old election poster from 1859 from one Thonas Hawkins. The line 'I smote the dogs of faction dumb' is wonderful.

Go to the BBC website - the big buddies of #Reform - and search for stories about the party. This is what you get. I haven't edited out anything. It isn't a party. It's a bad joke.

Any thoughts on who signed a pastel drawing like this in 1927? Struggling to read the name - likely a French artist or resident in France.

Brilliant little wine bar. Pure joy - good wine, good cheese, charcuterie, good quiet ambiance. And it is in #Venice. Joy multiplied. www.lasetevenezia.com

'A report from His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service said 262 prisoners in England and Wales were released in error between April 2024 and March 2025'. Good grief. www.bbc.com/news/article...

As a teenager I loved these and other #BryanMagee programmes - two #philosophers discussing complex, important ideas. No shouting. No intrusive graphics. No 'celebs'. No faux competition. We were trusted with difficulty. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002kx5p via @bbciplayer

The old 'keep them guessing' game - showing 'delayed' at the station but *actually* 'cancelled'. #Train companies, just stop lying.

Clearly #London is so crime free, with no white collar fraud, no corporate crime, no gang violence, no robbery and no thuggery that the authorities can deal with the *real* menace in our capital - the coffee dregs disposal fiends. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

Question about #AI: We know some #AItools 'hallucinate' sources, but could an #AIengine go further and cover tracks by creating those (erroneous) sources to 'make' something true?