#Lecce - so unwelcoming the churches have bouncers kitted out like riot police.

Top: me, gin and tonic in hand in #Lecce, #Puglia. Bottom: Thomas Jones (1742-1803) in #Naples. I suspect Thomas was G&T-less.

An awful decision. The King's Captain-General of the Royal Marines which served in Afghanistan alongside US troops. 60 were killed, 78 seriously injured. Something that Trump denies ever happened. That excrescence you call a President, #America, brings you deep shame. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Recalling all of those Sunday morning 'Letter from America' episodes (before my hearing made it difficult to hear that affable voice) it was a delight to get closer to #AlistairCooke through this. You should too. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Would it not just be cheaper, more productive and economically advantageous to #UAE, #Oman and the #US to create a 'Panama Canal of the Gulf', cut out #Iran from control of shipping and reduce the threat of other piracy? Happy to be told I'm talking nonsense and it's impossible.

Hey, western nations - we can do better than 'recession' for #Russia if we try. Full on sanctions now and you can tip it into a depression. www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/a...

The #NHS today: Routine blood test in January. Text from doctor: 'Worrying X, retest in Feb.' Test in Feb, text from doctor: 'Forget X, Y's too high, retest in March.' March test. Text from doctor: 'Z's too low, here's a prescription.' Test, test, test. Prescription. NO appointment, NO diagnosis.

When I was small the year was Gloom > Easter break > Birthday > Exams > Summer break > Gloom > Christmas. Now it is Snowdrops > Crocuses > Forsythia > Grass cutting > Rhododendrons > Borders/tubs >...

Watching this through tears. My parents both died *without* passing through #dementia. It must be so, so hard to watch your father or mother changed by it. If you are coping with this today, my heart goes out to you.💔

#Trumpflation hits Britain. BBC News - Faisal Islam: Iran war is having a dramatic effect on the UK economy - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Another terrific online exhibition, this one from #NationalMuseumOfWomenInTheArts (sadly not on BlueSky), that was entertaining and educational. I left if knowing more than when I came, which is all you can ask of good curation. nmwa.org/whats-on/exh...

Just catching up on #DirtyBusiness and...fuming. The lies, the duplicity, the scheming. #Privatisation of water was always a stupid, stupid idea, but add to it incompetent regulation by #Ofwat and...voila. An absolute national disgrace.

Doesn't it all sound like national decisions of moment being based on the 'good egg,' principle? Even when the egg in question was anything but? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

That #EricKennington #pastel portrait on #AntiquesRoadshow tonight is just about the best artwork they've ever shown.

Outstanding #Scotland against a really rattled France, racking up 50 points after constant pressure, first rate discipline and total commitment. Put a big smile on this Englishman's face watching brilliant rugby from an energetic, thinking team. 👍

Pure Edwardian joy. Bravo #JohnHannah. The Read, Series 4: The 39 Steps: The Read with John Hannah: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002rxp2 via @bbciplayer

Absolutely brilliant. #IanMcKellen and #AnnabelSmith bring the taped interviews to life brilliant. #Lowry comes across as a dutiful Edwardian lost in time. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Might the #BBCNews editors encourage their writers for the news website to use more measured language? Until changed a report said a drone 'crashed into' a UK base in Cyprus. There are families of service personnel reading your reports, BBC. Accuracy please. You're not writing for effect.

Watching the #BBCNews channel and somehow in the fog of war isn't #LyseDoucet admirable? Always factual, always measured, always objective. An ideal correspondent.

Appalling delivery by a shoddy #EVRI deliverer: literally in the street outside the house. Pathetic.

The @museodelprado.es #Mengs exhibition looks to have been incredibly solid - scholarly, entertaining, unexpected. He's an extraordinary talent who, from Rome, shaped so much of northern Europe's enlightenment art. www.museodelprado.es/en/resource/...

'As I reflect on the auditorium, I remember there was a microphone just in front of me, and with hindsight I have to question whether this was wise, so close to where I was seated, knowing I would tic.' Extraordinary BBC. Just wow. You *aimed* to catch his tics? variety.com/2026/film/aw...

Shocked at how little coverage there has been about police arresting Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.

#BBCNews sounds like, 'Beverly Scuttlebutt, can you speculate for us on whether Andrew Mountbatten Windsor will have fresh socks delivered to him at the police station?' It is all filling for the fact...they know nothing.

Morning after the #ValentinesDay dinner before, and the tell-tale remnants of #mussel guzzling excess. (Try mussels in cream, leek, whisky!) Main course of monkfish in ginger was held off for today, the dessert wolfed down with G&Ts. Thank you, my bungo, for a lovely evening 💝💋.

#Putin is unusually cruel, sinister and evil. Who knew. eh? Stop playing with this monster and #Russia. Massive #sanctions now. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Struggling to identify the #artist who made this #20thcentury #etching. British, framed in a 1930s frame and signed 'DS 36'. Ideas welcomed!

Watching #AnthonyHopkins in #OneLife, having never thought to hear echoes from the late 1930s in our own times - but here we are with #ICE in the US and a whole cast of little Hitlers around the world intending to copy them.

An extraordinary collection - and a genuinely personal aesthetic at the heart of it. That Claude Lovat Fraser, those G F. Watts drawings...all jewels. Some collectors are truly creative in assembling their collections, like this chap. www.olympiaauctions.com/auction/sear...

Art at $23m per foot... BBC News - Newly discovered Michelangelo foot sketch sells for £16.9m www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Gambling again? They never learn. (Seen near Runfold Nature Reserve).

Well I tried...

Something's very wrong in the #ChurchOfEngland (and no I don't mean women bishops, which is absolutely right). But Bishops judging each other simply cannot be right. Here there is even an interest in the judgement! What's that old tag, 'to be rather than to seem'? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'd not seen this 1960s black and white drama documentary before. It's brilliant. It captures the brutality, grimness and ugliness of 18th century armies and the overwhelming disaster for the clans that was #Culloden. The 'actors' are ordinary folk from #Inverness. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

TRUMP: I invented electricity. did it one day, turned on a lamp and a scientist gasped and said wow how did you do that and I said I just flicked a switch and he started crying and saying "sir you've just saved Africa from ebola" BBC NEWS: a sober reflection on healthcare from the President

It's October 1793 and the King of #Denmark is defending the rights of his country in the face of #GeorgeIII trying to strong-arm him out of neutrality. I can't think why this struck a chord today. (London Chronicle, October 12th 1793). #18thc #18thcentury

#Medievalism in the #18thcentury: #QueenAnne (the last regular 'Monarch's Touch' adherent) calls off applications to receive The Touch (London Gazette May 29th 1707). #18c

Why is the #UNSecurityCouncil not in session? Why is the #UN General Assembly no censuring the US for threats to #Greenland? And why are we all acting as if this orange pillock's actions are normal?

Pretty much where we're heading under #Trump, #Xi and #Putin. The #EU musn't let this happen, #Africa has to assert itself and its destiny, and Latin America needs to stop propping up crypto-fascist dictators who fall in line.

Lots of 'Burneyana', as it were, coming up for sale at Mallams on Oxford this month. #FannyBurney fans will see the admiration for their ancestor of family members in 1902. #18thc #18thcentury www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

#MincePies: better in January than December. Always.

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.

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

Multi-tasking, 19th century style.

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

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