If hotels insist on heating your room like a sauna, they really should give you a way to cool it down. A non-functioning thermostat isn't good enough.

Dalton Passage #AlphabetChallenge #ThemeWeek #WeekAForAlleyways #WeekGForGinnels

My parents have both been conference stewards for years - it works well for them.

From 1939: Women can have it all: be slim, elegant, feminine AND do a man's job. Just add Rose's lime juice to your gin.

George: Can I stay at yours tonight? My bastard parents have kicked me out for no reason. Brad: Er, no problem mate, grab the sofa. Don't worry if you hear any noises from my room, I'm thinking of watching a David Attenborough programme about hyenas. #TheArchers

Romania, an EU country, is getting richer. The UK, outside the EU, is struggling.

Who wouldn't want boot polish for Christmas?

Pink elephant #AlphabetChallenge #ThemesWeek #WeekNForNight

I missed #AlphabetChallenge off this post. #ThemeWeek #WeekAForAbandoned

Entrance and access for prams #ThemesWeek #WeekAForAbandoned

Well done Detective Brad - hopefully he'll solve the case and get the girl. Ed, meanwhile, shows its not just abused partners who can end up making excuses for their abuser. #TheArchers

Share a great female villain

My theory is potential Reform voters are less likely to follow politics, which makes it harder to get them (hence Farage spending years achieving little) but also harder to lose them once captured.

An interesting area, and I think there are two reasons to cap, not ban, donations. 1. Voters don't like state funding of political parties, and why take money away from other priorities. 2. The ability to raise money is, to an extent, information about competence that's useful for voters to know.

It's taken the challenge of a Doctor Who jigsaw for me to appreciate just how many Whovian monsters are, essentially, grey.

So many plans #AlphabetChallenge #WeekZForZero

I heard a trailer for a show with the tagline "celebrate the anarchy" and my first thought was "I'll be dead in the ground before I celebrate that bastard Stephen stealing the throne from Matilda." Too soon, trailer makers. Too soon.

I'm looking forward to this now - tickets are selling fast though. www.fane.co.uk/the-archers #TheArchers

Shapes and shadows #BlueSkyArtShow #Photography

Anyone done a cumulative cost of how much the UK has spent on the work done for Leeds not to have a Tram in the years between 1980 and 2025. My back of an envelope call is about £1Bn ……. And that doesn’t include the opportunity costs and lost economic benefits

This is nonsense. In the UK, tree cover increased massively in the 20th century and continues to do so today. It is entirely possible to have a capitalist system that values forests.

I'm enjoying this new 50-over-two-innings cricket format, especially when England win.

Lock 90 #AlphabetChallenge #WeekZForZero

When I type "massive" my phone suggests grave, dick or thank as the next word, which feels less helpful than I'd like.

£4.4s is £130 today, which seems like an insane amount of money to spend on a lighter, and must say something about what people valued at that time.

The great thing about being a vampire on TV or film is that you get to talk like, and have all the cultural references for, the age you appear to be, not the age you actually are. There is no explanation for this, it's just the way it works.

I'm not sure George has entirely grasped the reality of being out *on licence* #TheArchers

In the news a century ago: HMS Rodney, one of the world's largest battleships, launches from Birkenhead, witnessed by 20,000 people. HMS Rodney entered service in 1928, served in peacetime and through WWII, playing a key role in sinking the Bismark in 1941. The ship was decommissioned in 1948.

The story above it is a Victorian bet: Mr Burke wagered he could drive a pony from Bedford to London, back to Bedford then back to London (150 miles) in two days, and faster than the coach. He failed when the pony died at Shefford on the second leg. The Leeds Intelligencer was not impressed.

Merry Christmas one and all (except for the person who just blocked me on Christmas Day ffs). To celebrate. here's an early review of A Christmas Carol, just four days after publication of the novella and appearing in the Leeds Intelligencer. It's just above a story about foreign yeast.

Jolene: I know what would make you feel better, my love. How about we spice things up in the bedroom and try doing it doggy-style. * Kenton runs from the room in terror * #TheArchers

There's enough information in this picture to pinpoint exactly which building in the world it is. #AlphabetChallenge #WeekZForZero

What does it say about Kenton and Jolene's relationship that, given the opportunity to spend some rare private time together doing whatever they wanted, they preferred to hang around in The Bull #TheArchers

Merry Christmas one and all (except for the person who just blocked me on Christmas Day ffs). To celebrate. here's an early review of A Christmas Carol, just four days after publication of the novella and appearing in the Leeds Intelligencer. It's just above a story about foreign yeast.

Monkey Cage 11am Radio 4 Christmas Day

So this is sort of lovely. My VPN connects through the Netherlands so I get their adverts on podcasts. One ad is in English for shopify.nl. It's spoken by a woman with modern RP...except she says "photo" in a broad North East accent, and it turns a dull advert into one I always enjoy.

"How can so many people support Reform UK?" they ask.

Nothing from Oasis, Blur, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam or the Manics is in the top 20 highest-selling singles of the 1990s. Robson and Jerome's cover of Unchained Melody is number 2. Barbie Girl by Aqua is number 4. Teletubbies say eh-oh is number 18. People are terrible.

Some lovely Christmas Eve brutalism for #WindowsOnWednesday - Stopford House, a Stockport Council office building. John Simm jumped off the top of Stopford House at the end of Life on Mars. #Photography #MonoChrome #Brutalism #EastCoastKin

An EV charger that makes recharging an electric car as fast, or faster, than refueling a petrol/diesel car.

2000 AD - and no Judge Dredd in sight #AlphabetChallenge #WeekZForZero

And of course the BBC is missing the statement against the LibDems… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

the children's homes and foster care business; reforming public inquiries; misusing AI in the classroom; the enslaved woman who fled Virginia for the North East of England; Christmas in the Victorian era; when Oxfordshire had its own road signs

George comes from a bad family, but you might not realise just how depraved they are...in 1993 Susan Carter said the word "bloody". #TheArchers

The way successive governments have treated Leeds and Bradford is nothing short of a disgrace, and the country is poorer is a result of their failures. We can't change the past, but Labour could reverse its decision and give a Leeds-Bradford tram the green light to power ahead.

Poor George: Fallon came to talk to him (with a possible job) and so he's the victim when he told Fallon he wished he'd let her die. #TheArchers

"Why don't you like to be touched?" "Because I'm fifty shades of sausage roll, Anastasia” #LadBabyBook

After cycle infrastructure improvements were introduced, cycle counters were installed on Oxford Road, Manchester that went up to 500,000 trips a year. That was fine for a few years, but then they had to recalibrate it to 750,000. Now cycling figures have blown past that, and they need 1,000,000.

The Liberal Democrats held 82% of seats they defended in Council By-Elections in 2025 #ByElectionsWrapped 1) LDM (82%) 2) GRN (67%) 3) RFM (60%) 4) CON (32%) 5) LAB (28%)

Maybe best not to wear a skirt if this is your workplace.