My friend sat on a plane this week next to Tony Blackburn (legend!). He was friendly but "his wife was giving me evils" 🤣

Daughter has discovered the amazing queer history of the Greenham women. And suddenly my experience of the protests is interesting to her 😆

The Secret Agent is a BRILLIANT film

This has made my day

An elderly gentleman in Tesco asking me to help him find pizza with pineapple. Of course I refused. To save him from himself 🤣

Excellent quote from Gertrude Jekyll

Human-made cryptic crosswords. Printed on paper and posted to you by a human. £5 an issue. unchcrosswords.com

A Common Redshank feeding in saltmarsh mud today at Rye Harbour and it catches a large Ragworm. Video taken at high frame rate, so is shown at a quarter speed. #redshank @sussexwildlife.bsky.social

Who was doing the massive research project on Greenham Women? It was in The Other Place I know but are you here too?

There was a fascinating discussion earlier in the week about people dying from everything pre antibiotics. @gregjenner.bsky.social was saying various kings died of ear infections. I wanted to share this heartbreaking 12 metal graves for babies & children from one couple 😥

I think this Blue Tit says it for all of us - welcome sunshine! (Yes, we know it's false spring, but the sun is still LOVELY). 📸 Richard Illingworth

People playing backgammon outside Nero. How European & delightful

Oh Pottery Throwdown is very emotional this week. The self sculptures.

Prettiest morning for a long time

London Fish Dinner at 275, Strand in 1884 (Opposite W.H. Smith & Son’s)

It’s the 490th anniversary of the birth of Pope Clement VIII, who in 1600, on being advised to ban coffee, asked to inspect “Satan’s drink” and pronounced it “so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it”. According to legend, at least... 🧵

Joan Crawford asks her assistant to bite off a loose thread from her dress at the Dorchester Hotel, London, July 1956 - photograph by Thurston Hopkins.

Next book.

CHICKEN IN A BASKET

Is it just me that finds Marmite to be a naughty condiment? I'm terrible at putting lids on properly so it's almost certainly me but I end up with it getting everywhere.

Never really interested in princesses growing up. My heroines were Valerie Singleton & Suzi Quattro. Pretty damn fine choices quite frankly.

It's stopped raining for a moment (miracle!) so I've scampered outside. EVERYONE I've walked past has beamed at me. The joy of dry I guess.

Just asking my aunt for Lancastrian slang from her granny for a thing. She's just mentioned "doolally tap" for bonkers. Anyone else familiar with that?

Reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. What an absolutely remarkable person Judith Kerr was.

I'll join the folk on my timeline. My grandfather was a Catholic priest. I've not got any time for the church as a rule. But this guy? Good work.

Come on you spring!

This is absolute gold

Birthday Remembrance for the talented and wonderful Alan Rickman … Always ❤️ His glorious voice transformed every line he spoke into something more. Dearly missed.

Poignant. My parents weren't sad when any of the 4 of us left home tho. Gleeful? Not far from. They moved house when I was at uni. And didn't tell me. Yup. They thought it was hilarious www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

The Animals outside the Rising Sun pub in Tottenham Court Road - London, 1964

A fantastic post from the Museum fo English Rural Life about one of our early writers. We're so pleased to see E.M. Barraud getting this recognition! Do give the article a read!

Ooh, Finger Princess. The person who asks questions in WhatsApp groups when they could get the answer themselves. Oh yes. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Normally switch off the moment Jeremy Vine's idiot listeners call in. But the monarchists spluttering about the Mountbatten-Windsor disgrace is actually quite funny

I'm looking up rehoming charity for flat coat retrievers. Cat must never know

No Other Choice is a very good film

Name 2 characters from different franchises who would be friends

Olympic athletes, some of whom are teenagers, are held to a higher level of expected maturity than the most powerful man in the world.

I love that he & Maggie Smith were mates & that her portrayal of the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton, amounts to “Lady Bracknell as played in drag by Williams”.

Experience: I’m the last traditional clog maker in England

Winning the 'Deep Space' category in the 2025/26 Astrophotography Competition was Jellyfish Nebula, by Nigel Stanbury, showing the remains of a supernova located 5,000 light years away. Congratulations Nigel - a stellar shot! 🤩

Landscape photographer Ansel Adams was born on this day in 1902. 🖤🤍 📷 Vernal Falls at California's Yosemite National Park, 1938

oh ok then

I've got Danish friends. I love the Danes. But I deeply resent them not being fucked up about sex 🤣 www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Sight loss folk. I'm including a piece about birdwatching with sight loss in something. "Bird watching" feels insensitive (although appreciate many have partial sight loss). Is there a better phrase please? @jothehat.bsky.social @wyrd.systems

When I was yoof, I found Stay Now by Hazel O'Connor to be such a tense, relatable song.

The punting around the carpark in Small Prophets is absolutely joyous

Just through from niece. Kitten in the office alert!

New to cooking leeks by blackening them whole then peeling outside layer off. It's easy and brilliant

Hmmm. Been having the most awful headaches associated with trying to wear the hearing aids. Discovered yesterday that - this is a common neurodivergent thing. My brain feels assaulted by them & I need to use them in tiny doses & build up. I do wish the NHS knew to tell me this