One interpretation of Radegast's name seems to be "the one who takes good care of guests", which does raise questions about the standards of hospitality among Slavic gods. Basil Fawlty would have been impressed.

@manchestermill.bsky.social doing some proper reporting while the MEN's coverage is sorely lacking. But I did have a dark laugh at the highlighted bit. Thuggery and stupidity go fist in fist.

I know some people are cynical about everything now and just say “eh, what do you expect” at every new low, but really this is just astonishing and outrageous, and I don’t think we should shrug at that www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Has anyone run any analysis of the social media presence of the members of the House of Lords who voted in favour (or against) the legislation banning under-16s from social media?

When I asked Dr. Jonathan Reiner about Trump's chronic hand bruising he said the White House's claim that it was the result of aspirin therapy and hand shaking "is not a plausible explanation. (Particularly if he also has bruises on his left hand).” Welp, here are visible bruises on his left hand:

My brother fought in the infantry and lost soldiers in Afghanistan. The press used to report deaths before families had been told and I would check my phone over and over, scared it would ring. I went to the inquest of one of his killed men. I saw his red-eyed parents, girlfriend and baby daughter.

A bit of the Trump / Greenland thing that I don't understand is about "owning" Greenland. Do countries actually "own" their territories? Is that the right word? I mean, I have bought my house, and own the freehold. Its my house and my land. The British government doesn't "own" it. 1/

🎙️ Looking for Scottish Gaelic voice actors for paid work on a small indie horror game set in the Highlands. 1 female role (~12 lines) 2 male roles (~5 & ~50 lines) Remote recording OK. DMs open or share if you know someone! Tapadh leibh #gamedev #horrorgame store.steampowered.com/app/4224960/...

Then they came for the children.

I'm reasonably sure there is a Scots word for this specific activity. www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow...

To snatch a five year old carrying a school bag from the street and tell the parents nothing as you send that child to a prison thousands of kilometres away is unalloyed evil. Every person in this chain of command should be prosecuted. Every single one. They have to be.

Its interesting that Publishing Scotland would promote this. There are no Large Language Models that are trained exclusively on Scottish Standard English, so the use of LLM implicitly minoritises the Scottish variety of English, in favour of British English.

Secondary teachers! Luikin fir resources tae support the teachin o the Scots Language Award at Levels 5 an 6? Hae a swatch at oor resources that will help lairners demonstrate their unnerstaunin o audience, purpose, an linguistic features - aw yaisin multimedia texts that ir FREE! bit.ly/SLA5and6

I'm not sure what to do with this. The other month there was controversy about the proportion of Glasgow schoolies who had English as a second language. I sent a FoI to find out how this information was collected. www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/scho...

I think what bugs me most is that its just generic tripe. There's nothing behind it, no local connection, no recognised artist, no whimsical wordplay. Even the composition is just "generic stuff in any order" Why is the man bigger than the train. Why is the train bigger than the mountains?

So today's story about the proposed AI-slop mural in Glasgow is the same sort of thing as my BlueSky thread yesterday about how AI-assistants like ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini don't default to Scottish Standard English unless compelled to. bsky.app/profile/illa...

Looks like Blamore Estates are planning to paint a giant AI-slop mural in on a building in Glasgow for some reason. www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/scottis...

‘self harm content’ she was fucking murdered

Suppose, hypothetically a Scottish university had a similar arrangement to the University of Manchester, where everyone gets Copilot and Copilot training, and then it was found that Copilot wasn't accurately communicating in Scottish Standard English, but instead was forcing British Standard English

"This is gold star indie-pop..." Four stars for @thejustjoans.bsky.social's new album Romantic Visions of Scotland, out on Friday via @fikarecordings.com www.theskinny.co.uk/music/review...

No YOU hacked together a shit drawing program, so you could use it to draw a loading screen to game that doesn't exist, that you imagined existed, whilst nosing at books in the library

The problem is that Trump doesn't understand the concept of "independent". To him its all linked, its all favours and horse-trading. He thinks Norwegian PM is getting something out of the Nobel committee for insisting that it is independent, and if he isn't then he should be.

This is interesting, the number of cloned car number plates reported to the DVLA in the UK has doubled over the five years. www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/clon... Considering how difficult the DVLA make it to report this things, the number is likely to be far higher.

The whole thing is alarming, alarming, but what is the end game? Are they really crafting a society where every citizen must present their papers please to armed thugs every day, and be arrested and subsequently released every day?

How much more in your face can it be? "Why are you asking me for my paperwork?" "Because of your accent." "You have an accent too." "Where were you born sir?" "Where were you born at?" "Put your hands behind your back."

Nice write up in Herald of @islaratcliff.bsky.social new album. Pity the sub editors changed "Meltin o the Snaw" to "Melton o the Swan" !! www.heraldscotland.com/news/2576289...

Over on that Facebook there's a wee discussion about Scottish Standard English, the variety of English used in Scottish (as distinct from the Scots language). Its like the way American English is the variety of English used in America, you don't get people over there speaking British English. 1/

I'm supposed to be working on a Doric frequency dictionary, but getting distracted compiling a Scottish Standard English frequency dictionary.

Counterpoint: "Weaponizing" a car in the US is a protected right under the Second Amendment.

I could be onto something here. In the Scotsman newspaper, it seems "outwith" is only used if its verbatim from another source. Alternatively the Edinburgh News uses it natively from the reporters' hand. This makes me think the "British subeditor" theory is correct.

Over on that Facebook there's a wee discussion about Scottish Standard English, the variety of English used in Scottish (as distinct from the Scots language). Its like the way American English is the variety of English used in America, you don't get people over there speaking British English. 1/

The Glencairn Glass/Bloody Scotland Short Story Competition is open for submissions. Full details about the competition and the online entry form can be found at: whiskyglass.com/crime-short-...

Explain to me like I'm five what the 2nd Amendment is for if not for this. King George III never said anything this obnoxious or deliberately inflammatory.

🎯🎯

This is the gentle humorous take on an office frustration that I quite enjoy.

Its neat that each colour phosphor dot has its own blur. So when you're designing sprites, there's an art to it. Its not just square pixels of a solid colour, there's glows to each pixel that have to be managed.

I've added another book to the reddit ScotsBookClub, with almost a review of the book written in Scots. www.reddit.com/r/ScotsBookC...

In a hospital with zero Scots in the linguistic landscape (more on that anon) it was nice to hear a consultant say "It's better tae hae it an no need it, than need it an no hae it."

The Scots Language Publication Grant is now open for applications! Apply for support with publishing new work, reprinting existing work and help with marketing existing and new work. Deadline: 25 February 2026.

I'm slowly working through my Doric word list, there's a category of words where they have the -ie ending, it's a "Class-maintaining Derivational Suffix" For example:- photo -> photie man -> mannie bairn -> bairnie wife -> wifie postman -> postie beast -> beastie janitor -> jannie

I broke the story yesterday that masked ICE agents (not DOJ) were removing items including a personal computer from the home of Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Renee Good. I have yet to see a single news outlet cover this or an elected official even acknowledge it.

I drew a self-portrait today. Im quite proud of it, so I wish to share it with youse. The light grey felt pens are so cool, letting you build up areas of shadow with worrying about buggering it up.

If a human was being paid to create this material, we’d rightly throw the book at them. So why should X get a free pass? Fine them to the hilt and if they won’t comply, shut it down. We wouldn’t tolerate this offline. Why online? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 2/2

Is Elon Musk still part of the Cartel de los Trump, or is he representative of a different criminal cartel with similar objectives and tactics?

Language pals/leid freins - I've written a new blog post: "The linguistic adventures of Rupert the Bear - or we need to talk about Machine Translation." Also features Hendrix, spooky singing androids and philosophising about Gaelic translation. treanaichean.wordpress.com/2026/01/08/t...

"If these allegations are true, this is one of the most egregious cases of bullying I have ever seen," Brickell told us when we contacted him about what our investigation had uncovered. Read the full story here:

Jist a wee promo fur ma Scots Book Club sub owre on Reddit, where Ah'm stairtin threads aboot ilka Scots leid buik Ah can lay ma hauns on. Its supposed tae be fur reviews an discussions, annat. But tae be honest, its jist me stairtin stuff, an nae ither folk. www.reddit.com/r/ScotsBookC...

Grok has put a bikini on one of the dead victims of the recent Swiss fire ! It's probably the most appalling thing I've seen... 🤬

I'm currently compiling a Doric frequency dictionary, which lists the top 3,000 most common words in the Doric variety of Scots. A linguistic question for Scots and Doric speakers:- How do you conjugate the verbs GO/GAE and GANG?

🚨 Follow this new podcast - hosted by the brilliant @paulmalgrati.bsky.social - for all things Scottish literature and culture. As Paul says, 'The Carrying Stream is a place for long conversations', giving welcome breathing space for discussion and interaction. It's sure to be a treat! 🚨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿📚