Scientifically, a raven has 17 primary wing feathers, the big ones at the end of the wing. They are called pinion feathers. A crow has 16. So, the difference between a raven and a crow is only a matter of a pinion.

He lives in a pineapple under the sea.

Running late? Forgotten to recharge your newfangled smartwatch? Try this handy PORTABLE SUNDIAL. No charging ever again. (Solar time only. Might not work at night. Reduced utility in winter.)

Trail…

The first air friar ?

I say Jeeves, the sun is hot... Well don't touch it then Caruthers...

Always happy to be reminded of this piece of genius

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

Found art.

Dig my action shot of Swedish world No. 2 table tennis player Truls Möregårdh, taken at the recent ITTF world championships at Wembley Arena.

(In suitably gravelly voice.) He’s Batman. @eurovision.tv

A quick note to say thank you to everyone who liked, reposted or followed this account over the weekend. It’s still pretty much a holding page and I appreciate your interest enormously. Big things are coming from small books! #booksky

Memories of games past.

A friend of mine runs the Nick Drake estate and he regularly gets invitations for Nick to play festivals, appear on podcasts and also offers to help "boost his profile" on "the socials". His replies are masterful.

Trump delighted to accept the inaugural “Just Stop Oil Conservation Prize.”

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

Wow.

Last week, a gentleman returned this rather dilapidated copy of this famous book to us after 50 years. He had found it in his attic! Presumably this means there is a pristine copy somewhere in our libraries....

Sleepy fox in my back garden early this morning.

Came across these three vols of Dickens’ “Picnic Papers” in the library at Leeds Castle yesterday—a title of his I hadn’t heard of until then. First editions, too, by the look of them, or so some cursory online research would indicate. No, I didn’t make off with them…

Happy Eater to those who celebrate.

Sure, but the real problem is that he doesn’t have a heart. Also, he’s a coward.

Theirs was a forbidden love.

NYC 2016.

Seems quite short odds for something so outlandish.

Hope they didn’t cut the pages. www.cllct.com/sports-colle...

Jesus, they weren’t bloody joking.

This is utterly jaw-dropping. A school that bans Atwood, Zadie Smith, Terry effing Pratchett and *literal George Orwell* is actively harming its pupils. www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/scho...

T’s crossed in the sunset sky.

The Bangles' classic “Doom Like An Egyptian”

I heard there was a secret cord that David kept in his cable hoard but he can never find it when he needs it

The tribes of Britain c. 540 in the time of Gildas.

Morning Bluesky.

First trip north earlier this week to visit the Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool’s docklands. In the wee small hours post-match, I stumbled across the street where my paternal grandmother was born in 1900 (this latter fact itself forming the subject of a short story I published a few years ago).

Much of value to be found in the thread below, not least the two annotations made to the copy of the Odyssey. Gotta love marginalia. 👇

Salt by Catrin Kean- a Wales Book of the Year. In the 1880s, a Cardiff girl falls for a ship’s cook from Barbados - Mon-Fri 22.45 @BBCRadio4 or listen now @BBCSounds Read by Kezrena James abridged @mirandaemmerson.bsky.social & produced by Fay Lomas & @mair.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This is (literally) a fabulous story—a wry, sweet, comic tale of an Arthurian quest where the quarry proves elusive, time passes and life happens elsewhere. Also your socks get wet (spoiler, sorry). Tone & word perfect. Find it on BBC Sounds. Recommended.

#WutheringHeights Sweepcliff.

Enjoyable discussion of all things David Lynch (the man, the movies, the meditation) this evening @favlit.org, in which @nicholasroyle.bsky.social paid homage to the great man via the context of the new book (‘Lynchian’) by @johnhiggs.bsky.social. Made me want to rewatch all the films, so job done.

The Radioactive Pig-boar Hybrids were my favourite band of punk era. Glad to hear they’re enjoying a boom. www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

Charles Dickens took the name “Ebenezer Scrooge” from the Edinburgh gravestone of Ebenezer Scroggie, after misreading Scroggie’s occupation – “meal man”, i.e. grain merchant – as “mean man”. Or did he? The story may only date back to 2004… #BookWormSat www.edinburghinquirer.co.uk/p/the-strang...

Reading Hazlitt's The Spirit of the Age. Genius. On Bentham: "Again, his style is unpopular, not to say unintelligible. He writes a language of his own that darkens knowledge. His works have been translated into French - they ought to be translated into English."

I think at this point the UK has accepted Paddington as the Death Bear, collector of souls. So, I think as a nation we should start smearing marmalade on the eyes of the dead and whisper “fare for the crossing”. It’ll feel weird now but, in three of four generations, no one will question it.

Anne Frank wrote these words in 1943 while hiding, while families were being pulled apart. She wasn’t describing chaos. She was describing process. Normalized cruelty. Systems doing what systems do when nobody stops them. This is history as a warning. #DefundICE