Frank Skinner for In Our Time. Vote now! (Not sure where, but vote)

sad day today. we had to bury my mother. she wasn’t dead yet she just wouldn’t stop asking questions during a movie.

I love the hybrid creatures from ancient Mesopotamia. They hint at what scared people, what protected them, and more. This is a “lion man” (urmahlilu), a magical creature that once flanked the entrance to King Ashurbanipal’s palace in Nineveh to protect against harm.

Cromwell & his Reputation Historiography is one of the things I enjoy most covering in the podcast. And Cromwell's historiography has got to be one of the most fascinating. Here then is an episode I did recently on the subject. thehistoryofengland.co.uk/blog/2024/11...

‘May it please your Majesty, but they have gone over to Bluesky now.’

This is Alfred Bourne. In addition to his excellent hat and beard game, he was Secrerary of the British & Foreign Schools Society for 40 years to 1908. The Society established about 3,800 elementary schools, on the principal of non donominational education.

Autumnal-ness in Oxfordshire. Quite a lot if these woods have quite young trees. I'm guessing that's because they were used for camps for US and Canadian Air Corps in WWII

Who says history isn't good, practical vocational education? Picking up interpersonal skills training from 'the arts of wooing and Complimenting'. If you're out tonight, give 'you walk in artificial clouds and bathe your silken limbs in wanton dalliance' a whirl and see how it goes

This made me laugh

It's podcast recording day. If i wrote a good script, recording day is full of joy and laughter. If it turns out to be rubbish it's a day of pain, editing, distress and potenitally an exploding head. Fingers crossed

At Parents evening.

I am 60, and have been so for 3 days. And this has been reinforced because 1) i went to the pharmacist for a presciption and it was free 2) a Bowel Cancer Screening set arrived from the NHS Forget Beltane or Confirmation and all that. These are the modern day rites of passage.

For no particular reason, here is the roof of a church I visited at south Creake. It had a rather nice roof which I looked in a CCT book. It told me it's an Angel roof, of which there are 170 in England & Wales, 70% of which are in East Anglia. Puls single Hammer Beam roof. Thoroughly lovely

The bridge over the mighty River Chater, in Champion land, prime hunting- steeple chasing territory. Heading for the medieval village that was and no longer is, Martinsthorpe

This is the time of year i know spring is just round the corner because the mistle thrush in my garden starts drowning out the Robins - who have been enjoying a bust up for weeks. All part of an annual, seasonal build up.

You have been waiting for a sign.