Respect to the mum reading The Hobbit out loud to her kids on the train today. She was doing voices and everything!

I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it. I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.” 1/

Loved the Turner always contemporary exhibition at the Walker - some very interesting connections made across artists. Sadly my favourite Simone Martini painting has not yet made it back into the main collection.

rare to see an american politician speak in these terms and it rocks

Annual church panto trip - this year Sleeping Beauty. Fun with a couple of good jokes and a script that ensured the prince had met the princess and got consent before he had to kiss her to wake her!

Loved the Forsyte saga at the RSC but honestly imagine it’s a completely different thing if you don’t see Pt 1 before Pt 2.

Oh I am loving the Forsyte saga at the RSC - it’s really well done. They’ve left us on another ‘cue Eastenders drum beats’ for tomorrow (NB they are way too classy to actually play Eastenders drum beats)

Forsyte saga has just left us on a proper Eastenders drum beat #intervalskeet

It's time for the passing year! ✨🌟✨Happy new year!!✨🌟✨ Wishing you the best as always, health and success for you through 2026! Keep it up!

Loved Young Frankenstein at the Playhouse. Excellent performances and genuine laughs (btw make sure you stay to watch the credits which are hilarious).

Church on form. Went in to go to a funeral, came out with a packet of short date raspberries because we had a donation and the freezers couldn’t fit everything.

Cousin’s cat is being very brave with all of us in the house and has even tried out my lap (briefly). Possibly we will get a Christmas where he isn’t stressed out of his very tiny ginger mind or holding a grudge!

Some of the congregation got me chocolate dinosaurs for my birthday! I love my church!

The thing is, you can't make trans and intersex people nonexistent, you can only make them suffer.

Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!

One of my smaller Sunday School boys made me a loom band bracelet. It has made my day!

RIP Brian Patten. Presumably it now IS celestial music!

One of my Sunday School children said his favourite things about church were ‘food and Laura’. On the one hand, not what I was going for, on the other, stupidly proud of myself!

I always find something to love at the John Moores painting prize and today was no different - so lucky to live near it! Thanks to the Walker Art Gallery for a lovely evening 😀

@gralefrit.bsky.social You have to see these! A friend of mine has been collating a series of images entitled "Things my students have written turned into Philomena Cunk quotes" and they're just glorious.

Fringe reviews: Darren McGarvey Trauma Industrial Complex. Thoughtful exploration of how fitting trauma into a standard narrative structure is probably not telling the whole truth and may not be remotely helpful.

Fringe reviews: Red like fruit. Cleverly constructed play about the difference between what gets said and whether or how it gets heard. Liked it a lot.

Fringe reviews: Faustine. It’s got the Faust story. It’s got synthesisers. It’s got really really really clunky rhymes. I mean REALLY clunky. Sigh.

Fringe reviews: Amazons. Engaging one woman show exploring the history of the Amazon through her personal history as someone of indigenous descent.

Fringe reviews: Count Dykula. Not as fun as Lesbian Space Crime.

Fringe reviews: Ways of knowing. Yikes this is weird. The bit that works best is an evocation of caving done in the dark lit by the two performers’ head torches.

Fringe reviews: The cyclops. A play about male relationships that occasionally starts quoting the story of Odysseus and the cyclops. I wasn’t entirely sure why - I suspect the link got lost somewhere in the drafting process.

Fringe reviews: Timonopoly. Timon of Athens done by one actor using a monopoly game theme and a shedload of audience participation with sweets. Much to my surprise it worked very well indeed.

Fringe reviews: Scotlandsfest Wanton women running amok - fab author talk about witch trials in Scotland and why they often weren’t for actual witchcraft

Frisky’s reshuffle. Improv show in which Ms Frisky triumphantly proves that she can sing literally anything no matter how bizarre. Like a Virgin as a John Lewis Christmas ad, Candle in the Wind as a rave anthem etc

Fringe reviews: City of Ladies. Builds on Christine de Pisan to flag up some great women of history. Fairly eclectic in its choices, not a Great Work of Art but entertaining and yay for the medieval history name checks.

Fringe reviews: Operation Blank. Billed as a comedy but the writer and I do not share a sense of humour. At all. There were laughs from the audience so presumably that is a me problem.

Fringe reviews: sensitive and well written play in which a middle aged gay man confronts his teenaged experiences in a charismatic church.

Fringe reviews: Lesbian Space Crime. Amiable romp with lesbians, space jokes and unexpected Shakespeare gong jokes. I laughed a lot.

Fringe reviews: A poem and a mistake. Accomplished one woman show about Ovid’s metamorphoses and female vulnerability in general.

Edinburgh game: count the number of visiting Americans wearing tshirts apologising for Trump/saying they didn’t vote for him etc

Fringe reviews: Ecce Romani on a Shoestring. Funny and affectionate take down of the many ways in which nothing happens in an introductory Latin textbook. I liked it a lot. Apparently one of the textbook authors was in the audience!

Fringe reviews: Hamlet wakefulness. Spectacularly weird. Not pretending I understood it but the singing is amazing.

Fringe reviews: Shakespeare the panto - three performers, entertaining Shakespeare mash-up with a lot of panto business, free badge (mine says Fucketh off Villain and I love it)

Fringe reviews: Outing - meandering show that starts getting interesting in its final scene then stops abruptly.

Fringe reviews: Monkeypox gospel. Interesting show with good ideas but audio (big part of the show) can be muffled and ending feels a bit odd.

Andy Goldsworthy exhibition in Edinburgh does landscape art inside the gallery, not entirely successfully in my view. Preferred the back catalogue and would have liked to see more of it.

RIP Tom Lehrer. So many brilliant songs - this is my favourite youtu.be/pvhYqeGp_Do

Sharing this because Andrea is an utter star who just walked Hadrians Wall with me! (She did the whole thing - I did the hottest day on the bus) gofund.me/47c52fb0

Indiana Jones will be played by a rotating cast of three adjuncts who answer to two different associate deans

I really need to figure out the right way to get this poem tattooed on me because it has gotten me out of the hole that is not my grave entirely too many times and I think everyone needs to read it this week billmoyers.com/story/poetry...

Honestly one of the more depressing things about middle age is the limited amount of cheese I can eat before my IBS starts on the ominous bloinking noises.

Today’s learning experience was addressing a strike rally through a megaphone! 📢 No to a blanket 60% on campus mandate for No Apparent Reason (seriously that shouldn’t even need saying!)

Spent the afternoon at Simon Boccanegra at the Phil and the evening at Cav and Pag at St George’s Hall so today has been a day of hyper emotional Italian singing.