Area Family Putting A Little Money Away To One Day Blow On Single Health Scare https://theonion.com/area-family-putting-a-little-money-away-to-one-day-blow-1819575678/

SIRK ghost.

Off to Ghent for work and holiday later this week. By train obviously (though I’m cheating and flying back). One disadvantage of the trip is Scotland-Greece is while I travel out, and I’m not sure Sunday’s Belarus game will be on in many pubs in Ghent.

“I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment. Trust me. But that is not the story,” Thunberg said during a press conference following her release. Read more:

My daughter is on a junket to New York with her online peeps. She sent me this poster from the Ripped Bodice:

Out for a walk after dinner this evening. It won’t be light enough to do that soon. Indeed it nearly wasn’t, but the sky was all lovely dark blues and yellows and sunbeams and clouds.

This evening's washing up and other kitchen chores album has been the debut Reistu þig við, sólin er komin á loft..., by Icelandic band For a Minor Reflection. Gorgeous post-rock, very much in the vein of EITS but with a slow-building euphoric warmth to it. music.apple.com/gb/album/rei...

Jane Goodall was so committed to environmental activism she even died of natural causes. (I like to think, queen of polite snark that she was, she would have appreciated this joke.)

Postecoglou to Rangers, then.

Fascinating segment this morning about Orcadian explorer John Rae. His story is incredible. His unpleasant truth about the Franklin expedition led to him dying in some disgrace and obscurity, his reputation only restored later when his account was validated. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ra...

A decade ago (how time flies, that’s terrifying) I spent a lot of time in Ireland and it never ceased to amaze me how bad Dublin’s public transport was and in particular how long the airport bus took.

Fuck, yeah. Fight while you have it. Once it’s gone you’ve lost it forever.

This is exactly what’s been swimming round my head in less articulate words. If we imagine all Jews must be intimidated or offended by protests against genocide, don’t we then equate all Jews with perpetration of genocide and isn’t that straight out of the ugliest Middle Ages conspiracies?

You don’t have to be called Steve or Stephen to work at Blackpool, but it does help.

I’m delighted to announce the launch of my new daytime radio show, exploring various Scots poets. It’s called Mid-Morning Makars.

Great to see my council using Bluesky more and giving regular updates on the storm. Thanks folks!

Lazy Saturday morning breakfast. Worried two slices was too much but nope. Went down very nicely.

This is a frustrating story: not only because buses in Inverness are indeed poor, but because most routes described in the article are fairly low density and easy to cycle distances if they were made safe, segregated and prioritised. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Wow, I’d never heard about this. Though as the piece says, its perpetrators were either illiterate or soon dead. lithub.com/how-the-germ...

Been ill most of today, and the consequent encouragement/need to just chill at home is rather appropriate given Storm Amy hurling its way round at the imminent. Windy out, stay safe everyone.

Wow!

Just seen a trailer for The Smashing Machine, and a title like that ought to be reserved for Wallace and Gromit.

Are we all watching The Sound of Music on BBC4 for some reason? I mean, it's utter nonsense from the get go. *THIS* is the music the Austrian Alps are actually alive with:

Just tuning into Aberdeen v Shakhtar Donesk. A club with a sad and devastating recent history from a city of decay and abandonment, and facing now an existential crisis with their future and their followers’ future in the balance, versus…

For the record: Five feet four inches.

Something something Crow Road something.

Please follow @thenerve.news! Were a new female-founded publication that launched yesterday…& it was a huge team effort to get a website up & this investigation over the line. We’re all exhausted but we want to do journalism that matters & we need your support. Thank you!!🙏 www.thenerve.news

All big UK cities should have the sort of self government London has

End of a good and insightful thread. I hate patriotism and am not very patriotic (my country is manifestly not not best on the planet - it needs massive improvement) and I say that as a (civic) nationalist.

Breaking: Caledonian Sleeper's highland sleeper to Inverness, Aberdeen & Ft William will call at Birmingham International from 15 January onwards, picking up northbound at 22:42, setting down southbound at 06:20. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... More about the sleeper: www.seat61.com/sleeper-to-s...

Genius 👌🏻 #design #designthinking

You're used to seeing mostly colour images from me but I do black and white occasionally too - though not as much as I used to. Here are a selection from over the years. #Photography #BlackandWhite #ThePhotoHour

Out to blow away a few cobwebs earlier. And ironically walk into a couple too.

All my Dutch is going… …and out the other.

Just in case you thought American politics can't go any more crazy: The man who stormed Capitol dressed as a cow (they call him "QAnon Shaman", but I personally prefer to call him "Attempted Coo") is suing Trump, claiming he's the only rightful president of the US.

This is a beautiful and fascinating etymological adventure. Isn’t Europe wonderful?

This is lovely (aside from the “remote” writing crime). It’s a lovely place. I usually never talk about family stuff on here but my wife and I went there on our first date, fact fans.

My walk to work this morning. Might and dark fighting over this path. Like a metaphor for something.

Woman, apologising for her dog trotting up to me: “Sorry, he’s waiting for biscuits.” Me: “Aren’t we all?”

A brilliant video which sets out just how our public spaces are excluding girls and women in just two short minutes. Everyone I present to will be seeing this for at least the next year and possibly longer (!). Well done to Architektoniczki for making it so clear. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ox6...

Yes hahaha yesssss economist.com/britain/2025...

I don’t meet all of these. Very few British people do.

The bees have discovered Brutalism

Who’s the most reproductive member of Blur? Stamen Albarn.

Not sure if I mentioned, but on Mastodon I’m live tooting my way along a chronological watch-through of the Star Wars canon. Things are getting interesting because after nearly five years I’ve reached Andor. You can read the entire thread from the beginning if you wish. mastodon.scot/@simonvarwel...

Something nice about the live text treatment being given to a cup tie involving two sixth tier teams. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

I’m shattered at the end of a massively busy week, so my washing up album of the evening has to be a comfort blanket, and thus my first repeat band since I started logging them. Ana Never’s Small Years. ananever.bandcamp.com/album/small-...

"El Generalísimo": Spanish Civil War poster from the socialist trade union, UGT, showing Franco followed by a general, a capitalist and a priest, 1937. Artist: Predero (a member of the Fine Arts Section of the Sindicato de Profesionales de las Bellas Artes, UGT)

I’d prefer escalators up but would take this. xkcd.com/3147/