The Greek punishment for ogling naked goddesses could be usefully modified for the modern era to cover AI generated nudes and upskirting.

The beaches of Normandy were stormed to liberate Europe from people like Hegseth.

How many more times do we have to be told about Israel’s utter disregard and abuse ot human rights. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/w...

Happy #Caturday from the puss at St John of the Hermits in Palermo.

View ain’t bad when you do clear customs.

So much taking back control, it’s awesome.

Looking round at my fellow Palermo-bound passengers at Gate D6 at Manchester airport, I’m guessing no one’s been invited to Dua Lipa’s wedding. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

That's fine but England have responded with Harry Kane as the Venerable Bede

He’s ‘flinching’: “People do want to get ahead of things, but I’m not ahead of things.” www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Says something about the drift in acceptable political discourse when the Guardian embraces National Service. See also: Simon Jenkins says Bring back the rope. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

The thinking person’s bear. 📚 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

If there’s a more magical place than the John Rylands Library in Manchester. I saw both of those plays. So memories too.

You can’t help but wonder what Lowry would have made of the soulless late retail capitalism outside the gallery dedicated to him. Certainly no matchstick men and matchstick dogs…

In Manchester one thing hasn’t changed in the last 40 years.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar to Le Monde: 'I was not elected simply to change the government, but to change the regime'

I do wonder how this “full of beans” Starmer manifests itself. “A week ago the man himself was full of beans…” www.ft.com/content/d14d...

Mmm the best short ribs ever. El Gato Negro Tapas Manchester share.google/4llLcJL7uKEG...

The taxidermy in the Manchester Museum is quite odd. Here’s a porcupine for your perusal. It made me feel quite sad for some reason.

It’s still raining in Andy Burnham’s Manchester.

Manchesterism Le selfie c’est moi.

"You can't buy happiness but you can buy a bike and that's pretty close!" Happy #WorldBicycleDay! 🔊

Am loving that the Grundys are the new well adjusted normal in Ambridge. Up the underclass! #TheArchers

We’re certainly not in Kansas any more. First trip back to Manchester since the mid-1980s. In some ways it’s traumatising. I managed to go to Choral Evensong in the Cathedral, which was astounding. If there’s a path to salvation, it’s through a choir in an Anglican service.

Jeremy Bowen, consistently smart and succinct: Trump is in a bind. He is enmeshed in the consequences of the gross blunder he made by going to war assuming an easy victory. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Pass the salt. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Shocked that Streeting and McFadden turn out to be complete shits.

Does anyone have any eating recommendations for central Manchester… I haven’t been since a romantic entanglement in Owen’s Park halls (now gone with my youth) in 1983. Staying near Royal Exchange for a few days. I eat everything (almost). My wallet is not set up for Michelin star restaurants🥺

Thanks to the Guardian and its report on ‘avian onanism’ I can no longer look st robins in the garden with such innocent affection.

I remember this! Gosh.

Next she'll escape into the Los Angeles underground, and still wanted by the government, survive as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, If no one else can help and if you can find her. Maybe you can hire...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I mean how dumb. Walk. Boardman said: "When I took the role as Transport Commissioner for Greater Manchester [in 2021], there were 250 million car journeys a year in the region of less than one kilometre.

Petrostate Parisian wankers.

Gosh you go into town for a pre holiday shop in M&S and you get back on the 82 and you find the manager’s gone. #LFC

“We did Sybil and then The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists last term.” www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...

My morning chorus is Bob the Cat getting ‘machine gunned’ by the garden’s resident magpies. I presume he’s trying to eat their chicks. #Caturday

www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/b... Ahh there’s Ireland. Screwing its European partners🙈

Meanwhile in Bootle…

I have decided I am on team Bert, Carol and Brian from now on. Up the wrinkly Curmudgeons! 🪭 #TheArchers

If a pint of Shires soothes, imagine how ten would work Adam. #TheArchers

Japanese is one of the many languages I set myself to learn, and one of the many I have failed to master. Shame as this from Soseki’s “ ‘I am a cat’ shows what I am have missed.

US sources = spin. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This lady’s not for… oh.

Clearing out kitchen ahead of building work. The archeology of my various cooking enthusiasts over the past few years is in plain sight/ the xxth pack of now out of date pine kernels. If there was a global shortage in 2024-5, it was probably my fault.

Heatwave at Ainsdale beach @liverpoolecho.co.uk

This weekend’s champions league final in Budapest let Zoltan Simon and Marton Kasnyik take stock of Orban’s decades-long project to restore Hungary’s footballing superpower status - or, as critics saw it, to project a childhood obsession onto a country-sized stage www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

If you’re searching for an answer, don’t waste your time reading this (as I did). www.nytimes.com/athletic/730...

Literally a hog cycle🐷 oink! www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/b...

Give me one, i won’t complain. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/b...

While Tony Blair is trashing UK govt energy policy, NESTA analysis finds "early signs [it] may be working" 2022: Gas prices went up 100%, electricity 83% (roughly 1:1) 2026: Gas +28%, elec 6% (5:1 = "electricity beginning to decouple from gas") www.nesta.org.uk/blo...

It’s worth reading this rather than Blair. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...