My favourite Apollo programme fact. Pete Conrad - Apollo 12, the third person to ever walk on the moon - said as coming down the ladder: “Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me”.
Even better, he said this to win a $500 bet that NASA didn’t script stuff.
Bank holiday Monday park life
It had been snowing so all sorts. I do like to see it as the day the Phoenix visited.
😲
Wonder what was cracking off that day that made it appear?
Well…
I took this photo March 13 years ago from my old workplace in central Birmingham.
(What was the Caron again, I recall the transforming ship)
The skies are getting better by the day
It’s finding people here who used to be over there!
I’m okay with birdie place for that in the main.
Breeze in and out of here.
Yes and the crazy “intolerance” tag.
I do that.
And also amused at who’s blocked me without ever having interacted.
It’s rather holier than though here.
Thanks. Just did a read around do you opt in or out, or around.
It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s inconvenient to need to log in here and the other former bluebird place to get a good range of insights and views.
Not sure which has the most fair algorithm in allowing people to see what’s been said.
Maybe better here.
Spring is happening even though the skies are mainly grey
Yellow bellied, yellow faced with black eye stripe, black head and crest, black chin, olive backed, black and white wings and tail, perched on rim of pot, photo.
Tit of the Day:
Himalayan Black-lored Tit
📷 Nitin Chandra
Painting of a townscape at dusk or dawn with a large square with many people walking and with a row of buildings in the background with lights in the windows, the scene is all bathed in blue light
'Blue Light' by contemporary, Brighton-based, UK painter Emma Brownjohn #WomensArt
This was the portrait that made me feel positive at The National Portrait Gallery earlier this week.
My dad was a member of TGWU and always said how grateful he was to his branch for support in hard and difficult times.
Pine marten (Leitrim)
Fox (Birmingham)
Peregrine falcon (Symonds Yat Rock)
Badger (bucks)
Snowy Owl (Witney on Wye)
A close-up of a kestrel, with very fluffy legs visible below otherwise smooth feathers
Today's kestrel - back in the same spot and showing us those beautifully fluffy legs 😍
Liberton #Edinburgh #birds
Pretty in Erdington’s Rookery Park
♥️
Cover of INTO THE GROOVE: THE 1980s: THE ULTIMATE DECADE IN MUSIC HISTORY by Justin Lewis (me) 'An epic compendium of stories and trivia from the 80s music scene'
OUT NOW, my month-by-month guide to 1980s pop, from ABC to XTC, and from Madonna to Neneh. #IntoTheGroove, published by @eandtbooks.bsky.social.
Rue Rue Jo Cox, Députée Britannique, a street sign in Burgundy reads, Assassinée pour ses convictions. No British road is named after her, I found on returning home, for fear it could have proved controversial. I remembered in Shakespeare rue even for ruth, called 'herb of grace' because it was used in exorcisms, by the angel to clean Adam's eyes, and Gulliver back home for his nose against the smell of his countrymen.
I think about this poem by Ian Duhig — about Jo Cox, the Labour MP assassinated by a man shouting ‘Britain first’ — every day at the moment. No other contemporary poet has looked so clearly at the political reality of the far right as a minority who must always be appeased
Watery times are back
The actual group moving most strongly to Reform are male Gen X-ers. We need more articles on how to deal with them.
In ep 15 of #FirstLastAnything, from Sept 2022, the violinist, arranger and musical director Helen O’Hara (@oharaviolin.bsky.social) talked about her role in the remarkable saga of Dexys, her work with Tanita Tikaram and her excellent memoir What She’s Like.
firstlastanything.co.uk/2025/05/20/f...
Another massive part of what local govt is doing, in the same space, is competing with the home office *for the same housing*
A very different place. A verve now that’s been knocked out of it in the ‘80s and early ‘90s.
And also still the same in other ways.
Hello
Blue sky with nice cloudy sky in Manchester.
Piccadilly gardens with a nice buzz.
It’s a much maligned place, but better than it was in the ‘90s.
Having a little weep realising it’s more prevalent a way than I’d like to freely recognise