I'm strolling down Jermyn Street with a Dr Martens shopping bag. Tut tut.

Here in London It’s a plot by the Land Rover Defender drivers to justify their otherwise absurd purchase

As someone who discovered a mouse under the sofa yesterday (the cat died two months ago, leaving the guardroom vacant) I found this thread particularly interesting.

… one kestrel ended up flat on its back, supine and submissive on the ground, the other standing over it, flaring its wings like the eagle on a Roman standard. Of course I had run out of memory on my card, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

I heard the first cuckoo of the year yesterday, a kilometre away across the bay de Beaussais, the water carrying the sound. This kestrel was hunting above the cliff where I was standing, listening. Two minutes after the picture was taken it began a violent struggle with a rival …

GitHub - britishlibrary/peripleo: Example configuration of Peripleo geodata mapping software, developed for the BL's "Locating a National Collection" project - fork this! Example configuration of Peripleo geodata mapping software, developed for the BL's "Locating a National Collection" project - fork this! - britishlibrary/peripleo

We @pelagios.bsky.social are looking to evolve Peripleo, a browser-based tool for the mapping of things related to place github.com/britishlibra..., to make it easier to use by historians and archaeologists as a research tool. Let me know if you're interested.

BBC Four - Art of Persia Broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed reveals the remarkable story of Iran.

I made a whole BBC TV series (2020) about the remarkable resilience of the people of Iran and their culture over centuries of threat and callous rule. You can watch it right here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

And now I can hear a cuckoo calling from the other side of the bay (parasites everywhere)

Very fortunate to be here, and have some peace

Evening tide coming in, St Jacut de la Mer

I know; it was the thought of living in any of them, combined with the sense of lasting football irredemption (Southampton’s fleeting weekend glory excepted)

My that’s a sad list

and the yellow of a diseased tooth.”

The masterpiece of David Mitchells’s ‘Thousand Autumns…’ is the description of a technique of lithotomy performed in Nagasaki in 1799, and its Greek and Arab precedents: “The doctor lengthens the bloody incision with his scalpel: Gerritszoon shrieks….The stone is as big as an acorn...

“Israel has carried out at least 50 airstrikes in Lebanon in January 2026 alone” Norwegian Refugee Council. The descent of @theguardian.com journalism is shameful to behold

“The renewed Israeli assault on Lebanon was launched after Hezbollah – the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group – fired rockets into northern Israel in response to the killing of the former Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in joint US-Israeli airstrikes.” The Guardian 31.3.26

The book censoring Manchester secondary school academy has been named:

I have one of those. It makes you want to take them

Elizabeth was a consistent anti-imperialist, opposing the British in 1857. Her friend Eliza Ogilvy (whose uncle died in the battle) had a blind spot when it came to British policy in India. Her family's deep involvement in British rule over India was ignored by literary critics, as was typical.

Empire and its understated influence on British literary culture Nurture not nature was at the root of disagreements between Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Eliza Ogilvy over the politics of empire: their democratic & patriotic instincts worked in different ways.

In 1846, after the British victory over the Sikhs at the battle of Sobraon, Elizabeth Barrett Browning said prophetically, "Some of these days our ‘great Indian Empire’ will stand up on its own legs, & make use of our own rope to scourge us to a distance.” substack.com/@wdowen/p-19...

Nobody wants to use Locker No.13. Proof if needed that the Age of Reason passed members of the London Library by.

I'd just like to say: Spurs 0 - Nottingham Forest 3

I said headmaster, I should have said head teacher.

Emboldened ultra-rightist headmaster at work in Manchester. The 200+ school library books banned were selected using AI to catalogue them. Librarian intimidated. LA response inadequate. When will we learn which school? What will be the political response to Index on Censorship's excellent reporting?

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High, London: £776 of meh — review The sweary chef thinks critics have got it in for him, but it’s his restaurant that is the problem

Jay Rayner slices up Gordon Ramsay in the FT (free link) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

The Oil Shock Is Here. And We’re Just Beginning to Feel It. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which 20% of the world’s oil flows through, is sending shockwaves through the global economy. But how big will this disruption actually be? According to a conversa...

A note on the massive structural impact of a 20% squeeze on oil supply over the longer term - if this war goes on much longer - thats not yet priced into any market, and its impact on the poorest countries hbr.org/2026/03/the-...

Garnet Wolseley’s personal loot from Yuanmingyuam (silks) and Asante (gold) is at the V&A

Al-Aqsa mosque closed for Eid by the Israeli occupiers: “a grave violation of the existing historical and legal status quo in the Islamic and Christian holy places … a provocation to the feelings of Muslims throughout the world .. a violation of freedom of worship & the sanctity of holy places”.

Really? Is it?

Or a war historian with a finely tuned sense of irony