Manchester Canal, painting by Stephen Bewsher.

your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.

No ideas but in whatevers

Found in the ancient city of Monopolis

Screenshot from Meldrew Point Calcalculator (https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/neil.richards/viz/meldrew/MeldrewPoint) Reads: You are 19,537 days old, or 53.49 years, and you are closest of all to your Meldrew Point.

I don't believe.... etc etc

@meldrewpoint.bsky.social

Going to stare at a wall blankly for a couple of hours, then head to the pub.

I want a dyke for president. I want a person with AIDS for president and I want a fag for vice president and I want someone with no health insurance and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didn’t have a choice about getting leukemia. I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn’t the lesser of two evils and I want a president who lost their last lover to AIDS, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying. I want a president with no air-conditioning, a president who has stood in line at the clinic, at the DMV, at the welfare office, and has been unemployed and laid off and sexually harassed and gaybashed and deported. I want someone who has spent the night in the tombs and had a cross burned on their lawn and survived rape. I want someone who has been in love and been hurt, who respects sex, who has made mistakes and learned from them. I want a Black woman for president. I want someone with bad teeth and an attitude, someone who has eaten that nasty hospital food, someone who crossdresses and has done drugs and been in therapy. I want someone who has committed civil disobedience. And I want to know why this isn’t possible. I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown. Always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker. Always a liar, always a thief, and never caught.

With Starmer/ Mandelson thing, I think of Zoe Leonards poem, the final sentences:
'I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown. Always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker. Always a liar, always a thief, and never caught.'

Bloody loan words

Wordle 1,763 6/6

🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

As a 53 year old man why do I still pretend to use the force when I enter a building with automatic sliding doors?

A photo of the front cover of issue 1673 of Private Eye magazine, with the caption “on shelves now.” The main headline reads “HUNGARY: ORBAN LOSES HISTORIC ELECTION.” The central image shows Viktor Orbán standing on stage alongside JD Vance, both raising their arms in front of a cheering crowd with Hungarian and US flags in the background. A speech bubble reads, “Who says America can’t achieve regime change?” A strapline at the bottom reads “HUGE TRIUMPH FOR MAGA (SURELY MAGYAR? ED.).”

Hungary: Orban loses historic election

The new Private Eye is out now.

A picture of a woman running and labels put in front of it like a typical online video narrating the scene. They read: Nobody sees the 4am workouts. Nobody sees me meal prepping for hours every week. Nobody sees any of this. Because I don't do those things.

lol 😂

finally a reason to live

I *think* I've sampled all of the breweries mentioned, but definitely not heard of all the pubs and taprooms.

Also I knew that Hardknott had stopped brewing, but not that Dave from Hardknott had died. Belated, but still sad news.

I don’t have poetic licence, but I have got a provisional poetic licence. It means I’m allowed to recite poetry if I’m sitting next to an actual published poet.

This is a lovely and uplifting article about the ongoing and quiet rise in cumbrian breweries.

Featuring visits to some of my favourite bars, and also a fair few I obviously need to get to.

My Heart Leaps Up — Beer, Graft and Tourism in Cumbria — Pellicle I first met Matt and Michelle when they worked at Hawkshead Brewery, Matt as the head brewer, and Michelle as the head of marketing. In the 2010s, Hawkshead was the pride and joy of Cumbria’s independ...

When Hawkshead Brewery shed most of its team and closed its tap room, I thought beer in Cumbria would suffer. I needn't have worried.

My latest story for @pelliclemag.com is about the breweries and all the people and pubs that make up this county.

www.pelliclemag.com/home/2026/4/...

Terrance Dicks, holding a Tardis Manual and standing front of a wall full of drawings of Doctor Who types.

Born on this day, Terrance Dicks. I know he was aware of what he meant to so many of us and what a fire he lit under us - mainly because I think we all told him anytime we ever saw him. I wouldn't have been the only person to get the reading bug after being bitten by a radioactive Terrance.

Exactly 💯

Moulded pot from Corbridge showing a smith (god?) at work

View of the site at Corbridge, with the museum building in the background

Durham and English Heritage are now recruiting for a fully-funded PhD on Roman Corbridge 🥳🥳🥳

This is a fantastic opportunity to work on one of our most important and understudied finds assemblages from Roman Britain. Deadline 1st June. Please share widely!

www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...

Disney Pixar's 1984 coming 2027

Yeah, it's called Oxbridge

Is it to give the platform staff something to do?

Tonight's Doctor Who hot take: Series 9 (Capaldi's second season) is a masterpiece. Even the episodes that don't quite work, like "Sleep No More", are doing more interesting things than half the other shows on TV at the time.

"Hell Bent" is a fantastic finale and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Oh wow!

The whole interminable bombadil section of LOTR may just become bearable if you rapped your way through it.

Still not tempted to go back and try though.

Wordle 1,756 6/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Are these the ramblings of syphillitic madman?

Asking for a world.

A64 underpass at Middlethorpe, City of York, Thursday 2 April 2026.

A walk from York to Goole, via the River Ouse, Bishopthorpe, the Trans Pennine Trail, Selby and Boothferry, 9am to 9.30pm Thursday 2 April 2026.

An improvised, illustrated thread of indeterminate length, part reflection, part reconstruction. 1/

Youth charity?

Yeah, they look it.

uk.news.yahoo.com/decades-old-...

🐞

Petition: Hold a referendum to bring the water industry into public ownership Hold a binding national referendum on whether the water industry should be returned to public ownership. Water is a basic human necessity; we believe our privatised system has failed, so the public sh...

Oí you slaaags. Sign this if you care about basic human needs
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

Just put Pablo Honey in the CD player.

1994 has come round and kicked me right in the feels.