Great. Back in Edinburgh next week and will call in then 👍

List of Fonda Lee's tour dates for the release of The Last Contract of Osako, featuring Cymera Festival, Edinburgh, 6-7 June

@cymerafestival.co.uk Loving Fonda Lee's highlighting of Cymera and Edinburgh in the tour dates on her website 👍

I guess we're not lucky... yet - fingers crossed for April.

Do you know when you will get copies of Trace Elements by Jo Walton & Ada Palmer?

Nah; we were 4 for 4 😁

I'm looking forward to starting the latest adventures of wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant in A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo.

The Graham Norton Show Kate Beckinsale and her Pantomime Ho YouTube video by George McAdams

That's great.
I think you might enjoy this
youtu.be/Q3px6UY9Ues?...

Congrats; you deserved the win, despite me wishing otherwise!

“AI”: A Dedicated Fact-Failing Machine, or, Yet Another Reason Not to Trust It For Anything I search my name on a regular basis, not only because I am an ego monster (although I try not to pretend that I’m not) but because it’s a good way for me to find reviews, end-of-the-yea…

I've only just read this commentary on the accuracy of AI - spoiler... it can be close to nil
whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/13/a...

You're gonna need a taller chart!

Your bridge and church in Venice are pretty neat too.

Great to see it looking spic & span, though I think that's the Provan/Cumbernauld Road entrance.

Nazareth - This Flight Tonight YouTube video by The70sRocker

Are you sure it wasn't Vegas?
I assume you know this...
youtu.be/ylW6sC6NNhY?...
and the Joni original?

Hurrah! I'll be sure to check it out, especially now I see there's the chance of "einer exklusiven Spielrunde"! Hopefully see you there.

Do you have a new game coming out at Spiel?

See you at Spiel?

What I Am Telling You, Jessica, Is That Those Chickens Are Fine By K.T. Landon                               &n…

So sorry to hear this. I hope you feel better with every new day that comes.
I like this, and hope it helps a little - "What I Am Telling You, Jessica, Is That Those Chickens Are Fine" by KT Landon newohioreview.org/2023/02/23/w... -fine/

Cut and paste into a single Keep Note is the best I could do. I do that a lot so I really do hope you're not pre-announcing its death knell 🙈

Tree roots with giant fungus

@mushroomjenja.bsky.social

Plenty of other trees around but no other fungi, just this giant

A favourite, though not well known, is Michael Schacht's Mogul. Worth seeking out.

'Armed Policing - Firearm discharges 2022/23 - Scotland' Monthly figures from April to March - all showing zero... apart from September, which records "3 (in relation to destruction of animal)".

Ditto for Scotland. Definite upsides.

It is the history of our kindnesses that alone makes this world tolerable The copy of the Monterey paper here mentioned is probably the Monterey Californian of 11 November 1879, containing RLS’s article ‘San Carlos Day’ signed ‘The Monterey Barbarian’, and repulished in …

Fuller version at The Letters & Travels of Robert Louis Stevenson share.google/d3Z1qh8PVXuT...

Letter to Edmund William Gosse
Monterey, California, 15th November 1879

"It is the history of our kindnesses that alone makes this world tolerable... the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters, multiplying, spreading, making one happy through another and bringing forth benefits."
Robert Louis Stevenson

@bluejo.bsky.social unexpected mention of Petrach in today's Tour de France commentary - apparently he was the first to climb Mount Ventoux.
Or the first to record it at least.

= Dutch courage?

Chinese whispers is, or at least used to be, a common phrase in the UK; also a children's game. Never heard of an Irish goodbye though.

Statistics from BBC website showing that 59.7% of patients in England waited less than 18 weeks for treatment in December 2024, while 68% of patients in Scotland waited less than 18 weeks - 3% higher than the target set by the UK Government for NHS England next year.

UK Government target for next year is for NHS England to be 3% behind last year's NHS Scotland performance.

This is worse than when he tweeted "Well done Boris" after the 2019 election. Mind you, he played Sun City back in the day, so never a beacon of light.

On an almost completely unrelated matter, have you ever looked into the links between the Ensign Ewart pub and the iconic Edinburgh resident it's named after?