Todays Essential Classics started with Crown Imperial and the Tannhauser overture (yawn) ... and now they're giving us the bloody Four Seasons, which is best left to Ckassic FM (admittedly we got some unfamiliar stuff before that)
Yes, and there seems to be less unfamiliar stuff on Essential Classics (Georgia Mann's prog) too. Finlandia keeps cropping up, for instance
Charlton could go down, too
A proper game of football, this one, berween a team that should have wrapped up the title already and another which should have been demoted to League One a long time ago.
The 'vibrant heart' of W'stow (vibrating from all the roadworks in the area)
The three stages of life:
1. Too young
2. Too busy
3. Too old
Those bloody parakeets! (From your pic, I'm guessing you're somewhere near Highams Park lake)
What about the Irish harpist Denis O'Hampsey (I won't attempt the proper Irish spelling, but you'll find him in Wikipedia), 1695-1807?
Does the #1961club confine itself to novels, or is it legitimate to stray into (e.g.) poetry?
Yes, very much this
A city isn't a proper city unless multiple languages are spoken there (a thought that first came to me in, of all places, Belfast)
I know it was my duty as a Bluesky user to watch SNLUK, but the McCartney doc on BBC2 + clips dictated otherwise. No contest
Still the best thing is to shift away from cars of any kind. Walking, cycling, public transport.
There was an "OK" early on in Hamnet which attracted audible comment in the cinema when we watched it
Long but very good blog on Hamnet the movie - especially sound on the historical guesswork re Shakespeare's career. A pity PE hasn't read the MO'F book, which imho is far superior to the film (see my not-so-long blog on the subject)
Aren't bluebells great?
I’m sure many have drawn attention to the advice given by the Oracle of Delphi to King Croesus of Lydia, that if he should send an army against the Persians, he would destroy a mighty empire.
Just not in the way he hoped
Have just finished @elidavies.bsky.social brilliant new book on cooking for one. Part memoir, part recipe collection, part manifesto this is a much-needed and refreshingly relatable peek into the single person’s kitchen. Absolutely loved it. Coming soon from Indigo Press
Millions of American voters wanted to be villains. They came to believe it’s the key to success, while goodness is weak, woke, loser stuff, done only to signal.
Offered the option of unvarnished villainy, they enthusiastically took it. Seeing others suffer more made them feel big.
And here we are.
Thanks for mentioning my little blog. How did you come across it?
Greig
I think I can manage them all except U and X (assuming Zappa is allowed for Z)
I remember how the press reacted when Johnson refused to lock down or really do anything before the second wave, just before the vaccine arrived: Half of them roaring him on to crush the scum, the other half muttering darkly about how there would be Hell to pay, for Boris’s non-specific crimes.
NB this thread
When we lived in Cardiff we could get into Cardiff Castle free, unlike visitors
(Incidentally, even if 'England' charges tourists for museum/gallery visits, Wales/Scotland/NIreland can surely still go their own way)
Why when something good is invented is it applied to the wrong thing. Buy some tat on eBay get minute by minute delivery updates - waiting for an appt from hospital, wait for the second class post.
Back in the 1980s, I used to carry my second-hand Bickerton into BBC Publications offices without an eyebrow being raised. So perhaps W1A was just recalling earlier days
I meant to write a blog about Hamnet back in January. Two months later, I've finally written it:
oldgeezerrereadingblog.wordpress.com/2026/03/24/r...
Do you know Joan Osborne's (pretty good) version of MitLBC?
Any update on this? Have the 'Royal Mail bosses' actually appeared before MPs?