there it is, all 7 continents

Laundry as art

[📸 Helga Stentzel]

I spent yesterday evening in A&E. (I’m fine, apparently.) Some guy next to me in the waiting room said “excuse me are you Rhodri Marsden” and I was about to say “yes! would you like an autograph, I am exceedingly famous” when he said “that nurse over there has been calling you for ages”

Imagine how much money we’ve wasted. Imagine how much could have gone into the NHS, public services, tackling poverty…
Will anyone be held responsible though? For the lies that were told, the false promises made?
Perhaps a brexit tax on all the corporations that cashed in?
I’M SO CROSS!

Biggar Gasworks Museum Enter what was one of the first small-town gasworks to open in Scotland – and among the last to close.

They say Edinburgh’s is bigger, but Biggar’s is better…

The Gasworks museum (genuinely fascinating) is sometimes open during the Festival as well as on summer weekends www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-plac...

Home - Biggar Museum Discover the people who have lived and worked here from prehistoric times up to the mid-20th century - visit Biggar Museum.

The Biggar museum is great www.biggarmuseumtrust.co.uk and even more so if combined with attending the Biggar Little Festival in October

Is it a guarantee? #askingfora70yearoldfriend

This shouldn’t be controversial: water should be publicly owned.

I’ve spent years fighting for that in Parliament.

Now thanks to the support of tens of thousands of you, we’re gaining ground.

Profiteers have their billions. We have each other. Join us: actionnetwork.org/forms/we-can...

Just had this flagged with me. This is disgusting.

If Kemi Badenoch had one ounce of leadership in her, she would condemn this.

I don’t want any faux sadness from her or Nick Timothy when one of us is hurt or worse.

This is how low the Conservative Party have sunk.

2006 internet: RSS feeds, forums, communities of hobby blogs, where people post about interior design, fashion, and music for free

2026 internet: sponsored content, paid partnership, buy my merch, try my supplements, invest in my crypto, click link in bio to unlock the secrets of life for $30

This should be put to a House of Commons vote.

NEW: We often hear that Scotland’s more progressive income tax is “driving people out the country.”

New HMRC data shows the opposite. Far more taxpayers are moving to Scotland than leaving it.

Let’s look at the data 🧵

What is accomplished by forcing people to wait 10 years for residency? Nothing. How does that improve integration, or public services, or the economy? It doesn't. How does it even pretend to treat people with dignity? It can't. How will it improve Labour's election prospects? It won't.

Starmer plans to ease impact of immigration policy changes after backlash from Labour MPs PM will consider exempting large numbers from proposed changes, which would leave people waiting 10 years for settled status

The thing is once you have implicitly accepted that your immigration reforms are a horrible unprincipled mess that everyone hates, you cannot try and hold on to random bits of cruelty within them without looking very foolish. And everyone will still hate them. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Blimey the Tory Peer Nigel Biggar is really out to get me at the moment. Would love to know what he identifies as “bad” history and why he describes teaching it as “force feeding”. There seems to be a mounting authoritarianism in his tone.

Wow I bet Trump is glad now he didn’t flounce out of NATO like he threatened to over Greenland so now he can threaten to flounce out of NATO if we don’t help him re-open the straight of Hormuz (help who’s he doesn’t actually need because the US and Israel have already won. Or something).

In a functioning society, it would be completely clear which snacks are in the meal deal.

a man is sitting on a couch with his hand on his face ALT: a man is sitting on a couch with his hand on his face

By now you probably want to know where all this water came from...

And this is pretty ironic.

There was probably a culvert running along the side of our North Wing. We can't show you a picture though, because it was destroyed by...

...The construction of a water main in the 1960s. 😭😭

How Trump and His Advisers Miscalculated Iran’s Response to War

Choice of words is important. They didn’t “miscalculate”. They did no calculations at all.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/u...

Farage and Badenoch are absolute clowns: startled by the entirely foreseeable series of events they failed to foresee. A demonstration of their total lack of judgement.

God, that’s so sad.

Two Working LEGO Printing Presses | LEGO® Ideas The development of mechanical printing changed how ideas move through the world. Once text and images could be printed rather than copied by hand, knowledge was…

Hi #EarlyModern Bluesky - did you know that someone brilliant has built working printing presses using Lego and they are trying to get enough supporters so that Lego will release it as a kit?

They look so cool!

beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

UK high streets turn to facial recognition in fight against shoplifting Theft and threats against shop floor workers have risen sharply since the Covid-19 pandemic

Parliament should take steps to ban this technology. There is no good and proportional reason to allow private companies to analyse and store people's biometric data, especially without notice or consent.
www.ft.com/content/adb3...

Untrue - the Convention provides both for the possibility that protection might cease to be necessary (ie the cessation clause: refugee status ends if there's a change in circumstances) AND the possibility it might need to be long-term (ie references to facilitating citizenship of the refuge State)

Zelensky has done everything he possibly can to satisfy this admin while he fights a war of survival for his people. And the Trump admin has done nothing but repeatedly treat him with disrespect, scorn & ridicule. 2 days ago, Trump called him “PT Barnum.” This is how Z responds.

I’ve spent years, decades, obsessing over the Bush Administration’s Iraq WMD lies, writing about them, debunking them.

I can think of no lie about Iraq WMDs told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al that comes even close to the enormity and absurdity of this lie from Donald Trump.

The image shows a rectangular Roman dice tower (turricula) made of four copper alloy (bronze) plates with punched cut-out Latin letters and cut-out decorative patterns. At the bottom front is a stepped exit chute with small bronze bells attached to the opening. The tower is a Roman anti-cheating device. It has an open top and is hollow inside except for three staggered, downward-sloping plates, designed to randomize dice as they fall, ensuring unpredictable dice rolls. When the dice rolled out of the exit chute they rang the bells! There is a decorative dolphin either side of the stepped exit chute. The top of the front plate has two decorative pine cone finials. Height 25 cm. There is a single die shown next to the stepped base to illustrate how it was used. The front inscription reads: PICTOS VICTOS HOSTIS DELETA LVDITE SECVRI Translated as: ‘The Picts defeated, the enemy has been destroyed, play in safety’. Around the top of the three remaining sides, a second inscription made with cut out letters reads: ‘UTERI/FELIX/VIVAS’ translated as ‘Use happily; may you live well’. Found at a Roman villa at Froitzheim in Germany in 1985.

Roman anti-cheating gaming accessory!

This Roman ‘turricula’ (dice tower) was used to ensure a fair roll of the dice! 🎲🎲🎲

Dice dropped into the top, tumbled over sloping internal levels, and appeared randomly below.

From Froitzheim, Germany, AD 300-400

📷 LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn

#Archaeology

We need to change the way we think about ageing | Age without limits The Age Without Limits campaign aims to change the way we all think about ageing and support a growing movement of people and organisations working to make society more age-inclusive.

Yet 1 in 3 people aged over 50 believe they have been turned down for a job because of their age.

Notice ageism? Question it. Ask “why is age relevant here?”

Because everyone deserves to #AgeWithoutLimits.

Find out more about our new @agewithoutlimits.bsky.social campaign at buff.ly/BQrPC6c

Worgle - a bigger version of Wordle Guess the word in 6 tries. A new puzzle is available each day.

You’ll need a new challenge then… I’ve recently started cursing bronze-age.com/worgle/

I may have my frustrations and disappointments about Starmer as a domestic politician, but internationally, I think he’s serious, responsible and trying to do his best for U.K. in unbelievably complex int’l environment, despite treasonous ghouls like Farage doing their best to undermine him.