The Formidable Miss Cassidy In 1895, a Scottish governess of sturdy constitution travels to Singapore to take up a new job. She quickly discovers that all is not as it should be. I found out about The Formidable Miss Cassidy …

An unplanned read, inspired by a review on a blog I follow, The Formidable Miss Cassidy is a ripping yarn mostly set in Singapore, mixing folklore, mythology and magic. I loved it.

thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2026/04/19/t...

Alexanders: the forgotten vegetable Once grown as a garden herb and culinary vegetable throughout Britain, this forgotten ‘wild celery’ is starting to gain favour once again

I wanted to know why its other name is Alexanders so I went down a rabbit hole and am now delighted - you can eat it!
www.foragingcoursecompany.co.uk/post/article...

Smyrnium perfoliatum | perfoliate alexanders Annual Biennial/RHS Find help & information on Smyrnium perfoliatum perfoliate alexanders Annual Biennial from the RHS

This? www.rhs.org.uk/plants/17435...

Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl: The story of Tony and Lindsay Wilson In Mr Manchester and the Factory Girl, Lindsay Reade tells her side of the story of Mancunian independent record label, Factory Records. The way the myth is told, it was a boys’ gang that did…

An interesting perspective on the story of Factory Records and Tony Wilson, told by his first wife Lindsay Reade. Wilson believed in personal truths, and this book is very much Reade's personal truth.

She's self aware but also unguarded at times.

thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2026/04/16/m...

The BeatleBox - Apple vs. Apple YouTube video by immenstrides

The McCartney lost bass documentary on BBC2 just reminded me of this so I showed it to the kids. Serafinowicz's Beatle impressions remain unsurpassed. The BeatleBox now inescapably reminds me of the Beatles In Mono boxset, which came out a couple of years after this. youtu.be/jcVS9ssNYVQ?...

Large Totem Head by Henry Moore. I always think it looks like an apple core. I also always give it a hug. No exception on this visit. It was one of the few sculptures you could get up close to. Lots were fenced off.

Pittu Pithu Pitoo by Simon Barclay. A cock on a rock. I liked how ridiculous the garden ornament perched on top of the fake rock structure looked. This one had a rope round its base. Maybe some visitors think it's a climbing wall or want to say hello to the cock.

Leiko Ikemura's Usagi Kannon II, the Rabbit Madonna, who is crying. She also has a pierced and parted skirt, not shown in this picture, into which we made one of our party crawl. No wonder Usagi Kannon is crying. I love her and her bunny ears. I'd have bought a miniature version if I'd seen one in the shop we went in. Is that tawdry of me?

Large Nijinski on Anvil Point by Barry Flanagan. The exuberance of the hare on top of the tipped over anvil delighted me. It has shades of Harry Hill about its leg kick. Another one that was fenced off.

We saw some sculpture yesterday @yspsculpture.bsky.social and these were my favourites.

Curious about why so many of the works are fenced off, though. Some had signs saying they were undergoing 'landscaping and conservation', others had no explanation. Is it the crazy weather's fault?

Penance Eliza Clark’s second novel charts a journalist’s investigation of a murder that slipped past the tabloid news hounds thanks to it taking place on the night of the UK’s EU Referend…

Clever, yes. Enjoyable, no. Penance is a fictional true crime story, a metafiction if you will, involving the brutal murder of a teenager by 3 of her schoolmates, purporting to look at the why of it all. It was too Gen Z for this Gen Xer.

thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2026/04/08/p...

A bright yellow mango ice cream held in my left hand on the wave rippled beach at St Anne's on the Sea. The sands stretch out beyond the ice cream, the sky is blue and streaked with clouds, a blurred mass of buildings is on the horizon to the left. It was a very good ice cream.

A tray of chips held above my knees with a wall and a path leading from the shelter to the Peace and Happiness Garden at St Anne's on the Sea. They were very good chips.

To the seaside today for yellow food

#stannesonthesea #mangoicecream #chips

This morning I ate T H R E E

#tobler_ONE

Annually you forget the evil psychology of EGG. "Have another bit of me" says EGG "it might be a bit thicker than the last bit" says EGG and then oh no you have in one sitting eaten all of EGG

A white chocolate toblerone partially removed from its cardboard sleeve and with the foil wrapper smoothed to reveal the letters O N E as a visual note to self to only eat one triangle.

I set myself a goal this morning.

By 1pm, I had eaten F O U R.

#tobler_ONE

A depressing number of organisations are stealing from authors right now but libraries are definitely not one of them.

Title: Hunting for Easter eggs with Werner Herzog Panel one: Werner goes out looking for eggs saying “I despise this idiotic sanitized ritual, and yet I am unwilling to return home eggless” Panel two: Werner stands before an egg on the ground “The joy of discovery rings hollow against the monumental indifference of the universe” Panel three: Werner carries an egg “what, other than regret, can hatch from this empty chocolate vessel”

Happy Easter!

Mine are an ancient brain routine, too, and I had other tricks that didn't work when they turned severe. This one I like because it's discreet. There's nothing like people engaging with you mid panic attack to make it worse, I find! Good luck tracking down extra sleep, too. It definitely helps.

I still occasionally use it and have done just the FOF part standing at bus stops/on tram platforms, anxious about transit chaos and Not Being On Time.

That's unkind of your brain to do that to you. When I had severe panic attacks after my mum died, my therapist taught me FOFBOC - feet on floor, bum on chair - a mindfulness exercise to ground the body. Can be done anywhere you're sitting. Desk, theatre, tube, bus
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Butter/バター Food in all its guises is at the heart of Yuzuki Asako’s Butter (バター), from its availability, preparation, consumption and enjoyment, to its symbolism and use as a means of control. The book …

I've spent a happy week combining a number of particular interests with the brilliant Butter by Yuzuki Asako (tr. Polly Barton). It made me feel hungry, angry, sad and entertained. I loved main character Rika's journey through food to knowing herself.

thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2026/04/04/b...

A view into a display case containing archive documents and historical photographs. The case was curated by the Heritage Champions employed at the Northern Roots site in Oldham. They have been researching the history of the site using the collections at Oldham Archives.

A front view of a photograph and a taxidermy snipe in a display case. The photograph is from the local studies collection at Oldham Archives and the snipe is from the natural history collection at Gallery Oldham. They are part of a display about the history of the Northern Roots site in Oldham, curated by the Heritage Champions based at the site.

A wide view of two display cases at Oldham Archives curated by the Heritage Champions at Northern Roots in Oldham. They have been researching the history of the site. The top row of bookshelves contains local history publications on the same themes as the display.

One of the Northern Roots Heritage Champions adding digital exhibits to the digital kiosk at Oldham Archives, enhancing the original material in the cases and going deeper into the Heritage Champions' research into the history of the Northern Roots site.

Today at work - installing 'Northern Roots - Our Heritage Stories', an archive display of original and digital material from the collections at Oldham Archives.

The display runs from 4 April to 30 June.

I was trying to work out if I can fit this print of a railway locomotive and train passing the cow bridge at Cherry Valley in a case with a snipe (as you do) and momentarily found myself in a band in 1981. We recorded our seminal album Oldham Ashton and Guide Bridge Railway for WR Records. It garnered critical acclaim for its fusion of rockabilly and coldwave.

Accidental album cover.

Explanation in the Alt.

Glen Baxter has died. His drawings of cowboy art critics and wimples were an absurdist joy. RIP

Copies of Atlas and Glen Baxter His Life: The Years of Struggle retrieved from a bookcase on the news that Glen Baxter has passed away.

A panel by Glen Baxter, much quoted in our house when I was growing up. It depicts a cowboy bunkhouse scene. One of the cowboys is sporting a fetching hairnet. The caption reads "Seth's snood was the envy of the boys in the bunkhouse."

A panel by the artist Glen Baxter depicting a woman carrying a large book being hailed by a man with his hands in his pockets. The caption reads "These pants are welded steel" announced the stranger.

Dug out my cherished possessions. Photographed two of my favourites. Laughter is a mark of respect.

The Case of the Dotty Dowager It’s the National Year of Reading in the UK. At work, the library service is running a book bingo challenge, with a theme per month. March’s theme is Cosy Crime. It has been a while sin…

I borrowed a book from the library because it's #NationalYearOfReading2026 and the library's doing book bingo. March is #CosyCrime so I read The Case of the Dotty Dowager. It was an easy read with an interesting locked room crime at its centre.

thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2026/03/28/t...

I'm supposed to use hashtags aren't I? Here you go: #folkhorror #giantrabbit #seasonalmenace #shadowplay

I didn't find any Easter eggs in the backs. Just a drunk bin on its side, incapacitated by tetrapaks and egg cartons.

A garden cast into shadow in front of a high wall and bright blue sky. The ears and top of the head of a giant rabbit appear to be peeking over the garden wall. The Giant Rabbit of Stretford is here again. Some say it seeks giant carrots which nobody can supply.

The Giant Rabbit of Stretford is surrounded by a forcefield and able to appear as a shadow as it creeps around the backs of terraced streets. Here it peeks over a garden wall into the shadows of the house. Behind it a high wall reaches up to meet a cold blue sky.

The giant rabbit was here again this morning. We don't have carrots big enough to satisfy its needs.

When The Cranes Fly South When The Cranes Fly South is the debut novel from Swedish author Lisa Ridzén, translated into English by Alice Menzies. It has won a number of awards in Sweden and came recommended by the friend wh…

A friend lent me When The Cranes Fly South. It's possibly the saddest book I've ever read, but full of compassionate truth about family, friendship and end of life care. Grief is never fully tidied away and reading this resurfaced some things.

thinkaboutreading.wordpress.com/2026/03/25/w...

For me the way they portrayed Egg in the Walking Dead was not canonical. It's like the writers didn't know anything about him. Though no one even called him Egg to his face, we know they were all thinking it.

The truth about Edwardian Britain. Nobody talks about the Data Entry Horse any more.

A vase of daffodil blooms in our Japanese beauty alcove. The vase was my mum's favourite. Daffodils were her favourite flowers. Our beauty alcove is far too cluttered to be a true tokonoma but it holds mementos of our trips to the land of the sun along with other memories.

Daffodils in a blue-green cut glass vase. Yesterday they were mostly closed or close to opening buds. Today they are a riot. They are as bright and cheerful as my mum was, as the memory I choose to have of her is.

Meanwhile, daffodil outburst.

[Scene is the UK tv show BARGAIN HUNT, at an antiques fair. Presenter NATASHA RASKIN SHARP, expert KATE BLISS and two contestants are shopping for antiques.] 1 NATASHA RS: Now Derek's spotted a real gem here… What is it, Kate? 2 KATE BLISS [holding an odd-looking grey item in her hands]: This, believe it or not... ...is the Rules Based International Order. [We see the item close up. It is a cracked, broken, misshapen lump of grey pottery with two holes, a UN flag daubed on it, and a random wooden handle sticking out the side. The contestants both make a face like, “Oooh” KATE BLISS: It was made in America And it's actually what we used to stop World War 3, before everyone got bored of doing that. So how it worked is, the Americans would speak a geopolitical issue into this hole here… Turn the handle…. [Speaking into the object’s hole]: Should we bomb Iran...? [Lifting her face up from the object, smiling at the contestants] …and then they'd just do whatever the f--- they liked. CONTESTANT 1 [easily impressed face]: Sounds pretty special, Julie CONTESTANT 2 [to stall holder]: We’ll give you £290. [The seller, incidentally, looks a lot like Tony Blair, but that's just a side note] [Cut to the AUCTION SCENE at the end of Bargain Hunt. The object is on the podium, the auctioneer closing the bidding]. AUCTIONEER: Sold! £3.65. CONTESTANTS: Oh noooo [We now pull back to see a wider view of the antiques fair and auction, and see that in the distance there is smoke, a distant mushroom cloud, ruined buildings] NATASHA RS [To the contestants]: Everything's riding on your mustard pot now! [Ends]