I hope you can enjoy the very first of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words 19,1 Emajor
videos.sproutvideo.com/embed/a49adb...

The above is a joke by the way and sometimes bluesky is a bit joke blind.

Anyway the point is Iran called the US’s bluff on blocking the strait. Iran knows it has leverage.

Turning off the transponders of the Iranian supertankers is like a Klingon using its cloaking device. Suddenly the ship becomes invisible to the US Navy blockading Hormuz.

A small point from the Mandelson/Robbins saga. Refom and many Tories argue for a civil service than can be more easily bent to the will and whims of their elected political masters.

This is precisely what happened here.

There it is

Sunlit mist on a tree-lined river with electricity lines overhead

Smoke on the water #EastCoastKin #Photography

My head immediately went to Fire in the Sky and I think that dates me.

A picture of a rather dilapidated copy of "The picture of Dorian Gray" There is visible water damage to the cover and the plastic cover is yellowing. Obviously, not evident from the picture but there is a truly foul musty smell emanating from it!

Last week, a gentleman returned this rather dilapidated copy of this famous book to us after 50 years. He had found it in his attic!
Presumably this means there is a pristine copy somewhere in our libraries....

Also I feel strongly that NEITHER preparing children for exams NOR preparing children for the workplace are / should be the main purpose of education actually!

I did have two UK ones and two Australian ones. Now I have one of each.

I consolidated my two UK ones into a third, each took about 3 months. One was very awkward about insisting on lots of documentation to demonstrate I am person. The other was just very slow.

Drivers love to say that they're just telling pedestrians and cyclists what to do because they're so so terrified of hurting us but then when you suggest they drive like they're actually terrified of hurting us they're like no fuck you

Worm tongue more like.

Man touching grass saying, 'I'm touching it. When does it kick in?'

A black cat w golden eyes half curled up on a blue sofa. She gazes gently into the middle distance, probably thinking it's high time she was fed.

Maggie being an absolute goddess today

In Pursuit of Understanding the Crash What Post-Exertional Physiology Tells Us About ME/CFS

Important post from Dr Todd Davenport about PEM.

likeannopeningbandforthesun.substack.com/p/in-pursuit...

Good pull quote:

#MECFS #PEM

NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating - NASA Science On April 17, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California sent commands to shut down an instrument aboard Voyager 1 called the

NASA Shuts Off Instrument on Voyager 1 to Keep Spacecraft Operating

The Low-energy Charged Particles experiment has been operating almost without interruption since Voyager 1 launched in 1977 - almost 49 years. 🧪🔭 #Voyager

science.nasa.gov/blogs/voyage...

Middle East eye graphic WAR ON LEBANON 18 APRIL • LIVE UPDATES: Israeli troops blow up homes in southern Lebanon despite ceasefire

Israel doesn’t believe ceasefires apply to them btw

A white cat with black markings seen from slightly above in the green grass. His head is turned to the side

A large fluffy grey cat seen from the back and side, his long, floofy tail outstretched

A white cat with ginger markings is seen from the back as he's strolling through a garden

A large fluffy grey cat wedged into a box. He is looking at the camera with his face tucked in and one paw on the edge of the box

For this #Caturday have some cat bums and Darth Grunzl being emo in a box

Middle East crisis live: Iran says it has closed the strait of Hormuz again due to US blockade In a statement carried by Iranian media, the Iranian military’s operational command said the strait had ‘reverted to its previous state’

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Schrödinger's Strait

Has Israel stopped bombing Lebanon? Do ships now pass the Strait of Hormuz?

I have finished the last of the wine in the house while cooking dinner. G&T it is then.

well I suppose once you've done all the standard war crimes you have to start innovating

That Robbins would only say Mandelson had been vetted but not the result is, reminds us of the old joke of the driver who would check their real-view mirror before pulling out.

It didn’t matter if anything was actually coming, as long as they had checked the real-view mirror, they would pull out.

I'm going to open an aviary specialising in one type of bird only - just for larks!

Probably just forgot to put everything back on the shelves after waiting 2 hours to be served. Boots has designed their service procedures on shops in Moscow during the Soviet Union.

Lambs prancing - or gamboling - in a field

Worrying signs that the lambs in the fields around here are developing a gamboling addiction

I just don't think any instrument notation should use MULTIPLE clefs at once and this is why I could never get on with learning the piano.

Wondering where the barcode is to scan the cat when checking out? Do Bodegas have a policy for evaluating whether customers will be competent for serving the cat?