Damn it, it's hard. Thinking of you. Anything I can do Joe, let me know.

Oh, look. Mattel are issuing a new partner for 1980s Power Suit Barbie.

My sympathies in return!
(I'm watching the match.)

And when the UK version isn't hiding behind chillies it's reliant on being stodge.

I'd really like a less ferociously biased commentator!

Photo of the South of Scotland regional ballot paper for the Scottish election on 7th May 2026. Added text identifies the "INDEPENDENT GREEN VOICE" as "NOT the Green Party" and "SCOTTISH GREEN PARTY" as "The actual Green Party".

Anyone who received their postal ballot today in the South of Scotland region, please be aware that "Independent Green Voice", which appears second on the list on the peach regional ballot paper, is NOT the Scottish Green Party. This is in fact a deliberate vote spoiling attempt by right-wingers.

If we forced every PM who appointed a thrice-disgraced best friend of a pedophile into a senior diplomatic role after failing security vetting to resign just because he lied to the public about it before he got arrested for leaking confidential information, we'd never get anything done.

look, on the horizon,
international haiku day,
spilling syllables

The SNP one was manifesto promises. The Labour one was all everyone else bad. No idea what the Conservative one said, I binned it unopened.

Apparently I'm both 'not found' and 'forbidden'. This feels a little extreme...
#bluesky

Congratulations!

Hmm. Perhaps we could have regular scheduled downtime on the basis that those damn books won't write themselves...

Works for me, Comrade.

:-/

:-)

Long haired Afghan hound on the pavement is a high wind looking infinitely more elegant than most Vogue covers...

#edinburgh

Is Vance a Catholic, or has Vance declared himself a Catholic, for a recent US reading of Catholicism which seems to be extreme Protestantism with frills?

They obviously had that in mind!
(if only)

The last...

Huge Group of Experts Warns Meta That Its Pervert Glasses Will Enable Terrible Crimes Meta's plans to add facial recognition tech to its smart glasses, as part of a new feature dubbed "Name Tag," has outraged rights groups.

This first court case after a hitman kills the wrong target because his pervert Raybans failed at facial recognition is going to be interesting...

Aye. He was an original. In life as well as his art.

Sorry to hear about Ian Watson's passing. I first met him in the 90s, when a publishing lunch turned into a long tale of his being sent to Japan to teach, arriving at the start of a strike, and spending the year being paid to do nothing

A original, in an industry that didn't always appreciate it.

Hmm, only three of the four seem to be science fiction...

Photograph of Oslo opera house in the dark at night, seen across the fjord, with the distant buildings reflected in the water.

A view across Oslo fjord at night towards distant building with an unlit hillside rising behind them. The lights are reflected in the water.

Night walk, Oslo.

She's still well known in Scotland, possibly mostly in academic/lit circles. Feminist, marxist, anti fascist, talented, prolific and generally on the right side of things (imo). I like her stuff, and was interested to see that book reissued.

'Beautifully written, blending close attention to the natural world with hallucinogenic dreams and a mind-boggling premise, this is an eco-thriller like no other from one of Britain’s best SF writers...'

Those US-Iran negotiations in a nutshell:

Iran sent 4 PhDs to Islamabad.

The US sent a real estate developer, a son-in-law, a lawyer and a general.

That, and I that spent quite a bit of the last three years setting un roman autobiographique there, if that's what the book is, which remains debatable.

Memory!

A side view of the sharp edged, redbricked Radhus (town hall) on Oslo waterfront, showing a white van parked in front of a stature. The sky is visible and bright and blue.

A picture of a woman with long hair and glasses sitting in an armchair at a table in a cafe with a book, a coffee and a cheese roll in front of her.

Back in the same cafe on Oslo waterfront, eating same things as last year

'Memory is like an old garment: no matter how pretty it is, it no longer suits you...
Repetition, however, is a durable garment that hugs you tenderly but never constricts or swamps you.' Vigdis Hjorth

Suspect I mostly agree