Mark Payne

Now I've got the theme tune to 'Genevieve' in my head - which is not a bad thing...

A rather wet start to the London Brighton classic car run

How do you know if the short story competition you want to enter is worth it? The Contest Calculator from Chill Subs is a genuinely useful tool to assess whether the story competitions you're entering are legit and transparently run: www.thecontestcalculator.com

I saw this 3 years ago.
#photography

Another Jonesy gem.

Thank you - made us chuckle on this fine Thursday morning. 👍😀

Grundig CF 5500 cassette deck

One of Hendrick's favorite painting venues: the Oude Kerk in Delft, here in 1670. Kids playing. Dog waiting for some action. Today is Hendrick van Vliet's day.

Inspiring.

Literary success aged 69, I was longlisted for the Wainwright prize You are never too old to embark on a new adventure as I discovered in 2024, which has kickstarted a new life as a full time writer

People say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I went to university at 64, published my first book at 69, and now write full-time. Turns out, you can | Robert Ashton

@eastangliabylines.co.uk

Dusk in the pouring rain at Bank station in London. Reflections in puddles. A few bedraggled figures make their way to and from the Tube

Home through the rain (1969)
Artist: John Berry

I could honestly write a whole essay ranting about my opinions behind this one... I have Strong Feelings about the dominance of Shakespeare in our media-analysis training (ie English in schools and universities) at a time when we are all going insane with online disinformation

[Scene is a high school classroom. A teacher is writing on the whiteboard 'ACT 2 SCENE 3'.] TEACHER: OK class - open up Macbeth to Act 2 Scene 3... TEACHER: So - does anybody have any ideas on Shakespeares meaning behind the character of 'the Porter' in this scene? [A voice comes from off-scene, behind the teacher's back[. VOICE: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. TEACHER [turning round]: Sorry….. who are you? [We see a wider scene that shows it is the GHOST OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, hovering over the heads of the startled students] SHAKESPEARE: I'm the Ghost of Shakespeare and I've come back to say: this scene means *absolutely nothing*. The Porter is a funny drunk bloke I lobbed in to cover a costume change! I mean like, not everything I did was genius OK? Stop giving me the ick. TEACHER: So um...what do you suggest we study? SHAKESPEARE: The most important text in British culture! TEACHER: Which is...? SHAKESPEARE: 'Bollocks People Say on the Internet.' TEACHER: You think we should study... bollocks people say on the internet? SHAKESPEARE: Yes. TEACHER: But Mr Shakespeare... your Porter scene was a question in a past GCSE paper... We need to analyse it so the kids don't end up failing their exams... SHAKESPEARE: Yes, and I'm just suggesting you should analyse Bollocks People Say on the Internet instead, so they don't end up painting flags on roundabouts. [Silent pause] TEACHER: OK class - open up your phones to X... [ends]

Pen and ink monogram vignette of six people waiting at a bus stop in 1950s Britain including the businessman with his newspaper, gossiping matrons and elderly lady

The bus-stop (1956)

(Vignette from ‘Tootles the Taxi’)
Artist: John Kenney

„This is a national security issue!“ says Dame Angela McLean, the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, about the collapse risk of the North Atlantic subpolar gyre.
Interesting discussion on Forecasting Arctic Tipping Points - Building an Early Warning System for Everyone, at #ArcticCircle.

and there is no need for the hourly news bulletins...

A man, smoking a straight pipe, looks intently at a rain gauge. He is wearing collar, tie and a sensible sweater

How to be a Ladybird man, part 20.
Smoke a pipe. Never cigarettes. Always a pipe
Artist: Robert Ayton
(The Weather, 1962)

St Ann's Square, Manchester, painting by Arthur Delaney (1927-87). Stolen from a gallery in 2015.

Ginnel, Denmark Street, Lancaster, by Janet Mary Robinson, Scottish-born artist. #WomensArt #NorthernArt

'View from Senate House Library' (2014) by Melissa Scott-Miller
chrisbeetles.com/artwork/44604/view-from-senate-house-library

Good evening! This week's theme is London from a Window.
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'Window in London Street', Fitzroy Street (1901) by Sir William Orpen

(National Gallery of Ireland)

Shadows on the Park Wall, Roundhay, Leeds John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893) Leeds Art Gallery Leeds Museums and Galleries

John Atkinson Grimshaw was a master of moonlit streets and mist-draped docks, a painter who captured the very texture of the Victorian dream. His cityscapes, illuminated by the soft glow of gaslight, startled viewers with their precision and poetry, scenes where realism met reverie. Though

A cyclist pauses outside the windows of Arnison's department store in Penrith

Arnison's department store Of Penrith is closing in December - after 275 years of trading. A great shame. The business is still profitable. Hopefully someone will take on this grand old lady.

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

So one Nobel prize can now be in three places simultaneously. Excellent.

We've been getting so many submissions! Fiction on the Web got 281 submissions in September. We published 9 stories in September. That suggests a lower acceptance rate than usual for us - just over 3%.

Durham Station Road, painting by Eric Thompson (b.1947). #NorthernArt

Light and Shadow at Nine Elms London Underground station

Light & Shadow

I love the secret feature at Nine Elms London Underground station that reveals itself during a sunny day.

If you arrive at the perfect moment, the roundel logo is beautifully projected onto the floor.

So I took Dancer Andreya with me to interact with the scene.

[Scene is ANCIENT GREECE - where SOCRATES and PLATO and others are sitting round, thinking] 1 SOCRATES: Plato.. PLATO: Yes Socrates? 2 SOCRATES: Can you tell me, are you human? PLATO: Why… yes, Socrates 3 SOCRATES: And would you agree, Plato, that a human knows what a chariot is? PLATO: Um, yep 4 SOCRATES: So you can tell me, then 5 [Socrates produces a papyrus, showing a drawing of the corner of a chariot wheel] SOCRATES: *Is that a chariot*? 6 PLATO: Well that’s more just a bit of wheel 7 SOCRATES: So not a *chariot*. PLATO: No. 8 SOCRATES: [Producing another papyrus with the full drawing of the chariot, chopped into boxes] So if a man were challenged to “tap the boxes containing chariots to prove you’re human” when he was just trying to check his ClubCard points... *where could he tap*? 9 PLATO: Well you can’t tap any of them really 10 SOCRATES: So are we not human? PLATO: ‘Spose not. 11 [Bleak pause] 12 PLATO: I’ll get the hemlock SOCRATES: Yeah [ends]