Andrew Roberts

I calculated that our large family car, bought second hand, cost us £7.50 a day for all the fixed costs over the time we had it. Nearly 3 grand a year, that's a lot of tram tickets.

Does anyone take him seriously? As a fixture of daytime TV, I doubt anyone with influence is exposed to his dribble. As to the Telegraph column, a previous query about neighbours building on the boundary failed to mention the Party Wall Act, so he is clearly making it up as he goes.

Labour Peer Who Fled The Nazis Condemns His Party's Immigration Crackdown Lord Dubs said he was "lost for words".

Alf Dubs is a 92 year old man who spent his life fighting for refugees, and in particular for refugee children. He fought the Tories tooth and nail during their last three terms, only to see Labour adopt far-right policies on immigration.

“But to use children as a weapon ... I’m lost for words.”

Forecast suggests there may be some breaks in the cloud aound 2am, which is the time the aurora was strongest last night. So it might be worth setting an alarm.

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House.

Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.

They are not the same.

Not this sort of red tape.

Google walking directoins showing a massive dog-leg to get between two points.

Driving directions for the same trip, a tidy series of left and right turms.

Does anyone know how to force GMaps to treat me like a grown up and cross the road where I like? Driving directions are 0.4 miles, if I want to walk it routes me via a pelican crossing which is 0.7 miles. This is going to put people off walking if it looks too far.

It hasn't changed much
maps.app.goo.gl/N1mNHFcvt6uf...

Use of paracetamol during pregnancy unchanged in the EU | European Medicines Agency (EMA) Paracetamol medicines can be used in pregnancy, in accordance with official recommendations

Paracetamol remains an important option to treat pain or fever in pregnant women.

Following rigorous assessment of the available scientific data, we find no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children.

Read more 👉 www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/use-...

🤞

i mean, you could hang around for *checks notes* Andy Burnham to come save you but frankly at the pace the far right are organising we haven’t got time to wait

bsky.app/profile/gree...

Scrrenshot of the Royal Mail tracking page with captcha. The captcha asks "click on animals that could live in the shelter shown" along with a picture of a nest box for small birds. The choices are either cattle or gulls.

Apparently to track my parcel, I have to declare that gulls can fit in a nest box! @royalmailofficial.bsky.social really have the worst captchas.

The linked article mentions crushed soapstone, and the Polar Nigh Energy link below says "uses sustainably sourced sand, sand-like materials, or industrial by-products as its storage medium". So that shouldn't be a limiting factor.

Freshly ploughed soil with many stones

With apologies to Patrick Kavanaugh, the stony brown soil of Lincolnshire. The top 10cm is bone dry.

A crossroads under cloudy skies. There is a vast area of tarmac and a car in sight.

Deepest Lincolnshire. They build these roads and no-one uses them.

There used to be a dog grooming business on Yewtree Road in Manchester. Sadly, it appears to no longer be there. yewtreegrooming.com

"Open the pod bay doors, please, Hal"
"Ooh, matron!"

A man wrapped up against the cold, surveys a frozen plain

The secret German weather station on the Arctic island of Svalbard. Part of the 'Weather War'.

The team, led by Lieutenant Wilhelm Dege, were the last German troops to surrender in WW2, finally doing so FOUR MONTHS after Germany had officially surrendered.

It was not for want of trying. /1

The average 8 year old: challenge accepted!

bsky.app/profile/alr1...

Rise in ‘alert fatigue’ risks phone users disabling news notifications, study finds Publishers could see audiences uninstall apps, as some users receive up to 50 alerts a day, analysis shows

Well, gosh, isn't this what the same papers, in their wellness sections, have been telling us to do for years: switch off unecessary notifications to avoid digital burnout and disctraction?

Cruise couple heard 'whooshing' noise then they were 'covered from head to toe' 'The lights are going on and off and everything. Oh it stinks, it's everywhere. It's on my slippers. It's running down the walls'

Chalk another one up against ever, EVER going on a cruise.
(Justifiably) @apiln.bsky.social

Looking for my rental car in a Colorado parking lot. There it is!
This was 6 years ago, the other cars have grown since then.

Interesting. I made a formal complaint to the BBVC about an article that described illegal e-motorbikes as e-bikes. Their response was that the police called them in a press release. It was obvious from the wider context what they were. I would have expected a journo to be able to figure that out.

What could possibly go wrong? Oh wait, We already know!

🤮

A google maps route from Chorlton to BlocHaus climbing.

Not always, it depends how far around you're going. This for instance, would be improved enormously by a protected route from Fallowfield to Belle Vue. Especially this bridge maps.app.goo.gl/th5VQ4R6DP5H...

Today Helene Cooper, Greg Jaffe, Jonathan Swan, Eric Schmitt, and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that Trump followed a similar pattern in his bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. He thought he could stop Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by bombing the Houthis, and he expected results within 30 days. After 31 days, the journalists report, the U.S. didn’t even have air superiority over the Houthis, who shot down seven U.S. drones—each of which cost about $30 million—and continued to fire at U.S. ships. In the first month, the U.S. campaign cost about $1 billion and lost two $67 million aircraft. Eager to get out, Trump agreed to stop the bombing campaign in return for the Houthis’ leaving U.S. ships alone, but without any promises from the Houthis to stop the more general attacks that had led Trump to start the U.S. strikes in the first place. On May 5, Trump ended the operations and declared victory. For their part, the Houthis posted on social media: “Yemen defeats America.”

In a similar vein, from @hcrichardson.bsky.social
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-12-2025

Map of Manchester with existing, planned and desired cycleways sketched over.

The outer-inner ring road.
The green bit is built, the red-dotted down Seymour Grove planned. Actually, some of this is already there on the east side but I don't know the area well enough to mark it.

bsky.app/profile/alr1...
(Now squarely patched).