Amy Gray

Also please pause for Tim Rice’s interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream:
“All those things you saw in your pyjamas
Were a long range forecast for your farmers”

The 7yo is listening to Joseph (the Jason Donovan cast recording I had on tape as a kid, now on a Yoto card) and how is it that I remember at least 85% of the lyrics but cannot hold the rules of curling in my head for more than 4 minutes

I’m a couple of chapters into revisiting for the first time since I was a teenager. Currently Team Heathcliff because now I properly appreciate the horror of uninvited guests who won’t leave.

We’re calling on Government to implement a safe, regulatory framework for the ethical use of AI in the UK. Please help amplify this message by writing to your MP and asking them to stand up for creators and the creative industries.

A handwritten letter to Sarah McIntyre's MP. It asks him to stand up for the UK's children's book illustrators and their copyright and is illustrated with a picture of a serious-looking mouse holding a large pencil.

An important message beautifully presented by writer/illustrator and SoA Fellow Sarah McIntyre.

Went to talk to my son’s Beavers troop for their Book Readers Badge. Their attention was most grabbed by the REAL SCOTTISH CASTLE where I did my research and they urgently wanted to know WAS IT EVER *ATTACKED*. (They were pleased the answer was yes, but disappointed it was not with catapults.)

Look at this cheerful hippo!

4yo's nursery says they can't go in for 48 hours if they've had Calpol at home. Apparently it might mask the symptoms of something else. It is ludicrous. But also miraculous that a whole nursery of children apparently never has need for Calpol....

Age verification? My younger brother was born in West Germany.

Age verification? We'd use the internet to look up directions and then print them out to have on the seat next to us for the journey.

And half the pictures would have someone's finger in the way, or be really blurry, or everyone's eyes would have weird red circles in them.

Thank you so much to @british-airways.bsky.social for making it so hard for my husband to change a business flight despite 90 minutes on the phone that he missed saying goodnight to our children tonight. Much appreciated, especially as he’s leaving too early to see them in the morning tomorrow.

I would be too

BlueSky has a lot to learn

I watched the first one on my gap year in Nepal, on what must have been a pirated DVD on a tiny TV in the garden of a lakeside B&B in Pokhara.

At London 2012 crowned heads of state and presidents had to wait for the US First Lady to exit the stadium before they were allowed to leave. American politicians and their consorts do not travel humbly.

After the Burning of Westminster in 1834, William IV offered Buckingham Palace (which he hated) to Parliament. They turned him down.

I went to the National Prayer Breakfast in 2014.
The vibe was….not this.
In Obama’s address, he prayed that “His wisdom will give us the capacity to do right and to seek justice, and defend the oppressed wherever they may dwell.”
obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-of...

Sathnam Sanghera: Help! I’ve fallen out of love with reading The writer stopped picking up a book for pleasure some time ago, choosing box sets and social media instead. Here’s how he got over his reader’s block

"Reading has been proven to increase life expectancy. It promotes tolerance, understanding and good citizenship. It aids mental health, encourages integration, boosts self-esteem, resilience, sleep, life satisfaction, social skills and problem-solving skills."
www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

It was written to be performed, not read on the page. Judi Dench is hilarious about academics in her book on Shakespeare, quite rightly saying that the plays only make sense in performance

YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert "There's Nothing I Enjoy More Than Acting In The Theater" - Ian McKellen EXTENDED INTERVIEW

This is superb. Ian McKellen delivers a blistering pro-immigration monologue written by Shakespeare, that makes you want to punch the air with exhilaration. Wow, wow, wow.

An absolute must-watch. (Starts at 20:10 but the entire interview is a joy.) youtu.be/2l2RqzVG4ag

Of course. Send emails and groom and traffic young women.

He seems to have done nothing *but* send emails.

Need the children's book and the film asap. The hero children need.

I read this out to my son this morning and he thought it was incredible. Turn it into a children's book stat

First Hamnet and now Bridgerton.
British swimmers were not doing front crawl until the late C19th at the earliest.

I failed two driving test's on Charlie Brown's roundabout. Bet they couldn't manage that

Vernon Bartlett has possibly the best ever picture in any MP’s memoir, of the Westminster Home Guard. Duchess Kitty’s husband, the 8th Duke of Atholl (a retd Brig-Gen) volunteered until he became too ill.
That is actually a brilliant scenario for a Dad’s Army reboot….

Right there on the back cover of ‘I Know What I Liked’! He says he wrote two books about his attempt to become a farmer there, ‘Tuscan Retreat’ and ‘Tuscan Harvest’.