Jon Woolcott

My black and white cats sound more like Sam, habit wise. Pepper has become a bit of a local celebrity round here.

A photograph of a knitted postbox topper of a black and white cat lifting weights.

Excellent news. I hope you enjoy this photo a postbox topper of Pepper, the cat that roams around Shaftesbury, enjoys going into shops and the gym. Pepper looks a lot like Sam.

Zadie Smith, Michael Rosen, Irvine Welsh and Jeanette Winterson sign letter calling for Israel boycott More than 200 writers request cessation of all trade until people of Gaza given adequate food, water and aid

"Boycott Israel until the people of Gaza are given adequate food, water and aid.

"We stand in solidarity with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

A photograph of an old stone cross, with an unusual rounded head, by the side of a country lane.

A stone cross I came across on a walk in Devon at the weekend. This one has an unusual head, found and retrieved from a nearby hedge in 1924 by a Reverend Robson.

Oh very much, as you must!

The research is just brilliant!

Me too: goodness knows what will emerge.

A photograph of a messy scrawl of writing, purporting to be a plan for a chapter about Sussex for the book I am writing.

It would be an exaggeration to say I've got a 'plan' for the chapter I'm writing.

Heathrow Expansion – the Colne Valley Regional Park’s position - Colne Valley Regional Park We remain publicly and determinedly opposed to the plans to expand Heathrow Airport, which will cut the Park in two, changing it for ever. 1200 acres of Green Belt will be lost and many more hundreds ...

#HeathrowExpansion will disconnect the internationally-rare chalk streams of the Chilterns from the #Thames. For Eels and other migratory fish to get to #StAlbans, #Hemel, #Chesham, #Amersham etc etc (or back to the Sargasso Sea) this is catastrophic.
www.colnevalleypark.org.uk/heathrow-pos...

Yup! Compost is right, excellent way of putting it. I never know how to solve tricky stuff, especially how to link ideas, when I am staring at the page. It comes to me afterwards, and not conveniently eg when in the shower. It's like my brain runs this shit in the background.

He told me that too!

Wonderful book.

The funniest article I've read in ages. The idea of the sainted Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell wearing a perpetual expression of 'a ferret saddened by developments in France' will stay with me a while.

A photograph of my cat, Flora.

I have these frequently and also have a series of humane traps; but then I do have an idea how they get in.

This is excellent, my liege.

Most of the manuscript is Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, and a fair bit of She Sells Sea Shells. Tell no-one, can't have the Nobel Committee getting excited.

Given my next book will also cover LOST HORSES you're in a lot of trouble.

She is a very good donkey.

All my writing is like that, ask any editor.

Doris even gets a black and white photo in it, which is more than I do.

Great news Rina!

And I very much did. Full story of Robert Boyle, his lost Stalbridge mansion and Doris in my book, Real Dorset. #alwaysworking.

If cartoons like mugging passers-by in the hopemof carrots, then possibly. I complemented her on her coat, which was decorated with cartoon dogs that day.

A photograph of a donkey named Doris, staring at the camera from the other side of a low hedge.

Meet Doris, the donkey who grazes the site of the lost Dorset house of scientist Robert Boyle.

A photograph of Tom Lehrer.

As someone said, I'm taking plenty of imagination. And my bike.

I'm off to Cambridge in 2 weeks to look for the truth behind Lethbridge's chalk figures. He was a sort of prototype Indiana Jones IMHO.

Photograph of Tom Lehrer

Oh no. Tom Lehrer gone. At his great age, it’s not a tragedy, I know, but it just does feel bad not having his genius in the world.

Am absolutely going to have to get you a copy of this.https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/a-sculpture-that-sings-by-orlando-gough-and-david-ward/

A photograph of a Jersey Tiger Moth on a window pane. Phwoar.

The underside of a Jersey Tiger Moth, the wanton saucepot.