Peter Morwood

Tyrannosaurs in F-15s shot through my fevered (literally, I have a temp) brain.

Close-up photo of the octagonal bone grip of a discontinued "Mainz-pattern" (leaf-bladed) Roman gladius short-sword.

That's a first-generation Mainz-pattern gladius from Albion. IIRC it was discontinued because grinding the bone grip involved too many health risks, but IMO the main health risk about this is being on the wrong end of it. "XIII! XIII! XIII!"

The Household Daily Bread Recipe (PM's Version) - The Mind Palate Peter's version of the household bread recipe, with ingredient amounts tailored to the high-walled loaf pans we use.

Call me biased, but this one is even simpler. Still no arsenic, which like strychine is an optional extra. Cyanide of course provides an interesting hint of bitter almond, though IMO I can't recommend any of them. Just make the bread... mind-palate.com/the-househol...

Congratulations on the eBay win, and thank you for posting images from your collection here and on Tumblr. They're much appreciated!

Here are a couple of rock crystal sword pommels, also AFAIK German. The first is in private hands, the second is in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich.

YouTube video by QI QI | Mein Handy

I knew about "Handy" (Handi?) before Stephen Fry mentioned it on QI, but until then hadn't heard it pronounced with the same inflection as "vibrator". :-> www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow1n...

cc: @diane.dianeduane.com :->

The words "A Major Award" just passed through my mind, followed rapidly by "FraGEElay"... :->

M&M sandwich - not the alien form of Smarties but Marmite & Mayonnaise. Can be bread or toast. Can add a couple of crisp bacon rashers and / or slices of salami if desired. Can add a dash of Tabasco or Franks. Yum. Best not to wear white, though...

cc: @diane.dianeduane.com

DD & I bought ourselves all of Glyn Hughes's books as household Christmas presents, and the original "Foods of England" website has been comprehensively archived. web.archive.org/web/20231209...

I know some of the terminology (a youth ill-spent reading Westerns and thrillers, where the game featured a lot and often ended in exciting violence) but an actual poker player I Am Not.

Snap or Happy Families is more my level, and I don't have the patience for Patience.

The painting is called "Dinosaurs Eating CEO" and shows the non-frenzied feeding pattern of dromaeosurid dinosaurs, possibly Deinonychus or Velociraptor mongoliensis. Two dinosaurs have hunted down and killed a grey-haired man in a business suit, presumably the CEO of the title. He has been eviscerated and his entrails are on the road beside him, upon which the dinosaurs are starting to feed. In the background two more dinosaurs pursue a second business-suited man, while the house lights of an unconcerned rural community glitter on the distant horizon.

There's a gruesome painting from 2013 by John Brosio (johnbrosio.com/figures/) which fits the bill.

Old-style US fire hydrant with ribbed body and cap, peeling paint and a general air of having seen better days.

A vertical mouth would fit with old-style ribbed hydrants in a Dark Manhattan where the feral cabs are - you told me once - Checkers. But I always saw that horizontal mouth as where cap met trunk, like a trapdoor spider lair. Prey approaches, lid pops up, tongue shoots out and Gotcha!.

One of several reasons why @diane.dianeduane.com and I are so keen on train travel. This brings back fond memories of my first-ever bowl of goulash soup in a Mitropa dining car. (There have been others since.) :->

Pain perdu — Wikipédia

It doesn't.

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_pe...

And of course @diane.duane should have been @diane.dianeduane.com, but for a bit there I was having trouble remembering ME...

I just wish I’d been writing when it happened, because I was actually watching a BBC adaptation of an M. R. James ghost story, the BANG happened at A Good Bit, and it was several seconds before I detached myself from the ceiling. Triple espresso to calm my nerves, then bed. :-P (6/6)

Because BANG it was, and BTW, I can assure one all that The Scent Doesn’t Fade. (5/6)

Last year DD said “decant it into smaller bottles so The Scent Doesn’t Fade,” so I did. They were screw-top bottles. Oops. Big mistake. The R&G push stopper and the old wicker wrapping may have been a safety feature as much as a design trademark. In case of BANG. (4/6)

Two Christmases back I bought @diane.duane a bottle of R&G Jean Farina, her favourite, and because I was a bit flush I made up for being more skint at prior Christmases with a 1 litre bottle. Divvied into sprays etc. I thought, that should last a while. (3/6)

Turns out a bottle of cologne had exploded. Does cologne do that? Yes. Oh, very yes. At least this one did, with great enthusiasm. Looking at the splinters, I’m just glad I wasn’t in there when it happened. But why? (2/6)

So I'm up late (01-55) in my office, which doubles as a spare bedroom so there’s a shower-room attached. Suddenly there’s one hell of a BANG in there, and within seconds I'm breathing more Roger & Gallet eau-de-cologne than air. (1/6)

A place for those times when someone needs to get dead drunK.

Basel... Chur... It's been far too long since we were there.

‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Rescued After Warner Bros. Axes Finished Film More than a year after Warner Bros. shelved "Coyote vs. Acme" for tax incentives, the Looney Tunes-inspired film is close to finding a new home.

Attn: @diane.dianeduane.com - remember what you hoped for this morning?
variety.com/2025/film/ne...

When he got back almost all the duck was gone & we had to order another. Mum really liked duck - and was also a lot more skilled with chopsticks than either of us realised... :->

We once took Mum to a Chinese restaurant in Belfast where one of the dishes ordered was crispy aromatic duck. Our waiter brought the 1/2 duck, pulled it apart with forks then went to get pancakes, cucumber, spring onions, sauce etc. (1/2)

Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar in "Carry On Cleo" saying that great line, "Infamy, Infamy, they've all got it in for me" (stabitty stabitty stab).

Next, "frying tonight..."

I’m now entertaining serious thoughts about toasting a really thick slice, drizzling it with cream, custard or vanilla sauce then eating it as a dessert, though current state of play means this will require baking another loaf then making sauce or custard. Oh dear, how sad, never mind. :-> (3/3)