Tom Rollinson

It's a fantastic piece. Hardly a day goes by when I don't think of dropping my Spectator sub, but your book pages and the crossword have so far kept me going.

Sorry, I DID get it! I meant to convey that no-one else had...

Nobody seems to be getting it.

I find both numbers shocking. I've never understood the hostility towards Macron.

Oh, the grand old duke of york
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He ██████████████████
And he ██████████████████

I found some today on the banks of the River Teifi, plus some other fungi I can't as yet identify.

London Centric certainly covered it. @jim.londoncentric.media

So love wobbegongs. Everything is good about the wobbegong. Its name. Its flattened Oscar the Grouch face. Its frondy bits. Its lazy life as a hungry rug. And it’s a shark. Outstanding animal 10/10

❛ There will be dying, there will be dying, / but there is no need to go into that. / The poems flow from the hand unbidden / and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

Poet Derek Mahon, who was born #OTD in 1941.

Wordle 1,615 6/6

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Stupid game.

Possum looked into the mirror and scared itself.

Jocelyn Brooke is good as well, as recognised by Anthony Powell.

Tawny owl

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

What an admirably clear statement from the Jewish Leadership Council, especially when all of those involved must surely have been dealing with so many other urgent challenges in safety, security and grief + shock today before having this further divisive and distracting intervention to address too.

From The Dangling Man by Saul Bellow: “In the old days, when we had a flat of our own, I read constantly. I was forever buying new books, faster, admittedly, than I could read them. But as long as they surrounded me they stood as guarantors of an extended life, far more precious and necessary than the one I was forced to lead daily. If it was impossible to sustain this superior life at all times, I could at least keep its signs within reach. When it became tenuous I could see them and touch them.”

Saul Bellow nailing* the importance of physical media (cf:, lps, cds, dvds, etc) from The Dangling Man, 1944.

* for me, anyways

Some of the early ones are amazing, eg the 2000 episode on Romanticism. I intend to listen to the lot in sequence, just 25 years' worth to go...

Wordle 1,545 1/6

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Don't know, there must be something in the air today!

I learned a new word there, Moira, many thanks.

Completely correct. That sort of thing is also rife in umbrella company tax scams.

What a privilege to be at The Oval yesterday and witness those innings by Root and Brook. Best of luck to England this morning!

Common Fleabane, Common Burdock, Spear Thistle and Hemp Agrimony at Dinas Island today in sunny Pembrokeshire.

Sign for furniture showroom that reads SHACK OF SIT

As for my favourite spoonerized business name, it will never not be this furniture showroom in New Zealand...

Large Skipper, female Common Blue and Mint Moth, seen at Le Marais de Montceaux L'Étoile today. Also a remarkably clear view of a (non-singing) Nightingale (no photo, alas).

Female Essex Skipper, Marbled White and slightly blurred Spotted Fritillary, all seen on a short roadside stop in central France today.

Many thanks.

@mothiduk.bsky.social Good afternoon, would you be able to ID these moths for me, please?

Maybe the idea is "thick as a ..."

Salad Burnet and Hedge Bedstraw, two new plants for me, seen today at Albany Park in Enfield.

Does that mean it is definitely safe? If so, fantastic news (I speak as a life member).

Thanks very much.