camtarn

Good job Ella!

A pink haired man in a pink shirt, trans flags painted on his face. He has a snare drum and bass drum strapped around his waist, and a samba leader's whistle around his neck.

Pride! Playing with the Beatroots 💖

Good tip, thank you!

Hidden Door festival was excellent ❤️ Wandered round the venue which was an ex paper factory, enjoying the art and also the mammoth abandoned paper-making machines, took some photos and resolved to come back with a proper camera, then had a good dance to some tasty beats from Snapped Ankles.

A seven string guitar with a smoky semi-transparent finish that fades to glossy black at the edges. In the background is a pedalboard full of colourful (and cheap!) mini pedals.

New guitar day! Decides to invest in a seven string since I've wanted one for ages.

Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago - Nature Wooden artefacts from waterlogged deposits in Zambia dating back 477 ka indicate hitherto unknown sophistication in woodworking at an early date.

TIL that large scale woodworking (in this case, logs joined with cut notches) predated the emergence of Homo sapiens by about 150,000 years...!! 🤯

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

TIL that both the ancient and modern Olympics used to include an art and culture competition!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_com...

Since 1949 it is no longer part of the Olympics themselves, but some form of culture festival is still held by each Olympic host.

A closeup of a hot drink station in an office kitchen, with a bag of M&S ground Italian style coffee, a jar of Lidl Gold decaffeinated instant coffee, a bag of unbleaches Clipper teabags, and a bright orange tub of Bisto brand chicken gravy granules.

Drink options in my work kitchen. Would you like tea, coffee, decaf coffee, or a nice hot cup of chicken Bisto?

A stark black and white picture of a very large gantry crane in a warehouse

Colourful lifting straps

A high contrast photo of reels and reels of various types of colourful wire

A piece of shiny industrial machinery, dramatically lit in green and pink

Wandering around an industrial R&D building with a camera is very fun ❤️

Jasmine, a fluffy and normally entirely harmless grey longhaired cat, is nesting behind an open door in such a way that only half her face can be seen, with a single eye staring directly at the camera.

Cat with threatening aura.

This is a bit similar to how I set up my Android home screen - I use a monochrome custom icon set so that the only colourful element on the screen is the wallpaper. I really prefer it to the cluttered rainbow of icons.

...on the other hand I do regularly start the wrong apps so you're not wrong 😂

Similarly. It's pretty neat.

Hamlet, with sword

The Player being held at dagger-point by Guildenstern

A fatal stabbing!! Followed by a gory death!! Followed by the revelation, in-story, that it was a stage dagger with collapsible blade.

Everybody dies a gory death at the end. Applause.

The cast

Rosencrantz and The Player betting on coin tosses

Another set of actors for R+G (Sophie and Cinderella) aboard the boat. Hamlet, holding the umbrella, has given up on the play at this point and (in the script) is having a nice read under a big sun umbrella with a pint and a ciggie.

Pirates!! Hamlet, from rear with tiny wooden sword raised, is charging into battle.

Guildenstern, as played by me in a tricorn hat with a big blue G on the side

Guildenstern, as played by Crow in the same hat, with Stew as Rosencrantz in the background

Pub Shakespeare does Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead ❤️ (photo thread 🧵)

I'm reading Wyrd Sisters to Crow in small installments, and it's such an absolute joy. Of course the danger of reading Pratchett aloud is that there have been a couple of scenes so far where I've struggled to get through them without being derailed by giggles 😆

I also watched the 1990 Tom Stoppard-directed film version the following morning, which was quite a different vibe while also being very enjoyable, and had the extra pleasure of seeing Gary Oldman doing his best agreeable simpleton impression as Rosencrantz ❤️

the nature of RaGAD as a play 😄

It was an absolute blast. Here's to more of that.

Shakespeare crew handling Hamlet, Ophelia, Claudius etc between them - including a few moments where e.g. Claudius finished talking to Gertrude (Jenny) and then turned to Polonius (also Jenny, hurriedly removing her crown and running round the back of Claudius) which seemed extremely in keeping with

Guil's next line in the conversation, often to a Rosencrantz who had also seamlessly switched actors 😆

We had a single actor (Peter) beautifully playing The Player, an entirely invisible cast of Tragedians, Cinder reading the frequently hilarious stage directions, and then the rest of the Pub

role of Guildenstern with Crow, mediated by little stickers and feathered tricorn hats: whenever I hit a little blue sticker in my script, I would wander over near Crow, finish my line, drop the hat with the big blue "G" on the side onto Crow's head, then they would stand up and take over for

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is freakin' funny. Thanks to Jenny's Pub Shakespeare series, we gathered in the back room of the Safari Lounge and played it from script, with pretty much none of us having read it before. After Jen handed out the roles, I ended up sharing the 🧵

New front tyre/tube survived the ride to the office!

Was worried about the tyre flexing, but it wasn't flat - I think it's just a more flexible tyre.

And I'm not sure, but I reckon the new tyre gives less vibration :) It's an 80/20 road/dirt tyre and I think the old one was more dirt-biased.

Movie concept from a mind wandering just before sleep:

VIKING CHAINSAW BIKER WARRIORS

Coming to a cinema near you next winter

Nate standing beside the just-lit barbecue with a colourful umbrella, with an expression that captures the absurdity of attempting to BBQ in Scotland

Nate, now wearing a giant high-vis waterproof jacket over his vest and shorts, putting corn on the cob on the grill with a pair of tongs

A shot from inside a comfy living room, through the window to a rain-sodden outside. Nate is pressed up against the window doing his best "let me iiiin" cat impression.

A shot through a rainy window of a BBQ well stocked with burgers and corn on the cob, with Nate (still in high vis) tending it.

Had the most lovely birthday: pub lunch with the family, then BBQ dinner with the poly fam ❤️

It started pelting down with rain just as we were due to light the BBQ, but Nate was an absolute star and just grilled in the rain 😍

Also also! My YouTube channel now has 50 subscribers, off the back of the videography I did for Beltane!

... they're probably gonna be a bit disappointed: I mostly use it to upload private tutorial videos outside of festival time.

But still, that feels like a fun accomplishment 😄

Also today: fun hangouts, tasty hojicha cheesecake and brown sugar matcha iced tea at Pudding's dessert cafe :)

I guess even professional bike mechanics don't have much call to fix inner tubes these days - they're increasingly rare unless you have a dirt bike.

I'm so annoyed though. Back when my inner tube burst on the NC500, I got towed to Inverness and paid £100 for a dealership to professionally fix it. Turns out that new tube only lasted about a month, because the mechanic left a small washer inside the tyre which eventually cut through the tube 🤦

Motorbike fixing day. Front wheel off, inner tube removed, tyre removed, new tyre fitted (first time I've done an actual tyre swap!), new tube fitted, tyre reseated *with the utmost caution not to pinch the goddamn inner tube this time*, wheel back on bike. A good day's work. 🧵