Pretty, isn't it?

Sorry about the sting, C, partic. nasty if allergic. Hope you feel better soon. Sadly will be a much reduced Verbier for me this year. Day trips for the Academy voice m'classes/concerts and see old friends - thank god I'm close! Here, it's choir all this w/e, more Mendelssohn+Schumann duets ❤️ soon.

Ouch!

Happy "piano" 🎹 birthday (88 😉) to the great pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, born 6th July 1937.

Bienvenue en Suisse!

Remember seeing a few Borgwards in East Africa in 1957-61 period. Had never heard of them before (my Pa had) and haven't since, until now!

"Peace"

Searing poem from @michaelrosenyes.bsky.social

Two Verbier Academy alumni friends in the cast (Luis Gomes and Kitty Whately). Would really have liked to see this, so looking forward to your review.

A close relative of the famous yellow and pink Peace is its yellow and what would you call that, crimson? Meilland stablemate with the unlikely moniker Pullman Orient Express. Just a *little* bit vulgar, n'est-ce pas? But special.

More beauty of Kyiv for you.

I keep showing you these ordinary moments,
my favorite places.
I keep showing you that life is going on here.

Quite right too!

Well it's not really a case of either/or, is it?

To some extent they are both, which also means that to some extent they are neither.

Not.

BREAKING: The IDF has explained it fired at Irish diplomats in the West Bank because it thought they were Palestinian civilians. How the fuck am I supposed to parody this shit? I quit 😭😭😭

Meat industry welcomes deal, saying Labour has achieved 'what previous government promised originally but didn't deliver' The British Meat Processors Association has issued a statement strongly welcoming the deal with the EU. It says that, making access to the EU market easier for meat exporters, Keir Starmer has “managed to achieve what the previous government promised us originally but didn’t deliver”. The association has also dismissed claims that the deal will mean the UK being a “rule taker” because it will aligned with the EU on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) rules. It says: A common misunderstanding is that an SPS agreement will mean Britain becomes a ‘rule taker’. In reality, we must comply with the rules of any of our trading partners if we want to export to them – just like America must comply with British rules if they want to send us their products. This means we have been aligned with EU rules and standards all along. The difference this new deal will make is that Britain, unlike their other third country trading partners, will benefit from true, un-fettered access to their market and massively reduced trade friction. It will boost trade and make us more competitive. Under the existing arrangement we have had to produce a mountain of paperwork to prove we comply, costing business a fortune but with no added value. This extra cost had to be absorbed somewhere in the supply chain, either through lower margins or higher prices, driving food price inflation and rendering UK businesses less competitive.

British Meat Processors Association: Starmer has “managed to achieve what the previous government promised us originally but didn’t deliver”. ~AA

This is how "This side says X, but the other side says Y" balance ends up distorting journalism. Instead of being based on the journalist's own independent, impartial analysis this question really just ventriloquises a partisan opposition stance and gives the impression the BBC fully agrees with it.

One of the nice (and impressive) things about all these comments is the number of well known, serious and highly respected colleagues of yours who are rightly happy both for you and for Britain. And congratulations from me too!

Coverage of idiots claiming ‘betrayal’ or ‘surrender’ isn’t just bad journalism, it’s a dereliction of our duty to explain things. I’d actually forgotten just how bad it got but here we are, straight back to treating liars & spivs like authorities of equal weight to experts & honest brokers.

And boy oh boy is that needed!

Match of the Day host Gary Lineker expected to leave the BBC It comes after he faced criticism for sharing a social media post about Zionism.

Someone has finally been held accountable for the war in Gaza, and it's Gary Lineker www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Excellent, thank you!

So right with this.

Tell me about it! But it can work ... eventually.

Good thing I know this is parody...
(I know, I know, it's in the handle)

Co-ops of the world unite!

Brain-dead.

Absolutely. Why does the wretched man get the tone/message wrong so often if it isn't deliberate? Serious injection of positivity required, it's all been so negative and inviting of "misinterpretation". And if it is deliberate, we're *really* up a gum-tree.