Gordon Douglass

Oh, the weather outside is frightful And since we've no place to go It doesn't show signs of stopping How I hate going out in the storm The fire is slowly dying

'Let it Snow' with all the positive lines removed

A man with a spectacular 1970s mullet, wearing big wellies and a v-neck jumper over a T-shirt, looks at camera as he stands on a boat which is itself standing on the muddy bottom of an empty canal. He is holding up an enormous wooden plug on a long chunky chain

Today is the 47th anniversary of this clearly unimprovable photo, from a story so absurd that it shouldn’t be true, but is: the day a team of workers from British Waterways pulled the plug out of the Chesterfield Canal, and all the water emptied out

People say “you can’t put the genie back in the bottle” re: technology. But that’s why the bottle was there in the first place. Someone decided it was bad having the genie running loose, and bottled it.

Given the time it's going to run I imagine at least 5 episodes of the series will be dedicated to the Dursley's getting a new kitchen put in

As I get older and I remember all of the people I lost along the way I think to myself, maybe a career as a tour guide wasn’t for me

I’m petrified about today’s science news. Genetically modifying crabs to have cheetah genes? This could go sideways fast.

I'd argue the UK's dislike of having decent management goes back even further. There's a fair bit of economic history that suggests the relative decline in the later half of the 19th century was in part due to bad management compared to competitors like Germany.

The BSL during Finland was sensational #Eurovision

I believe "Short-sighted. And slightly self-righteous." is the Labour party motto

Newly discovered fungal species makes zombies of cave spiders on island of Ireland Dr. Harry Evans, Emeritus Fellow at CAB International, led scientists—including from the Natural History Museum of Denmark and Royal Botanical Gardens Kew—in a study to investigate the identity of a f...

New nightmare fuel: zombie cave-spider fungus

Dear Santa,
You didn’t get me the thesaurus I asked for and now I’m mad. You made me really mad. I’m mad at you

The other swans aren't gonna believe this

Halloween is doing a good stopping role on blocking it seeping into October though.

What we need is a good none Christmas holiday around 15 December. I blame Guy Fawkes he should have tried to blow up parliament later. Although as the timing was driven by James 6/1 maybe I should blame him?

A poster of the film The Magnificent Seven, edited (by the brilliant marc blanc) to show the seven Joe Bloggs alternatives (Statistical Kowalski, Otto Normalconsumer etc.) under the image (of seven cowboys on horses)

What Joe Bloggs (just normal men) are known as in seven different languages:

7. Joe Little Carrot (Slovak)
6. Otto Normalconsumer (German)
5. Wang Number Five (Mandarin)
4. Average Svensson (Swedish)
3. Name Nameson (Danish)
2. Mid-range Vasya (Russian)
1. Statistical Kowalski (Polish)

The Colosseum in Rome with yellow hoarding (in fact for a metro extension) around it so it looks like it’s under construction.

Hoardings are up, maybe they’re finally going to finish the thing.

Korean kids don't even get a coup day off

morpheus from the matrix

What if I told you that the only reason I am bald is that I’m afraid of a Ratatouille situation? What if I told you that I’d have so much hair if not for the fear of a rat using me like a puppet? These are modes of control, Neo. This is how they manipulate us. Ratatouilles, Neo. Rats that pull hair.

I believe the normal approach is to reshoot his scenes with Christopher Plummer?

'London, Winter' (1928) by Christopher RW Nevinson

(London Museum)

People ask me how I produce such unimpressive pieces of origami. Well, the answer is twofold,

Oh you beat me to it, I should read the thread before posting

There's still the Market Porter at Borough Market

City Hall station, New York. This Art Nouveau metro station was closed on December 31, 1945

It gets regular maintenance to guard against things like water damage & vandalism but it's unused because the new subway trains are too long for the platform

Once or twice a year, railfan groups give tours.

Isle of Wight, western frontier of the Roman empire. A man walks into a mosaic shop. I’d like a design for my dining room, something that will impress my guests and show them what a cultured man I am.

Shop assistant. Certainly Sir. How about something from our chicken head man range? All the rage.

Photo of a horse in the foreground with it's mouth open so it looks like the horse in the background is coming out of his mouth

still my favourite scene from alien

Street full of parked cars in Bordeaux France, Google photo from 2008.

Same location in Bordeaux photo taken by me in 2023.

Before & After: I don’t think people realize the extent to which parked cars degrade public space.

Embroidery

Good day #MedSky peeps, still fighting my annual fall cold, never had COVID, but I get this every year without fail despite masking and proper hand hygiene. #LuckyMe

Emmanuel Macron annonce la panthéonisation de l’historien et résistant Marc Bloch Le président de la République, qui s’exprimait au palais universitaire de Strasbourg, a également appelé à reconnaître et enseigner la tragédie des « malgré-nous », ces Alsaciens et Mosellans incorporés de force dans l’armée nazie.

Emmanuel Macron annonce la panthéonisation de l’historien et résistant Marc Bloch

ordered cheese tortellini in beef broth at the Italian deli for lunch, which I believe counts as a soup and as we all know all soups are healthy, follow me for more diet tips

Malawi is much closer to being food self-sufficient than Singapore, but Singapore is massively more food secure.

Please let's not fall for the "food security" thing for a rich open trading nation like the UK, seriously.