Ian Collings

Key art for "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" on Dropout shows its title along with its three principal puppet characters in picture frames.

one of my all-time favorite weird and wonderful shows - DON'T HUG ME I'M SCARED - is now on dropout!

full web series now; TV series (which less people have seen) over the course of the next few months. big thanks to blink industries, becky, and joe for their faith in us.

Here we go... settle down everyone... ssh!

Paddington at the BAFTAs, but he’s doing Tony Montana’s ‘bad guy’ bit from Scarface.

A screenshot from ESPN CricInfo where Zimbabwe Required run rate is over 36 runs per over.

Zimbabwe now technically require snookers against West Indies #T20WC

Nick Pettigrew | Substack Hello, I’m Nick Pettigrew. You may know me from Twitter (don’t, it’s still Twitter) or those books I wrote. I’m writing about stuff here, too, if you fancy reading it.

If you enjoy the stuff I post on here or elsewhere, please consider a Ko-fi contribution (link in bio) or a paid subscription (see below).
When I say it will help to keep the lights on that is not, in current circumstances, just a figure of speech.
Thanks.
substack.com/@mrnickpetti...

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Get a third off ANY of the first month of ANY of our subscriptions using the code SUBSCRIBE26

Whatever I'm doing or however well my day is going, nothing at all in the world has a more calming influence than hearing the chimes of Big Ben at the start of Radio 4's six o'clock news.
Whether I'm driving with it on the radio, walking and listening on headphones or just sat at home. Bong...

Perky Alien. A happy little xenomorph pops out of john hurt

A beautiful horse in the sunset. Inexplicably my second most popular print.

"A ghost at a conference" A ghost wearing a name tag. His is called Marcus.

"Joyful giant green nun destroys pagan village"

Still flogging my nonsense. Please, my gold stocks are very sick. marswasrubbish.etsy.com

Title: "Literary ecologists celebrate the successful reintroduction of rare species to the Yorkshire moors." Image: The sun is going down on a bleak windswept moor, various figures and trees are each labelled as one of the following: 1. Classic literary Cathy and Heathcliff 2. Young, carefree Cathy and heathcliff 3. Sexy Hollywood Cathy and Heathcliff 5. Ghost Cathy, tormented Heathcliff 5. Spooky tree

My books cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com

“…I will find him when he lies asleep and in his ear I’ll holler “Mortimer!”
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but ‘Mortimer’ and give it him to keep his anger still in motion

#Bardspotting

Hotspur. From King Henry IV Part One, Act 1 Scene 3.

SHAKESPEARE BY NUMBERS - A free public talk
On 10th March at 5pm, @freeburian.bsky.social and I are doing a joint talk on how numbers influenced Shakespeare. The venue is the London Interdisciplinary School in Whitechapel. A limited number of seats available, message one of us if you'd like to come.

An illustration of a frog doing a modern jazz dancing pose Text reads NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON* * just happy to be included Jaunty Art 26

No Idea What’s Going On*

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The Crow Road, by Iain Banks

Post the cover of a book you love from the 90s. (Any century!)
#BookSky #bookchallenge #readingchallenge #readingcommunity #booktok #bookish #books

Post the cover of a book you love from the 90s. (Any century!)
#BookSky #bookchallenge #readingchallenge #readingcommunity #booktok #bookish #books

A beautiful linoprint of a medicine lady under a tree, with her trusted familiar

Witch, hare and herbs linoprint by my mum, Jo, from my short story collection Help The Witch (now republished by Swift Press after a period out of print due to the Unbound disaster).

blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

Sessions with my editors have sometimes been like this

We kan daunse yf if plese us
We kan leave thy friendes behinde
For thy friendes daunse not
and yif thei daunse not
Then no friendes thei are of myne
Ich saye, we kan wende wher it plese us,
A place thei shal nevir fynde
And we can act lyke we come from Brocéliande
Leave the real worlde far behinde

“The ousel cock so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill”

Bottom, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Act 3 Scene I

#Bardspotting

The ousel cock is another name for the blackbird.

Wordle 1,709 3/6

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@missmuddie.bsky.social 🎉🥳🎂

FT Wrexham 5-3 #ITFC

HT Wrexham 2-2 #ITFC

Starting XI for #ITFC away at Wrexham this afternoon

Starting XI for #ITFC away at Wrexham this afternoon

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of porridge

“Ornithological taxonomy is second nature to us birders, so it’s easy to forget that the average person probably only knows the scientific names of a handful of garden birds.” “And gulls, of course.” “Of course.” Even when they’re trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person’s familiarity with their field.

This is fun. Generate your own xkcd2501.

marshdeer.github.io/xkcd2501-gen...

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Book #9 of 2026 finished.
Light Rains Sometimes Fall by Lev Parikian

I had no idea that there are 72 seasons in a year. And, much like Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear, I feel similarly wisened by reading another of Lev’s fascinating looks at the natural world around us.

5🌟

#booksky #tsundoku

Movies that deserrved to be franchises:

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS
MASTER AND COMMANDER

List ends.