James Barr

I scattered some wild flower seeds earlier this year but they haven’t been a huge success. However:

If you find me guilty of this theft, your honour, the resulting jail sentence will ruin my holiday plans, so you can't.

Wooden Model Kit - Medieval Trebuchet

I know Warwick Castle isn’t EH but if they happen to have one of these in the gift shop it provided hours of fun: www.english-heritageshop.org.uk/wooden-model...

That’s the effect of the employer NICS rise for you

Celebrating the twentieth (?21st) birthday of our Garam Masala. Still about another two decades’ worth in the jar.

Mo Salah is asking the right questions

I was initially impressed that it was picking up text in photos I have taken of documents in archives. That is potentially very useful. But most of the photo results produced by a text search are unfathomable.

Windows 11’s search function is awful. Bringing up all sorts of random stuff. My favourite so far is a photo of Tenby when I had searched for (Lord) Cromer.

My unshakeable belief

This is a bumper year for greengages.

Me looking tired up on Exmoor in front of some trees and wind turbines having just completed a 4 mile training run

I am running the London Parks Half Marathon for SANDS in memory of our first son Olly who died at 9 months in 2012.

Just did my first 4 mile training run (see knackered man below)

SANDS has been a wonderful support. Anything you can give will be welcome. Thanks.

www.justgiving.com/page/mark-th...

Marvellous!

Is that some sort of build-it-yourself Claymore?

Me, a genius at HMRC: I've got it! This is how we help boost growth!

Everyone:

Me: Let's land some pointless extra bureaucracy on freelancers!

It’s strange how many professional politicians are really bad at politics.

A history of conflict in the Middle East spanning the last 2500 years.

There’s a chapter about him coming in my next book

BREAKING: Homelessness Minister Rushanara Ali resigns after it was revealed she had moved out tenants in her rented home and then raised the rent.

More soon

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe

Fascinating. “The leaked Microsoft files suggest that a large proportion of [Unit 8200’s] sensitive data may now be sitting in [Microsoft] datacentres in the Netherlands and Ireland.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Did you spot a very odd word which has crept in? Article 17.1 (a) on the tasks of the Joint Committee says these will include ‘to monitor the application of this agreement in particular its tantamount objective of balance’. Meaningless. 1/2

Nagasaki 1945 A dip into the family photo album

In 1945 my father was with the British fleet in the Pacific. He visited Nagasaki not long after it was destroyed.

I wrote a brief post about the visual record he left behind.

Good piece by @stephenkb.bsky.social. I heard the other day that doctor headcount in at least one London hospital is being cut.

Exactly!

Another luxury goods company in trouble

My thought here is that the mistake is to conflate the AI and the MP. Why not make it a virtual parliamentary assistant/caseworker?

I think Bullshitters should worry. AI has already overtaken them.

Jake Sullivan: “"Israel's leaders are pursuing an open-ended military campaign that is returning negligible, essentially imperceptible, operational gains at the cost of inflicting an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe-grievous death and suffering— on innocent Palestinians.”

In all God’s creation, is there a big enough hot dog costume for Jake Sullivan, Kissinger Professor of the Practice of Statecraft and World Order at the Harvard Kennedy School

The French talk about the “pedagogique” role to politics which sounds a bit patronising but is essentially what we have been missing for a while. The art is to teach without patronising.

The full horror of atomic bombing of Hiroshima revealed 80 years on At 8.15am on August 6, 1945, 'Little Boy' was released from Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress captained by Colonel Paul Tibbets Junior, writes IAIN MACGREGOR.

#Hiroshima My piece in @dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

The Syrian pyramid has survived the war, despite being on the front in 2020-2024.

The pyramidal tomb of Al-Bara (S. #Idlib) is part of the Dead Cities and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.

It dates back to the Byzantine period (5th–6th centuries).