what is the largest animal you are confident you could expel, singlehandedly, from a medium-size bookshop?
RULES:
- you have no resources beyond what is available in the shop
- you must remain more or less uninjured
- bookshop has 2 floors; animal is on ground floor, you can choose where you begin
That works on quite a few sites. You don't even need reader mode for the Chronicle.
I have an Edge profile set to strict tracking prevention and you don't see the cookie popup at but get the full site experience, including premium articles, though comments don't work.
We used to have a competition in the office to see who could keep injury lawyer spam callers on the phone the longest after saying their 'injury' was caused by an otter.
Some calls went on quite a while, but none were as big a joke as the Tory party.
That could have made for an interesting match had it happened a bit earlier in the game.
The photo of somebody stood on an unacceptable build out in front of a perfectly acceptable parked car taking up a similar amount of space is a great way of highlighting the rather flaky argument here.
Crude oil prices, showing a very sharp increase in the last day, from around 65 to 101 dollars per barrel..
Oil prices wouldn't be all over the news today if more of our economy was powered by local, secure renewable energy.
This isn't an "energy crisis". It's a fossil fuel crisis.
44% of UK electricity came from renewables in 2025. More of that plus an electrified economy => no more oil shocks.
The image is a bar chart showing the price paid per kilowatt hour of electricity after export credit each year. 2022: 5 pence 2023: -6 pence 2024: -8 pence 2025: -13 pence
Thankfully I embraced solar a few years ago so at least energy costs are cushioned by sunlight to a degree.
The big drop in costs in 2023 was due to electricity prices increasing which pushed up the earnings from exports.
Time will tell what effect ill advised wars will have.
Something to look forward to.
That's a long way from anywhere!
This has reminded me - new images have been added to my catchily titled game 'Is there a car on Blackett Street that shouldn't be?' game.
Now there's at least one chance to 'earn' £800 in one go, but a few times when no drivers are behaving illegally 😮
www.sphericalsquare.net/blackett-str...
If only there was something that would prevent that, like huge concrete blocks that could surround the whole building...
Is that a suspension seat post? Having just replaced one of those with a regular one after it got stolen I miss mine!
Those rack straps are great too. Also miss mine which eventually wore out, but extremely useful.
Photo of a clock that is styled as a 1970s BBC 2 ident with two horizontal orange lines either side of a white "2" drawn from two white lines. The clock face consists of short orange double lines marking each hour that get progressively thicker from the one to the 12 position.
New clock from @hiddenbritain.bsky.social to add a bit of style to my wall.
Are you kidding me? Fuel Duty rates have bene held steady for 16 years while costs for public transport and general ethical choices have soared.
Raising fuel duty is one of a very short list of things that this government is getting right. Very poor from the Lib Dems.
Careful - I read on the internet it's really dangerous there. Probably all those cycle lanes.
Image shows a section of some plans for a new separated cycle lane on Fenham Hall Drive
📢 The council is proposing changes to Fenham Hall Drive that could see the street becoming much safer for cycling.
✅ Proposals include 1.5km of protected cycle lane and better crossing points.
📖 Read the full details and see all the plans at new.newcastle.gov.uk/travel/impro...
Two pie charts showing grid and solar usage for electricity. January: solar 17%, grid 83% February: solar 33%, grid 67%
Despite the lack of sunlight I still covered 17% and 33% of my electricity for January and February respectively, with slightly lower gas usage than last year in both months due to a bit more electric heating.
After export credits:
20p per kWh for January
12p per kWh for February
I'm not looking forward to the start of next year if it continues to follow the trend for the amount of sunlight seen in the last five years.
Love the cyclist sailing through the middle of this mess. Very much “you guys carry on, I’ve got places to be.”
I was looking to see if I've done it to see how steep it is. I've only done it once too, for the very same reason!
Indeed. Imagine you're doing the Coast to Coast the quiet way and end up fully loaded riding along the A694!
Image shows a map with cycle and walking diversions for a section of closed path. The routes are described in the linked post.
The council have a map with diversions on Facebook: www.facebook.com/durhamcounci...
If you are cycling, neither of the diversions are like a railway path. Both involve national speed limit roads, and while not the worst are very much not traffic free, the A694 particularly.
The Derwent Valley Path, route 14, is going to be closed at Rowlands Gill next month for work on some of the viaducts.
www.walkwheelcycletrust.org.uk/find-a-route...
The diversions are for the bold and/or fit only, with one going up Busty Bank, which at 10-15% is very much not railway gradient!
She should try the organic ones. They are much better.
It was interesting. I didn't know what to expect when I went in and saw instruments dotted about. There were all sorts of different sounds coming from all corners. I think there were strings on level 2. Pretty sure they had extra double bases so they didn't have to be carried to the stage quickly!
A night time photo looking at Newcastle Quayside from outside the Glasshouse. A church tower rises in the centre and behind that two tall cranes lit in blue with red lights at the top.
Stopped at the cycle parking with the best view last night.
His dinner looked better than mine, and I didn't have to build my house before I cooked it!
The image is a photo of some lyrics in Hungarian and the English Translation. Title: Language Lesson No matter how the cat scratches and screams You tear it from the rug to throw into the shadow of my open umbrella. (The cat is under the umbrella No matter how the umbrella screams and scratches the rug You tear the cat off to throw into its open shadow. The cat is under the umbrella.
There was also a bit about a cat.
It's sounds more exotic when sung in Hungarian.
All followed by some excellent Mozart. A good evening all round.
I saw some music composed by György Kurtág (b 1926, 100 last week!) performed by Royal Northern Sinfonia tonight. Properly immersed in sound for the first piece as the orchestra was distributed around the auditorium.
It’s always a surprise to discover the horn section is behind you. 📯
Is the road cubed off to walk in, or are you expected to cross over then back?
