blackbird in a blossoming tree
spring in the park! (not pictured: the dog taking advantage of my distraction to steal bread from the ducks, and roll in something best unexamined)
Maybe at some point enough other people will confirm they read it, that I'll finally accept it was a real book and not some kind of twisted fever daydream.
I remember reading this in a sitting, completely staggered by it, then insisted @oddreally.bsky.social read it next so I had someone to compare the fuckery with.
collage of plant labels for types of hosta: 'Jurassic Park,' 'Sugar Daddy', 'Blue Mouse Ears' and 'Fire Island'
'Hello, is this the hosta naming director hotline? Great, because I just have a few questions...'
In a functional country, this would be a scandal. A service suffering only from chronic underfunding was ripped apart because the media created a myth of 1000s of complaints of malpractice. The truth - as in my family’s experience - was very different.
www.thepinknews.com/2026/02/11/n...
Inviting yourself to someone else's debate club and throwing a nuclear tantrum when they aren't interested? It's like some kind of unholy experiment in just how far people without a shame gene can create secondhand embarrassment.
Lost a fight with the printer, locked myself out my office, tried to swipe into a building with a dog treat instead of my ID card, went up the wrong stairs... new term going swimmingly, 10/10 functioning, no notes.
Not 100% sure this was me, but I like her recipes and will definitely take credit!
New collection from our very own Dr Sean O'Brien @seanobrien.bsky.social, edited with Dr Madeline Lane-McKinley, The Return of the 90s: A Cultural History of the Present, from @plutopress.bsky.social. Sure to be of interest to students and colleagues alike. Available for pre-order now!
Only if he was in disguise
Bascule! It was all a bit sad really. Loads of people wanted to buy him a drink, which seems like a pretty terrible way to be a fan of an alcoholic. Then the fans started fighting each other, and someone threw a barrel.
So did I! Thankfully no Sun headline, and was in a pub, but feel like I might count as an honorary shop man?
Only 3 spaces left on our public 8-week Detective and Crime fiction course - tell your friends to sign up now: www.bristol.ac.uk/english/stud...
abandoned fridge on the street, beside an abandoned pram. 'Baby it's cold inside' has been written on the fridge door.
eat your misattributed heart out, Ernest Hemingway
(genuinely effective for emails. not recommend for phone calls, unless you want them to think you're Cruella)
new anti-procrastination tactic: the thing that you should just spend five minutes on and get it out the way? make those the five minutes before the dog's dinnertime, and let a soundtrack of incessant whining cancel any remaining urge to faff about.
Cineworld, Wakefield retail park, where one glorious National Cinema day I saw Con Air for £1.
to be fair, no one could have predicted this. not after the rousing success of the time they spent all the money on a unit evaluation platform.
Give us a film about Shakespeare writing Titus Andronicus you cowards
six minute writing montage, all ink and inspiration, scribbling and crossing out and then a flash of triumph crosses his face:
'your mum'
Scooter abandoned on Troopers Hill
Landseer's painting of a stag
Monarch of the Glen, Bristol edition...
Can magnetic fridge poetry show contrition. Do dice feel pain. Is this calculator my friend.
Mainly bleak and extremely grubby, but I thoroughly enjoyed that. Definitely think it worked more to read it under a blanket in Birmingham than from a hammock in Portugal.
you had to give the landlord credit. He'd really tried make it look the kind of Place that married couples their forties would like to come to for the last hour an a Saturday night. There was that heavy wallpaper in panels, the relief suff that tried to look as though it was velvet. There was a photo-mural of Capri. There were wall seats in katherette that looked as though they'd been put in a couple of years ago. There was formica on all the tabletops and also on top of the bar. There was some plasic wrought iron creating a pointless division.
So far, he talks more like an interior designer:
Book jacket, includes fact Get Carter is set in Doncaster
... not least, I had forgotten it isn't even set in Newcastle, which seems all kinds of wrong. As if Mario Puzo actually set the Godfather in Texas
Paperback 'Get Carter' by Ted Lewis
Holiday reading thanks to @oddreally.bsky.social - technically re-read but last time was 10 years ago at a psy trance festival and I haven't retained much...
Freaky Friday remake where my dog and my nephew get to switch - he can drink from her water bowl, she can eat his weetabix, they can both stop looking at me like I'm Cruella for getting in the way of this.
A grey and red transit bus on the road in a city. The bus’ destination sign reads “NO? ?? ???????”
My response to anything over the next two weeks
Folk Song
Tomaž Šalamun translated by Charles Simic
#smallpoemsunday #poetry
Collage of the light show in Brussels square
Was just there on Thursday and completely enchanted 😊
