Barbara Jane van der Meulen

Andrew O’Hagan · Stay Classy: Mummy’s Favourite The late queen can be held responsible for much, but nobody could accuse her of seeming to enjoy her role. For the...

The finest take down of the institution of monarchy and "class" and the grasping, greedy, venal, entitled, and very stupid people it enables that you will read today or any day.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I'll take the abyss.

A telling headline, in which the remarkable - exceptional, even - result by an underdog is minimalised with neutral language, while R*form triumphs by "pushing Labour into third".

This is such a brilliant result. Loved the film, I Swear, about Scottish Tourette's campaigner John Davidson. Aramayo is incredible in the role ✨️

I'll count this hilarious @bergerandwyse cartoon as a map 😉 🗺️ 🐦️

The People's Palace is an important working-class history museum which tells the story of how ordinary people banded together and challenged bosses, landlords and governments to make Glasgow and Scotland a better place to live and work. It's shocking it will now remain closed.

From Go Radio on X.

*Nodding, having given same to Mr F one recent year..*

Was just reading about that. A loss to public life.

I thoroughly enjoyed Drystone - thank you. It sits proudly on my 'memoirs' shelf with a range of others.

Okay, here's my review of all the reviews 😉
RSE-gaps-overlaps-and-challenges-report-online-2025.pdf share.google/ctaPUdvEHqy6...

Well done!

The best name I’ve ever come across for the triangular checkout divider at supermarkets is the colloquial Swiss word Kassentoblerone, or “cash register Toblerone.”

A little armored one / turtle rabbit in the wild

The word armadillo is borrowed from Spanish and simply means “little armored one.” But an even better word for an armadillo, in my opinion, is the Nahuatl ayotochtli. It means “turtle rabbit.”

BBC Two - Angelou on Burns Writer and poet Maya Angelou goes on a pilgrimage to Burns Country in Scotland.

“On the dirt roads of Arkansas I first met Robert Burns…”

Currently on the BBC iPlayer: writer, poet, & activist Dr Maya Angelou goes on a pilgrimage to the home of Robert Burns (originally broadcast in 1996 to mark the bicentenary of Burns’s death)
#BurnsNight #C18
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

😁

Oh my goodness, how is that even possible? 🤯

It's the nine beers.
But happy new year to you!

Gelukkig nieuw jaar!

❤️❤️

Maggie O’Farrell’s #HAMNET, shortlisted for the 2021 #WalterScottPrize, comes to screens next month. We begin our archive delve with O’Farrell telling the story behind the tragedy of the Shakespeares' son, starting with an insight into their marriage. See the full interview
https://loom.ly/oXYli3c

Ha! And very much the same to you & yours!

Not to be a grouch, but if you grew up in NL then Sinterklaas was your man and Christmas didn't feature at all. Hence the underwhelm.

Same. Ik verhuis dan naar elders in trein/restaurant/park.

Useful & illuminating thread, thanks. And congratulations! Pleased to add I recently treated myself to Drystone and very much look forward to reading it.

Exclusive: Scotland is to get a new Screen Machine within months after a “colossal” effort to secure the future of the mobile cinema service for the Highlands & Islands raised almost £1.5m.
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2568092... @heraldscotland.bsky.social

From Bilbao to Las Vegas: Frank Gehry’s incredible architecture – in pictures The award-winning designer and architect leaves behind unique buildings all across the world from Dundee to Düsseldorf. He died after a brief respiratory illness

💜
From Bilbao to Las Vegas: Frank Gehry’s incredible architecture – in pictures www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

‘Biggest band that ever lived’: inside the Grateful Dead art show As the band celebrate their 60th anniversary, a California exhibition draws attention to the unique psychedelic artwork that has long told their story

Still dead chuffed (and astonished) that I got to see this band as a teen at the then Giants Stadium, New Jersey, circa 1988.

‘Biggest band that ever lived’: inside the Grateful Dead art show www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...

So good even I'm watching it!

Lovely place. Happy memories of a day's horseriding there a few years ago ☺️

Outwith Katie Ailes ‘outwith’: preposition: outside; beyond. A term unique to Scotland. Revising my visa essay, applying for three more years here, I read my own scribbled words: Comparable opportunities for critical study do not exist outwith Scotland. Outwith: a term unfamiliar, yet scrawled in my own hand, doubtlessly mine, and I wonder: I came here all rude American brass, all trash can, fanny pack, Where’s the castle? Then Glasgow rolled itself under my tongue, a grey marble lolling my mouth open with Os: Glasgow, Kelvingrove, going to Tesco, then thistling my speech wi sleekit lisps, wee packets a crisps, my lips like the lids of those glass bottles of sand I used to collect from every beach: my mouth a shore holding each grain that altered the flow of my speech, my pen flowing ‘s’ into the cursive waves of ‘socialised,’ ‘civilised,’ ‘acclimatised,’ answering Aye! by accident then smiling. I may be from out but I am now with.

‘outwith’: preposition: outside; beyond. A term unique to Scotland.

Revising my visa essay,
applying for three more years
here, I read my own scribbled words:

Comparable opportunities for critical study
do not exist outwith Scotland…

—Katie Ailes, “Outwith”
Glasgow Women Poets, Four-em Press 2016