Emergency! I can't hang my Magritte. This is not a drill.

All new British houses to be built to the passivagressivehaus standard.

Time to make 2024 updates to my annual “opinions about solar” thread. If you like these, the second edition of my book, Solar Power Finance Without The Jargon, is new this year. A 30% discount code WSQ0437 is valid on publisher website until end of Oct. worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/…

Correct. Consider the Brits. Their empire builders did not really receive the uniform schooling. Once the empire was built, however, the empire rulers did receive the uniform schooling. So now we see this specific type of schooling as a cause, while it was more of a result.

How does the UK go from here to there? We're 80 years behind the US in reducing electricity cost.

YACF - down for everyone or just me?

If you felt the Accurséd Ratio was painfully close:

My wife rode to Venice once

Received wisdom for at least 30 years was that speed limits _did_ apply to cyclists in the Royal Parks. Now this is known to be false, the Parks should look at all ways to make cycling there safe, not just a knee-jerk petition for their wrong idea to be right after all.

I’ve been food shopping with my dementia-suffering mother a lot in the weeks since her husband died. I’d never realised how distressing it can be when supermarkets keep rearranging their stock to encourage impulse purchases. Basics, like tea, should always be in the same place.

I preferred them made with 100% potato.

The unexplained replacement of Sally Hawkins with Emily Mortimer in the new Paddington movie suggests a serious rupture in the Peruniverse, and perhaps a future film in which modern CGI Paddington teams up with the stop-motion 70s original, with a voiceover by AI Michael Hordern.

Sometimes tweets out of contexts are absolute hilarious.

My dad, Eddie O'Hara, would have been sad about this, but it gives me my annual opportunity to reshare the Latin translations of Christmas songs that he did for his students as a young Latin teacher at Birkenhead School in the 60s🎄🎅❄️☃️

Jack As a student, I noticed that evangelicals seemed to express a remarkable amount of judgement and hostility in the phrase "I'll pray for you". It always made me want to reply with "Not if I pray for you first".

Add a letter, improve a book: the Holy Bimble.

I dwell in Poetastery, A humbler House than verse. More numerous of Plant Pots, For Larders none the worse.

Mate. OP. If you're picking up the shitty replies on Twitter do also check the better ones on Bluesky. This is a symptom of depression - go to the quack, or find someone to talk to. I'm your age, I've been there. With time and meds I'm now fine. We're rooting for you.

I always found this bit of memoir by the late Tom Braun of Merton (a child refugee from the Nazis) an exceptionally touching one: the British spirit one felt an immediate sympathy for by comparison with the Soviet block, too.

It's the Seasonal Reposting Competition! Repost this over the weekend, and on Sunday one lucky person will win a signed copy of one of my books. For you or the #crossword addict in your life: 50 fiendish The Guardian #puzzles and all the stories behind them boatmancryptics.co.uk/crossword-book…