Today, we’ll talk about the nature of truth. And I know what’s your first reaction: “how do I unsubscribe?”. Look, I’ve got no idea. I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.That’s my purse! I don’t know you!I know. I cover a variety of topics, but this is probably not what you signed up for. At the same time, this blog has only one rule: I shy away from current events. I’m getting older, so I’m deliberately giving up reach in favor of content that stands the test of time. News-related…

Nobody who told me about it anyway.

I missed the first day of DTX+UCX London this year, but managed to carve out some time to attend the second. Unsurprisingly, AI was everywhere. Agents, models, copilots and AI-powered features in seemingly every contact centre, networking and cybersecurity management platform. I’m not suggesting these developments aren’t important, but after a while the messages start to sound remarkably similar. Fortunately, there were some sessions that explored rather more interesting questions. Not so much…

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours Now that Whitechapel Station has been completely rebuilt and the new Elizabeth Line is fully operational, few remember how it used to be half a century ago but photographer Philip Cunningham recorded the vanished streets and yards that once occupied this lost corner Winthrop St “I first started taking photographs of Winthrop St and Woods Buildings in Whitechapel in the mid-seventies. I remember the first time I went to Winthrop St on a cold…

GIDEON'S DAY (1958), known in the U.S. as GIDEON OF SCOTLAND YARD, is just the kind of film I like: A "day in the life" police procedural featuring Jack Hawkins in almost every scene.GIDEON'S DAY is one of the least-known films from director John Ford, but while there's nothing particularly Fordian about it -- other than the presence of Ford regular Anna Lee -- that's not really a negative. It's an engaging, well-made 91 minutes which I quite enjoyed.The movie was written by written by T.E.B.…

tried Alps Curry in the Yaechika area of Tokyo Stationbuy your ticket at the machine and give it to the person behind the countershe asked if fukujinzuke was okay, I guess some people don’t like it?!500 yen (tax included) for chicken curry...this was fast and relatively delicious (kinda oily)because seating is limited, you might not be able to sit together if you have a large groupthis is one of

It's been four months since I posted here. Nothing of note has happened to cause this long pause, except I've been busy with life, making YouTube videos, repairing typewriters for people here in ABQ, et cetara. In the meanwhile, I continue my daily walks, which I enjoy for the experience and also as continued therapy from my two hip replacement surgeries. I'm walking from 3-5 miles every day along the suburban streets of northeast ABQ. I also like to take photos. Or "make" photos, perhaps a…

The gnarled trunk of a cypress tree at the Fort Worth Water Gardens, Texas. The post Misshapen appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

For a person who isn’t necessarily the traveling type, I kind of travel quite a lot. I mapped out all my trips over the past 15 months, since July 2025, and asked an AI chatbot to calculate how many kilometers I’ve traveled in total (like 125k, or around 78k miles). I actually think this is a great use of AI, and I’m going to try doing the same for every trip I can remember. If you think traveling this much is glamorous, my sciatic nerve has a few opinions on that. Maybe it’s great if you fly…

In May 2026, two Formula 1® Scuderia Ferrari HP helmet models were released by the LEGO® Editions theme: 43022 Lewis Hamilton & 43014 Charles Leclerc, which were reviewed by Elspeth. She paid attention to both the mind-boggling construction and some really weird new pieces. I was a bit torn on these sets: on one hand, their MOC-like structure and use of various curved pieces was really interesting; on the other, they were covered with brand prints, and I have no interest in making MOCs…

It was 75 years ago on this date that I Love Lucy debuted on CBS. Most of us are familiar with the "heart on satin" opening we saw in syndicated reruns of the show, but that wasn't its original opening. The original opening included animation that referenced the show's sponsor (Philip Morris was its first sponsor). The animation was created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who refused credit as they were still under contract to MGM. The bellhop at the beginning was Johnny Roventini, who…

You Can See Everything focuses on Elizabeth Holmes, the former head of Theranos, a company that claimed to have developed a revolutionary miniature blood-testing device. Things didn't go well. In 2022, Holmes was found guilty of four counts of investor fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and three counts of wire fraud. She was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison, and, along with the company's former president, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani,* was ordered to pay $452…

Para uma pessoa que não é muito dada a viajar, eu até que viajo muito. Fiz um mapeamento de todas as minhas viagens nos últimos 15 meses, desde julho de 2025, e pedi pra um chatbot de inteligência artificial calcular pra mim quantos quilômetros eu viajei no total. Inclusive, acho que esse é um belo uso de IA, e vou tentar fazer isso para todas as viagens das quais me recordo. Se você acha que é glamuroso viajar tanto assim, meu nervo ciático tem uma boa opinião sobre isso. Talvez seja massa se…

The 100th Birthday of Joe Kubert was last month, and DC Comics has been releasing several special issues to commemorate one of the greatest artists in comics history. This week, a collection of covers was released, including several Hawkman and Hawkgirl covers. You can read all about the special issues in the DC Comics article, so check it out! I put together a gallery of Joe Kubert's work that I've come across over the years. LOTS of great Hawkman and Hawkgirl art! Gallery

Bill really wants us all to believe that he's not hiding behind those boarded-up windows and doors; that no lights are on and no-one is home. And who knows? Maybe that's true. Maybe Treasure Island just has a poltergeist. Yeah, that's probably it. Trailers moving around, a jumbo-sized US flag hung in the one un-boarded opening on the main floor, and most recently, a heavy chain and a long yellow electrical cord spanning the width of the driveway and fresh "NO TRESPASSING" signs. Definitely a…

We have this sign painted on a wall in our office in Johannesburg. Every time I walk past it, my inner radio sings “brings people together” in the voice of George Michael, adding “…it’s just a matter of tiiiiime.” After getting home from Cairo on Thursday night, I had just two nights at home before heading back to Heathrow on Saturday afternoon for a trip to Johannesburg. The last time I was there was at the end of June in the middle of winter; October is a much better time to visit, with the…

Bild: Radweg-Bauprojekt Zeppelindamm (L651). Straßen.NRW, Oktober 2026. Der Zeppelindamm ist Teil der Städteverbindung Gelsenkirchen – Hattingen, die komplett über Bochumer Stadtgebiet verläuft. Alle vom Bauprojekt betroffenen Straßen – Zeppelindamm, Munscheider Damm, Wattenscheider Hellweg, Berliner Straße, Varenholzstraße – sind Teil des Radverkehrsnetz NRW. Für den Radverkehr ist diese Verbindung praktisch alternativlos.Und für den motorisierten Verkehr ist die Verbindung aus Gelsenkirchen…

Robert Burton (1577-1640), Anatomy of Melancholy, Pt. I, Sec. 2, Memb' I, Subs. 6 (vol. 1, pp. 215-216 of the Everyman edition): So many several ways are we plagued and punished for our fathers' defaults: in so much that, as Fernelius truly saith, "It is the greatest part of our felicity to be well born, and it were happy for humankind, if only such parents as are sound of body and mind should be suffered to marry." An husbandman will sow none but the best and choicest seed upon his land; he…

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others. Denise Rose Hansen’s novel Blue Sunset is a lyrical debut both atmospheric and immersive. Kirkus wrote of the book: “Hansen’s controlled, poetic prose shines brighter and brighter as Maja’s…

Last week, which looked like this, I concluded with ominous music, because I knew: Last week's rolling 90 day average spending This week things look substantially worse: This week's rolling 90 day average spending And the reason is, as much as I am trying to be a stinge, I also value generosity. AccountTotal Charity1770.00 Electric216.46 Coffee Roasting101.54 Health Insurance78.60 Subscriptions43.87 Groceries43.30 Bars and alcohol42.50 Dining36.69 Clothes35.00 Bank Service Charge0.50…

It’s taken nine and a half months of wandering, planning, and occasionally sheer opportunism, but I’ve finally struck gold. Yes, the magic ton has been hit. For those who don’t follow my particular brand of eccentric ticking, that means I’ve now visited one hundred unique pubs so far in 2026. By unique, I mean pubs I’ve set foot in once and once only this calendar year. Plenty of hostelries have seen me more than once - some far more than once, but for the purposes of this annual tally, each…

Every year since I’ve started this blog, I’ve published a few classic open access stories of horror for the Halloween season! In recent years, I’ve started to make a theme for each year. This year, the theme is “communication”: the transmission of information from one point to another, often but not necessarily both ways! This may not seem like a particularly spooky topic for a horror story, but read through the following collection of stories and you can decide for yourself… Sorry, Right…

Amazing Race 39 resolved its annoying cliffhanger, and then sent the teams on a Scramble to navigate Marrakesh on foot.

I just had my first pomegranate of the season, and I forgot how much I love them.

A while ago I was listening to a radio broadcast of a recording from last year’s Wexford Festival Opera. The Opera in question was Handel’s Deidamia. In fact you can see a video of the whole performance here. Like most baroque operas, the plot of Deidamia is rather complex but it is drawn directly from familiar Greek legend, and features Achilles and Ulysses. The former spends much of the opera dressed in women’s clothing because his father Peleus doesn’t want him dragged off to fight in the…

The fact this movie tanked at the box office just makes the ride all the more enjoyable. I had a bad headache and had to call off the screening with a friend yesterday. Thursday is when the movies rotate in our part of the world where we use the un-American units, so I thought I'd missed yet another great cinematic experience. Luckily they still showed it in a small neighboring town, to the two of us and two other people, with an introduction by a charming young person. I don't remember…