Cameron the Apostate

@dannybate.com EWhat’s the longest Czech word with no (written) vowels you can think of, Dr B? youtube.com/shorts/GcX2P...

Cue the usual cliches - "if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen", or "he's a fascist, he deserves it" - all of which say more about those uttering them. But we need to accept that not all the problems with our politics come from above. "We, the people," have responsibilities too.

they are on Threads fighting to the death over whether or not it is ableist for an author to use the word “scrying" (people might not know the definition!). how beautiful. people staring into their phones and getting so emotional over “scrying.” perhaps there really is magic in reflective surfaces!

Unlike many on this site, I am still reasonably active over on X/ Twitter. It has been quite fun building an entire alternative timeline here

Ten years on, there has been one single, solitary Brexit dividend (of a kind): access to a few Apple features unavailable over the Channel due to EU legislation, such as Siri AI (launched in September), live translation over AirPods, and iPhone Mirroring on the Mac

This morning I woke up unusually early & ate breakfast, but didn't feel great so decided to take a Sunday morning nap. I fell into a deep sleep & an elaborate dream in which I was staying in a huge, multi-story hotel with my brother. There were entire canals on different floors & masks on the walls

Read the alt text for part two of this story

@dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social It always made me think of the shipping forecast: "Upper Molar 3, falling, variable to good..." "Doggerbank 1, impacted, cavity, variable to poor... " "Viking, plaque, flossing, poor... "

White dragon

Which of you Latinists out there are familiar with this classic #Latin textbook series? (Note the optimistic way I phrased that !)

KNOW THE SIGNS 🥖⚔️

I am enjoying this book, but the doom and gloom narrative will be wearying to some. Why language death matters is not clear to many. Someone should write a more positive book maybe that explores a sample of endangered languages, setting out what makes each unique & valuable & worthy of fascination

Which of you Latinists out there are familiar with this classic #Latin textbook series? (Note the optimistic way I phrased that !)

"Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track of how many articles you've read."

thinking about this a lot today

If I were an action hero, this is what I’d say to the bad guy before the kill shot.

Looking back over my relationship with books, I realise that some appeal to me more as objects representing ideas than as things to be read. Sometimes reading such books has even proven to be let down because the author's words just weren't as compelling as the image I'd created of them in my head

Publishers: “Short stories don’t sell and are impossible to market so we are not going to take the risk of publishing them.” Also publishers: “What can we publish to fit this era of reduced attention spans when people are reading fewer novels?”

Should I or shouldn't I? What say you?

I am reading a lot about writers in the 40s-60s and my takeaway is "maybe I should start chain-smoking and mainlining bennies"?

My lunchtime reading was the first pages of this newly purchased book

When I used to write for The Guardian, every time I wrote the word “meow” the editors would change it to “miaow”. It used to really get on my wick. Don’t try to make my cats sound like your upper middle class London cats, you fuckers. My cats did not go to your posh cat schools. They say “meow”.

@phil-lol-ogist.bsky.social A little birdie with a cowboy hat tells me your book is nearly out!

Sending a little prayer out into the universe: please make it possible for me to attend this www.folkbytheoak.com

That feeling when you have an interesting chat with a book publisher at a business networking event, only to discover later that he has neither a business website or a LinkedIn account 🤨

I don't deny that dogs can sometimes be quite lovely but what I will say is I don't trust their opinions. If a cat recommended me an album it had bought, I'd totally check it out. If a dog did the same, I'd promise to listen to the album, out of politeness, with no intention of actually doing so

@drfrancisyoung.bsky.social Hopefully you’re already aware that your Twitter account has been hacked by crypto scammers?

Getting up in the mornings can be a challenge at this time of the year. You suddenly wake up to a dark bedroom in a coal-black world, and you think "It's 3am, I can go straight back to sleep". Five minutes later the alarm bell rings and you realise it's actually 6am

TIL the origin of the word 'stationery'. It comes from the fixed stalls, or stations, set up by booksellers in 15th Century London, in contrast to the more usual itinerant traders of the time (and later centuries too) 📚

After all those years in medical school, how come doctors are still practising? And why do we have to be patients with them?

Just wrote out a date containing the numerals '2026' for the very first time 👀