Robin

@Mazking12 @absoluteradio So you are the definitive nanny Maz! Just imagine that one of you was “Old Nanny” and the other was “Young Nanny”. 🙄🫢

@absoluteradio my grandkids call me Nanny and their other nanny is actuallycalled Other Nanny 😆

Watching with difficulty, not bingeing, TV series Industry, I was provoked to muse: Mandelson, faced with chance to sneak a basket of a million crisp ponies by insider trading, would he Slobber over the basket, Cry No! My honour forbids it! I am allowed to think the answer.

As I research my ancestry, I have found the best Marshall will ever written - 1590: “To my sonne Samewell, I give onne halffe of my swarme of beeyes, and to my daughhter Rebekhah, the sayme. To my sonne Edwarde, I give my hyvve.”

@newstart_2024 @asymptoticfrdm This was hotel I stayed at, where I gave my best rapporteur talk ever. I unwound walking in back streets & an old chap spat from doorway & a gob missed me by inches. His wife smacked him, grilled me sardines & plied me with vinho verde.

@newstart_2024 @asymptoticfrdm That was filmed in 1981 at his cottage in Yorks Dales: Halifax. On plane from Lisbon Conf, we argued whether Halifax was in Y Dales or not. Co-pilot came out to check our noise. We got noisier & pilot came out whereupon colleague Fred L had panic attack.

Richard Feynman’s savage takedown of pseudo-science still burns in 2026: “Social science is an example of a science which is not a science. They follow the forms… but they don’t get any laws. They haven’t found out anything.” He goes harder: Experts who “sit at a typewriter and make up” claims — “organic food is better,” “this diet cures everything” — as if it’s settled science, when no rigorous experiments or checks have been done. Feynman: “I know what it means to really know something. How careful you have to be. How easy it is to fool yourself. I see how they get their information… and I can’t believe that they know.” The Nobel physicist calls it straight: most of what passes for “expert” opinion is noise dressed up as knowledge. In an age drowning in TikTok “science,” influencers, and clickbait studies — Feynman’s 1:52 rant feels more relevant than ever. Who’s the biggest pseudo-expert that grinds your gears right now? Clip is timeless fire — watch it and feel the clarity.

@hywelowen @skytv Sky TV, @skytv , by definition, do not have a help line. Send a letter, 1st class stamp, to their registered address. Take a photo of envelope, stamp, contents. That phone photo will thereby acquire a time stamp. It will be your future insurance.

Hey .@skytv, how can I get a fraudulent Sky TV account removed from my house address? Your helpline wasn't any help. Sort it out.

Had a nice lunch at the place I escape to twice a year in the Pyrenees foothills. There is more than one way to mange-tout. These were so fresh, they were swimming in the med at 5am, not knowing they would be eaten by Marshall, 8 hours later.

@EmmaSMaund @NASA It might just work on the inside, reflecting the suns rays back out through the glass. Although shutters are far more effective.

@EmmaSMaund @NASA But you should use the whole egg box closed for best effect. Just the lids and bottoms separated will not hold the air. A bubble pack wrapping and Al foil laminate on the outside of the window would be good, with the foil reflecting the sun back.

Making cardboard screens with egg boxes/loo rolls to insulate/cool windows this summer - but realised storage is an issue as well as budget. If I bought fairly affordable (thinner) roll-up corrugated cardboard would it work as well as this bulky contraption? @NASA @TheProfRobin

My family history, tracked back to 1590s, a trilogy of the Ryder, Marshall and Dodds dynasties, has now reached 160 pages. I sometimes get carried away; I like footnotes, but one is allowed to be extravagent. Here a 4 page snippet.

A pheasant has taken up residence in my one acre terrain during the hunting season & hopefully for longer. She gives a friendly cluck when she sees me, knowing I have neither guns nor dogs. I need a name for her. At the mo, I call her Gregory’s Girl, her hubby - Gregory Peck.

@RosieKayK2CO @JoPhoenix1 Short time frame for Aftershock to apologise, publish the poem & offer a bit of compensation, because they will surely lose & legal costs & compensation will bankrupt them, esp when Arts Council pulls taxpayer funding.

🚨BREAKING: Freedom in the Arts backs poet & trauma survivor Abigail Ottley in judicial review against Arts Council England. Her poem was pulled from The Aftershock Review over her gender-critical social media views (protected under Equality Act & Forstater ruling), yet ACE dismissed her complaint & awarded Aftershock another £60k the same day. Public funding must uphold artistic freedom & equality law for ALL. Pre-action letter issued. Case being prepared. #FreedomOfExpression #GenderCritical #ArtsCouncil #ViewpointDiversity

@Dracnoiseperson I went abroad from Yorkshire in 50s & it was Paris. I can assure you garlic had been invented and I got nowhere with Fr girls because I didn’t smell French.

@TheProfRobin I remember my mum used to do something very similar, but without the garlic obviously, it hadn’t been invented in the 50’s.

Some have roast potatoes with roast chicken. Some have mash. But this way, sliced and fried in olive oil with chopped onions and garlic, is unbelievably beyond belief.

@Dracnoiseperson The seeds will be Russian tarragon. The serious Fr flavoursome tarragon (they call it estragon), does not flower or create seeds. It is propagated by root cuttings or, if me, splitting a pot into 2 pots & letting it expand. So best buy a plant and let it proliferate.

@TheProfRobin That’s reminded me, I need to get some tarragon seeds. Going to give it a try this year.

It’s that time of year again, Wild orchids in my wild terrain. Sprouting uninvited, but welcome.