I don’t drink either - or any other hot drinks. I have never liked them.

There was a while when, every other year or so, in the depths of winter, I would get it into my head that my tastes might have changed and would accept someone’s offer of something: tea, coffee, hot chocolate or whatever. But I’d always end up taking one sip and realise my folly.

And, no, Iced tea or similar does nothing for me either.

A good deal of the current Scottish population are descended from the Irish, which goes some way to explaining that side of your comparison, but I am not aware of Finland being particularly cloudy.

I have not consulted any climatic records, but I would have expected it to be less cloudy than the rest of Scandinavia, really, since the rain will have been deposited on the mountain in Norway and Sweden before the air masses reach Finland.

a skiff that they had managed to build with canvas and ropes that they had brought with them, and wood that they had cut in the forest where they had hidden ; they had made this boat waterproof by means of a thick layer of tallow. These prisoners, from Arras to the wood in which they had hidden near the coast, had walked only at night, using the moon and the stars to guide them. The administration of the Navy tested the canoe made by these four prisoners; 6 men embarked, steered it with oars and held the sea without a drop of water entering.

What they are describing there is a Currach.

I would imagine that it is linked to the rainward side of the Urals, which I would imagine have more cloud and so would promote a selection for improved Vitamin D production, as with Ireland.

A hornet has spent most of the week sizing up my shirt rail as a potential nest site. Persuasion hasn’t worked, so I have ordered a screen for the window.

I was only called in for one problem at work over the weekend, which was easily resolved,. Spent the rest of it sorting out the shed, pottering in the garden and reading.

In a week and two days I will be off on a regular holiday with friends for a fortnight. It always seems a long slog between Xmas and this one, so really looking forward to it.

From this strand of SF, Dennis E Taylor’s Bobiverse books are by far the most compelling. It has been a while since I found something that was as unputdownable. I don’t know that they are technically the ‘best’ in terms of literary merit or anything though. I’d say that Dan Simmons Hyperion probably wins on that front.

I’ve just started Iain M Banks’ Use of Weapons, it would be that. I’m catching up with some SF this year and am alternating the Culture novels with others at the moment.

There is a window for “Where were you when…?” questions, I think.

• Kennedy? Nope.
• Moon landing? Just about.
• Challenger? Yep.
• Princess Di? Yep.
• 9/11? Yep.
• Lockdowns? Whatever…

I think that I am drifting past that window nowadays.

I was working today because I had basically forgotten that it was a bank holiday. Anyway, no interruptions, so I got a lot done, AND I now have day of TOIL.

Tomorrow and Sunday will be gardening, sorting out the shed and stuff like that.

I will then probably stay under the duvet and read on Monday, unless the weather is good and I feel particularly enthusiastic, in which case there is a walk that I have been considering for most of the winter. That might be the day.

• Worked for their local team, and was quite happy to challenge/push back on unreasonable top-down asks.
• Quite happy to admit they didn’t know stuff and asked for advice and ideas - and, of course, credited the appropriate team members for things that worked, but took responsibility themselves if things didn’t go well.
• Displayed authentic emotions and enthusiasm for the work, rather that present a bland corporate mask.

A satsuma. The penultimate element of my lunch.

The ultimate will be a banana, in a few minutes.

I’m peripatetic - I move between 3 different offices in a typical week, plus occasionally WFH. So:

• Coastal heath, birch & oak woodland, the sea off to the side and a nuclear reactor in the background. In the autumn we’ll get a starling murmuration in the later afternoon.
• A small stretch of rough grass and a river wall, with the top of a couple of abandoned military buildings over the top of that. The occasional hare or barn owl will pass by.
• The lawn and occasional ornamental trees of a moderately-sized country house with a shallow valley and more woodland behind that.
• A tussocky lawn, a couple of larch and a spectacular old oak, then a mixed alder and ash covert with a small stream behind that. Hares, a great spotted woodpecker and the occasional stoat put in an appearance.

Current place: basically nothing. It’s an old house with thick joining walls. It’s great The only time we hear anything at all is when they poke the fire, since this is on the joining wall.

Previous place: we had a neighbour who clearly had some issues with noise on one side. We are naturally quiet people, with no kids or pets or anything, and we don’t have the TV on loud but she would start pounding on the wall when, for example, we were emptying the dish washer and putting stuff back in the cupboards at 9-10am, or a dozen other normal activities at normal times of the day. Meanwhile, we had someone on the other side who was working from home some of the time and we’d get him shouting down the phone most of the day at times (my wife got most of this, since she was at home most days) and watch loud sport stuff in the evenings.

The peak, though, was when Mr work-from-home was doing some renovation work in a bedroom. Either removing plaster or knocking a wall through or something involving hours of extremely loud hammering. Well, that came straight through to us and clearly Ms sensitive-to-noise could hear it as well, so that set her pounding on the wall, presumably thinking that it was us. There was a day when we were just sitting there listening to deafening hammering on one side and pounding on the other. At least my wife had some noise-cancelling headphones.

It was a nice place otherwise, but I’m very happy that we moved.

Beautifully shot and some fine performances all round. Very much a character-based one though. Don’t go into it looking for action or fast-moving plot.

• The Studio - First episode - seems fun, but too similar to The Franchise just at the moment, and without the subtle wit of that one.
• The Righteous Gemstones - part way through season 4. This season lacks the coherence of the previous ones and seems to be be relying on continuous gross-out humour to make up for that. There was a natural end point with season 3. I will give this another episode, but may abandon it there.
• Adolescence - I completely agree with those who say that it isn’t the kids who need to see Adolescence, but the parents. I found that there was some heavy-handed moralising in eps 2 & 4, but 1 and 3 were intense and excellent and all of them were technically impressive.
• The White Lotus - another compelling season of the wealthy and damned paraded for our judgement. Fine performances from Posey, Issacs and Goggins particularly.
• The Residence - I wasn’t sure about episode 1. It seemed to be trying too hard and not nearly as funny as the director seems to think, but episode 2 was much improved. I’ll continue.

Threads (1984). I was in shock for a week when I first saw that. No horror film has come close.

Off to the theatre tonight: a stage production of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.

I want to get the garden furniture out of the shed and resurrected tomorrow (sorry folks, I expect that it’ll be freezing rain for the next month once I do). The usual chores and then film night. I think it’s my choice this time. Maybe Mickey 17.

Then there is a coast walk that we have failed to do for a few weeks now. If the weather does hold, then that on Sunday.

Here is an older article about a toad tunnel in what sounds like a similar situation. The Charlecombe Lane site is described as being half a mile long, so I’d expect that the same issues would apply.

As they mention in the older article, as well as the tunnel itself, this involved ditches to funnel the toads towards the tunnel - so, even if it would work, it would be a sizable operation to install it, and so would be expensive - though whether the cost alone would be the issue, I really don’t know.

The 1983 UK general election.

However, since I lived in a Tory safe seat (taking boundary changes into account, the last time that location had been anything except tory was a Whig in the C19th) I spoiled my ballot - writing some pithy comment across it about how meaningless the process was. That showed them!

Checking now, I see that it has continued as a Tory safe seat up to the present day.

Depends on where the river is and exactly what you mean by dirty. If you are talking about pollution, who you report it to will depend on where in the UK you are. Here is some info..

If you mean litter - in the river or on the bank - then that may well be the responsibility of the landowner. More info here..

Whether anyone has a responsibility to clear it up will depend on what it is, where it is and how much of an issue it it causing.