Recently updated blogs

Thanks to everyone who made all those kind remarks in various places last month after my mother died. I've not responded individually (I did not have the strength) but I did read them all and they were deeply appreciated. Yesterday would’ve been mum‘s 93rd birthday. A little side-note occurred to me the other day: Since she left us a month ago, she was just short of having seen two perfect …

Photographed with a Fujifilm X100VI – 23 mm focal length – 1/180″ at f/8 – ISO 125 Mexico City, Mexico – Mexihcah (Triple Alliance) land This photograph, titled “Polanco, Mexico City. December, 2024.”, was originally published on All-Encompassing Trip.

JetPens recently launched their Rickshaw Boba Pen Case collaboration, featuring several different styles and models of sweet storage solutions. I have one of the JetPens x Rickshaw 2-Pen Coozy in Strawberry to give away this week, and the winner is: Congrats John! I’ve sent you an email to collect your shipping address.

Last April, I posted about my favorite restaurant, Salar, and covered one of their monthly wine dinners. As much as I love their monthly wine dinners, I wasn’t able to make it to any others in 2024. Thankfully I managed to kick 2025 off with their January wine dinner. If you didn’t catch my previous post, Salar is an elevated Peruvian restaurant in the Oregon district of Dayton. It offers …

The theatre in the hills, Pitlochry Festival has announced a vibrant season of theatrical highlights. Beginning with a new play: 9-17 May STUDIO Presented by Byre Theatre and Pitlochry Festival Theatre WATER COLOUR by Milly Sweeney Winner of the St Andrews Playwriting Award Esme is at an all-time low, struggling with her studies and her art. She finds herself standing on the railing of one of the bridges that crosses …

In sports such as athletics and football there is need for a high degree of physical fitness. This fitness is very important, for it affects not only strength and stamina, but the athlete's skill and ability also.Angling, though seemingly less demanding, still requires a reasonable degree of fitness, and although, at first glance, it gives the impression that 'know-how' is the only factor controlling success, this is not so. To …

Check it out. I was amused by these posts: From 2014: Crap-free UO homepage From 2024: Provost Chris Long is paid $540K plus $130K per year start-up & alcohol budget Columbia should have a crap-free homepage too! And the alcohol budget reminded me of this story from Columbia a few years ago. UO Matters is run by economics professor Bill Harbaugh, who seems to be a busy person. Every city, …

An odd tension, getting on with life when the world is in chaos, isn’t it? But here we are. “Fire season in Southern California is generally thought to stretch from May to October. But as California Governor Gavin Newsom put it in a press conference on Tuesday, blazes are now a perennial issue. “There’s no fire season,” he said. “It’s fire year.”” Via the BBC’s live reporting of the wildfires …

The acclaimed Dutch architectural studio Mecanoo excels at crafting renderings of unbuilt projects that faithfully convey the design and atmosphere of the project ultimately constructed. As modern rendering engines offer architects unprecedented capabilities to create dynamic imagery of design proposals from every angle, the firm is acutely aware of the dangers of overpromising and underdelivering, choosing instead to champion restraint and careful consideration. In the latest edition of Archinect In-Depth: …

Minus 3 all the way to the Prancing PonyThe cold snap offers unexpected advantages to the year-round rambler. The usually treacherous mud in the horse fields is frozen firm, sparing one from the threat of trench foot. On the frost-hardened ground, the ice holds the weight of a 14.5-stone man with just the faintest suggestion of splintering.But you've got to keep moving.Officially, I have finished the Rail Trails on the …

Good morning, everyone. Sunday Morning Uni Watch may be done for the season, but college football just keeps rolling along. Today I’m going to carry the proverbial ball all the … Source

Since 1939 when I entered first grade in a Pittsburgh elementary school until becoming a nonagenarian last year, three national movements swept across American public schools: the Progressive Era (1890s-1940s); Civil Rights movement (1950s-1970s), and business-inspired standards, testing, and accountability reforms (1970s-present). As a student (1939-1951) I was the object of Progressive education reforms. As a teacher and administrator in Cleveland (OH) and Washington, D.C. (1950s-1970s) I designed and implemented …

Candy is the penname of a doctor called Barbara Alison Neville (1925-1993) nee Boodson, who wrote several books, including three mysteries. Words for Murder is the final one, but the earlier two were: Which Doctor (1953) and Bones of Contention (1954). This was one of the books that I received from my Secret Santa. Synopsis ‘Little does Mr Roberts suspect, what he’s in for when he calls the roll for …

Looking back through the years, I have, more than once, used the terms "Super Bore" or "Stupor Bowl" to refer to the Super Bowl. The game is only a small part of what has grown to encompass special commercials made for the occasion, pregame and halftime concerts featuring superstar artists, and marathon analysis both before and after the game. (It doesn't hurt that there have actually been some pretty good …

I’m extremely delighted to announce that I have a new book on the way, which will be published in the UK on May 15th and in a North American edition in Spring 2026. Regular readers of my blog posts here will know that I live above the Prespa lakes, and it’s this place that sits … Continue reading Lifelines: new book announcement!