Walked into a random art gallery near the British Museum. The proprietor apologized for not having much to show because he’d just sold a bunch of pieces. That’s one I’d never heard before. “Yes,” he continued, “these are by Brian Eno.” Only in #London

Hwæt, y’all! #OldEnglish

Visited the Tower of London today. Didn’t bonk my head on the ceiling at all. Gratitude to King Edward I Longshanks for the building standards. #London #MedievalHistory

A walk through Hyde Park. 🪿: Please feed the birds. 🦆: Please feed the birds. 🦢: Please feed the birds. 🐦‍⬛: Please feed the birds. Gull: Please feed the birds. Pigeon: Please feed the birds. Sign: Do not feed the birds. I’m getting mixed signals.

To save time, I’m just going to assume that every parking space in #London is taken.

Talk completed; no casualties.

Hurriedly rewriting my talk to remove parts the morning’s speakers have proven wrong.

Found out why the #London Underground famously repeats “mind the gap” so often. Sometimes the gap they’re referring to is a foot wide!

You know the song “Woad”? “What’s the use of wearing braces/Hats and spats and shoes with laces/ vests and coats you buy in places/Down on Brompton Road?” I’m drinking beer in a pub on Brompton Road. #London

I have arrived in #London. Now what do I do?

The lady I called about getting rooftop solar panels asked me why I was interested. She laughed when I said I’m not sanguine about bidding against Jeff Bezos for electricity. #DataCenters

When I came into the office this morning, I found ketchup on the door handle. It was an indication that today would not be a normal day. #ReturnToOffice

A brilliant bit of technical communication from @bretdeveraux@historians.social : “92% of American households own a car, a one ton (or more) mass of steel precision machinery, with enough worked metal in it to equip close to a hundred knights.” acoup.blog/2025/08/2…

From a podcast guest who just said a too-complicated sentence, the QOTD: “Take what I said, fix it so it makes sense, and that’s what I meant.”

An Amazon delivery driver has just pulled up in front of the demolished house across the street. He’s looking at the hole in the ground. He’s getting out his phone. He’s putting the package back in the car and driving away. #demolition

Darth makes a very good point about the #EricAdams #WinnieGreco cash in the potato-chip bag scandal: “If you want to make friends with someone, consider actually sharing a bag of potato chips.”

“One of those raffish and unfortunate minor figures in history who end up having a powerful influence on the #poetry they do not completely master.” - Mark Strand, speaking of Henry Howard

…and so it has come to pass.

Pastis is an anise-thetic. #pun

“Nothing that you learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life, save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.”

• John Alexander Smith 1914

A whitetail buck was standing athwart the jogging path. Joggers were standing there, unsure of the protocol. Deer wasn’t moving. Then along came a lady walking an Old English Sheepdog. “Stand back, everyone – I’ve got this!” announced the dog. Sure enough, the deer took one look at the dog and skedaddled. Normal operation of the jogging path resumed. #FallsChurch

My neighbor’s house doesn’t have long to live. #heavyMachinery

My wife runs a nutrition business that has a strong internet component. She’s spent quite a bit of money on a contractor who’s expert at Search Engine Optimization, and it’s been successful. After the pause for Covid-19, though, the traffic to her web site dried up. Maybe SEO Guy lost his mojo, but we heard similar stories from others in the business. Her website isn’t just a storefront. She loads it up with information about nutrition and metabolism and critiques of dieting. The principle is, like Sy Syms used to say, “An educated consumer is our best customer.” Since she didn’t have customers knocking on the door, she started blogging about trending topics. And then the customers came back. Her site isn’t getting any more traffic, but the phone has started ringing. I’m guessing that we’re seeing Google’s AI in action. When someone asks a question, it searches its blurry JPEG of the Web and finds her essays and blog posts, then serves them up to customers directly. If the days of the SEO Arms Race are over, I’ll be glad to see them gone.

Enjoying a summer evening on the porch, when a hornet landed on my eyeglasses and crawled onto the inside curve of the left lens. I’m really nearsighted, so the hornet was in perfect focus with an apparent length about 10 cm. My blood pressure should be back down to triple digits someday soon. #bugs

Bush-hogged yesterday, but it was too hot to rake up the detritus for the compost heap. Early morning is cooler, so I left it for today. At dawn, all those pulverized weeds were soaked with dew, so I don’t need to water the pile. Umm, right, just the way I planned it! #composting #procrastination