Artificial eye contact. || I fear suspension may be tested. || A job that calls for teamwork. || Face time. || Ah, yes, the old face-in-scrotum thing. Wait, what? || Mind the wires. || What the magician sees. || Feel the power of Mac OS 9. (h/t, Things) || Assorted starship corridors. Previously and related: The chairs of Blake’s 7, and an impressively thorough study of the chairs of Doctor Who. || The lost episodes of Doctor Who. || The thrill of trimming asparagus. || More joys of public transport. || The progressive retail experience, parts 457, 458, and 459. || More things that never, ever happen. || More than is strictly necessary. || In other news. || “No-one has asked what my pronouns are. What the fuck?” || Injury of note. || Chopper casualty. || And finally, think good thoughts.

You can, should you wish, follow me on Twitter.

For some reason, the words “false reporting” caught my eye.

Via Joan.

Consider this an open thread.

Time for some thoughts on crime. From the pages of the Guardian:

Being a Guardian contributor, the author, Ms Anna Spargo-Ryan, a resident of Melbourne, is of course conflicted. Her feelings, it turns out, are something of a tangle. We’re told of the uncontrollable shaking, the shattered sense of safety, the fear for a missing cat, and the experience of subsequently finding items of stolen clothing discarded in the street. “I am so frightened,” says our columnist:

All understandable, and far too commonplace. And yet, simultaneously, the experience is dismissed by the author as one of being merely “inconvenienced for a few days.” “The relative impact of this one night on the whole of my life is nothing compared to setting up a child to reoffend,” says she.

Messages, I think, that are ever so slightly mixed.

Before we go any further, I should point out that the words child and children, used throughout the piece, may be a tad misleading, as the identities of the burglars – who stole, among other items, knives, keys, jewellery, a wallet, and a car – have, at the time of writing, not been shared, or, one assumes, determined. The culprits, who presumably still roam free, are assumed to be teenagers, out for an invigorating spree of robbery and joyriding.

And the word child is so much fluffier. Ah, bless those rosy cheeks.

Well, it was a big egg. || A visit to the barber. || Enliven your cleaning with the laser of shame. || Nibbles. || Embiggening of note. || Some cooking occurred. || Row brewing. || Steed and Mrs Peel visit The Town Of No Return. || Remember, this never happens. (NSFW) || Now I want patterned ice. || She handled that pretty well, I think. || Maybe, just maybe, the problem is you, madam. || The progressive retail experience, parts 455 and 456. || More joys of public transport. || Bohemian Rhapsody. || Drag moth. || Today’s word is modification. || Today’s other word is incongruity. || The great house cat migration. (h/t, Things) || Next door, honey. || Shift Happens. || From the hood. || Clarkson’s Farm, series two. || And finally, it’s always a pleasure when someone makes it look effortless.

You can, should you wish, follow me on Twitter.

Yuliah Alma on a suboptimal substitute teacher:

When not conscripting middle-school children into his cross-dressing psychodrama, and presumably being thrilled by the thought of 11-year-olds seeing him in various states of undress, while discussing “kink” and sexual positions, Mr Lamere tells us, “I’m not a predator, I’m just a woman who happens to be super tall and hot.”

Mr Lamere’s employment history includes “environmental educator” and, er, pest control.

Update, via the comments:

Crabs give pedicure. || Deaf man and his cat. || Not quite what I imagined. || Calling International Rescue. || The calculator drawer. || Random Street Views. || City living scenes. || A.I. attempts to make sign-language manual. (h/t, Dicentra) || At last, music generated from text. || Smart slime and throbbing bloblets. || Bruising of the soft tissue. || You had one bloody job. || But only when it rains. || Back passage of note. (h/t, Damian) || Ancient Earth Globe. || Theirs is considerably bigger than yours. || Gently does it. || A decision was made. || Thriller, Indian version. || Chain reaction. || ChronoPhoto, a photographical history game. (h/t, Things) || Coffee can do anything. || And finally, don’t worry, it’s a weight-saving measure.

Or, How This Place Is Still Here After Sixteen Bloody Years.

Yes, it’s time to remind patrons that this rickety barge, on whose seating your arses rest, is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant a while longer, and remain ad-free, there are shiny buttons below with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted. If one-click haste is called for, there’s a QR code in the sidebar, and my PayPal.Me page can be found here. As requested, I’ve added SubscribeStar and Ko-Fi accounts, via which love may also be monetised, whether as one-off donations or monthly subscriptions.

Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link, or for Amazon US via this link, or via the buttons in the sidebar, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you. Feel free to buy things wildly and in bulk.

For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last decade and a half, in over 3,000 posts and 150,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year summaries, which convey the fullest flavour of what it is we do. A sort of blog concentrate. If you like what you find there… well, there’s lots more of that. Do take a moment to poke through the discussion threads too. The posts are intended as starting points, not full stops, and the comments are where much of the good stuff is waiting to be found. And do please join in.

As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company.

Oh yes. The buttons.

Perhaps there’s a word for this new dance-move sensation. || Big-ass paper plane. || A brief history of topiary. (h/t, Things) || Answers on a postcard, please. || ChatGPT does physics, with partial success. || Jupiter. (h/t, Dicentra) || Volcanic eruption seen from space. || Remember, always respect the media. || The progressive retail experience, parts 453 and 454. || Is your smartwatch powered by slime mould? || Nommy nommy nom. || Historical con-women of note. || You may clench when ready. || Why, yes, there will be a test. || When you’ve been severely educated. || Drag for kiddies. || “That’s the goal.” || Glass viruses and bacteria. || Fifty-tonne crystals. || Unsolid footing. || And finally, for those unfamiliar with the world of Japanese music sirens.

Should you wish, you can follow me on Twitter.

I stumbled across this tweet by American Conservative editor Helen Andrews, in which she remarks on pausing her commute at the local Metro, in Washington, DC, and counting the number of fare-dodgers that could be spotted within a five-minute period. An exercise she repeated, with an average of 22 fare-dodgers and a peak of 40. In five minutes.

What stood out, however, were the tweeted replies, often from blue-ticked progressives and self-styled creatives with many flags in their bios, and ostentatious pronouns, and which conveyed a kind of pre-emptive disapproval of any thoughts along such lines.

“Do you literally have nothing better to do?” asked one film and TV director, adding, “Why don’t you stand outside a bank and interview business owners who steal wages from hourly employees?” Some insisted that an escalation of fare-dodging has no victims or unhappy social effects, and that fares are a “classist, racist” assault on “poor and BIPOC folks.” Others, including lecturers and lawyers, added “who cares?” or deployed the terms “narc” and “snitch,” again suggesting that certain observations are not to be aired. One “Oscar-nominated screenwriter” expressed his “exhausted rage” at such things being noticed at all.

The general theme of the replies, and the air of annoyance, reminded me of Ms Claudia Balducci, a woman responsible for Seattle’s public transport network. Faced with evidence that up to 70% of passengers are now freeloading with impunity, Ms Balducci replied:

Which is progress, apparently. An achievement unlocked.

Update, via the comments:

In other news:

The lady quoted above is referring to this ongoing adventure in sensitivity and tolerance:

Quite how the lack of risk was determined has not been made clear by the police. And as one might imagine, many parents, and schoolgirls, aren’t entirely thrilled to find said gentleman on the bus used by the girls to get to and from school, and loitering near their school, repeatedly, while wearing their school’s uniform, complete with stockings, a pleated skirt, and what appears to be a wig.

Consider this an open thread.