Those Victorians loved their Moomintrolls and Harry Potter merchandise.
The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
RSS feeds: v0.91; v1.0 (RDF); v2.0; Atom.
8:58am on Saturday, 24th October, 2026:
Weird
Seen in the window of the Victorian Christmas shop we encountered last week:
Those Victorians loved their Moomintrolls and Harry Potter merchandise.
8:38am on Friday, 23rd October, 2026:
Weird
I didn't see anyone damaging it, but you can't argue with notices.
8:32am on Thursday, 22nd October, 2026:
Weird
Given that it has a river running through the middle of it, Bourton-on-the-Water has little in the way of irrigation.
That dry patch of garden is even deader than the dry patches in my own garden.
8:21am on Wednesday, 21st October, 2026:
Miscellaneous
My younger daughter has been looking online for presents for her sprog (our grandsprog). She found this for Playdoh:
So it's not suitable for children over 36 months, nor for children under 3 years.
I guess that means you can only use it on your child's third birthday.
8:45am on Tuesday, 20th October, 2026:
Weird
Here's what remains of the pigeon that was torn apart on our lawn by a sparrowhawk a couple of days ago.
What are those berries doing in there among the feathers?
Are sparrowhawks smart enough to leave berries lying around so that pigeons stop to eat them?
8:15am on Monday, 19th October, 2026:
Weird
It's MUD's 48th birthday today, so here's a photo of a pig playing with a 20-sided die.
9:10am on Sunday, 18th October, 2026:
Anecdote
We returned from our stay in the Cotswolds to find a sparrowhawk dismembering a pigeon on our lawn. It was at it for over an hour.
Honestly, you can't leave your house for five minutes without some bird murdering some other bird three metres from your window.
7:11am on Saturday, 17th October, 2026:
Anecdote
One of the tourist attractions in Bourton-on-the-Water is an actual, functioning BT phone box.
I don't suppose anyone ever uses it to make a phone call. Then again, few people use their mobile phones to make phone calls, either.
8:16am on Friday, 16th October, 2026:
Weird
Bourton-on-the-Water has a model village. It's no ordinary model village, though: it's a model of Bourton-on-the-Water itself.
Hold on, though, if it's a model of Bourton-on-the-Water, and Bourton-on-the-Water has a model village, shouldn't there be a model village in the model village?
There is indeed.
Just a moment. If the model village contains a model village, shouldn't there be a model village in the model village's model village?
Yes and there is.
I think you probably can guess where this is going...
The resolution of the village (and my phone) runs out at depth five.
So this is a model village in a model village in a model village in a model village in a model village in the village they're modelling. It's recursive.
There's a greater interesection between model-makers and programmers than I had realised.
8:38am on Thursday, 15th October, 2026:
Anecdote
This week, we're staying at a rented house in Bourton-on-the-Water. I suppose the water has to come from somewhere.
You know you're getting old when your sole vacation of the year is a few days in the Cotwolds.
8:03am on Wednesday, 14th October, 2026:
Outburst
This is a Starbucks raspberry doughnut.
I feel so foolish for assuming that a raspberry doughnut would have a raspberry filling, rather than merely having been in contact with a raspberry filling where they injected in the custard filling.
8:17am on Tuesday, 13th October, 2026:
Weird
Some rooftops near where we live.
One of these houses doesn't have as effective loft insulation as the others.
8:35am on Monday, 12th October, 2026:
Anecdote
On Saturday, it was the annual village sale trail, when people sit outside their houses selling stuff. Most of this is belongings they no longer need, although occasionally there are handicrafts and foodstuffs. Some sell items they've obtained at a discount from somewhere or have inherited.
We didn't have long to look around this year as we were going out for lunch, but I did manage to buy these playing cards:
They're a novelty pack called "crooked". I don't collect these normally, but they were only a quid (although that's still twice what I was expecting to pay). They were made in Hong Kong to a British design, but were probably for an American company, A. Freed. As for the date, probably 1960 onwards.
They're impractical to use for some games because they don't line up when you have a stock face-down and the top card face-up. I won't be playing with them anyway, as they stink of tobacco. It'll be awhile before they lose that smell.
They're still something I can use to amuse younger relatives with, though, assuming they've seen regular playing cards.
8:22am on Sunday, 11th October, 2026:
Weird
Well this is confusing.
In French alphabet books, A is for Bee.
8:26am on Saturday, 10th October, 2026:
Weird
From this week's Essex County Standard:
Page 42 continues the sentence with "national award".
Suddenly lurching to another page won't hide that use of "in the running" to refer to someone whose free time is spent literally running. I can't believe it's a deliberate pun, as the ECS is always so proud of those that it makes a big fuss of them. It's more a case of a subconscious connection between the topic of the article and a particular turn of phrase that could easily be replaced by another.
It's a weird place to put an article break, whatever.
Latest entries.
Archived entries.
About this blog.
Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).