That's a female stag beetle. There is some info on them here.

They are very impressive.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.

That implies that the others have got complete maps - which I find much more surprising. Every time that I have had any dealings with any utility companies - which I do as part of my job - it becomes apparent very early on that they don't have anything like accurate maps in whatever area I am looking at. And not just for old lines that they inherited - as seems to be the issue here - but for things like fibre optics that I saw them lay myself just 18 months earlier.

There are two of us. There will usually be either 1 or 2 bags from the 25ltr (I think) kitchen bin in the black bin when i put it out each fortnight. They aren't really 'full' full, normally though - it is more a question of getting anything smelly out of the kitchen. If I have been around and emptied the other wastepaper baskets, which I proably do once a month or so, then there will be 2, certainly - most of the bulk will be snotty tissues though.

We usually cook from scratch and compost and recycle a lot though.

I use Rainy Days for the radar, and - since I'm in the UK - the Met Office weather app, which has a Next Rain widget.

Definitely in favour myself - and my SO is the same. We have discussed it more than once and we would both like this option to be available to us in the UK as and when the time comes.

The biggest issue, I think, is the kind of circumstance where an elderly parent or relative is bullied or made to feel like a burden by their family and that they 'should' choose this option. If that goes on long enough and subtly enough, they may internalise it and come to feel that they have made the choice freely themselves. However, as my wife (who has a background in counselling) has pointed out, distinguishing that kind of situation from a genuinely choice is similar to other major life choices involving medical intervention - all of which involve professional counselling specifically aimed to distinguish between the two. With the right kind of questions it usually doesn't take long for distinctive patterns of thought and speech to reveal the roots of the choice that someone says they have made.

What they found is a mastaba, which were used as tombs - and pretty much for nothing else - for thousands of years in Egypt, in an area that was used for other tombs.

So, this would be like finding an arch shaped stone with a name on and flowers in front in a modern day cemetery. How do you know that it is a grave stone? You don't, but it would be a pretty good guess, and if you guessed that it was anything else, you'd probably be wrong.

Sounds like you should adopt an Official Birthday in a couple of weeks and get a re-do then.

Anyway, I hope it gets better and happy unofficial birthday such as it is.

I have had a lie in and did a bit of gardening. I'll get out for a walk somewhere or another after lunch and maybe settle in for some reading this evening.

I was Terry Pratchett's gofer at an event once, quite early in his career.

I have met and chatted with Prof Ron Hutton a couple of times.

I ferried Portillo across a river for one of his shows - and was briefly featured as a result. He was an arrogant git.

Others would include Roy Hudd, Tony Benn, Swampy, Chris Packham and probably a couple of others.

• In Our Time
• Thinking Allowed
• Philosophize This
• Revolutions

Swineherd, ineluctable, sprig, ululate, cnidoblast, pompholoogopaphlasmasin.

Local paper, local tv news and radio 4 for organising a toad road crossing when the colony turned out to be the largest recorded in the UK one year.

Local tv when I was the pagan chaplain for some local prisons,

National tv news for a couple of Greenpeace protests.

My elbow featured on the cover of Time magazine for another protest once.

I appeared in some Portillo documentary or other, and briefly in a couple of episodes of Coast, all because of where I worked at the time.

Did the washing up and watched Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953).

Looking good to me. Well done folks!

Well, there's an example of it being vague enough that people can still get the county wrong.

And, when it comes down to it, even if it were the county generally associated with those, the whole webbed feet thing originates with the other half of that county than the one that has any connection with this folklore.

It is a variation on a creature from folklore in my area. It might give some people an idea of where I am and some of the things that I am interested in, but is still fairly vague.

At the Cinema Sweet Sue (2023) - by Leo Leigh (Mike Leigh's son) - a low key dramedy which walked the line between grotesque and sympathetic characters very well.

TV - The Sandbaggers from 1978. Cold war UK spy drama series focussed on the internal politics and strategising of MI6's Special Operations Unit. A sharp and Intelligent script is the backbone for this one, overcoming the low budget.

TV - True Detective - season 4 - just the first episode so far. I have not seen any of these other than S1. This is not as intense as the start of that, but is intriguing enough to continue.

Film highlight - Talk Radio (1988) - which I had not seen before. Outstanding first scene - both for the cinematography of what was shown and in holding off from showing the protagonist for so long. And then a great, absorbing and intense continuation through the rest of the film. Bogosian both starred and co-wrote the original play and this script - doing all those extremely well.

TV highlight - Criminal Record - Capaldi at his most sinister and some fine direction take this one up a few ranks. So far I am not entirely convinced by Jumbo's relationship with Moore, but will definitely be continuing.

There have been several. I'll pick Eric Berne's book Games People Play.

I immediately recognised a few that I had played and, having been 'called out' on them by the book, it did lead me to stop and behave more constructively.

There are years when I have read upwards of 60 books and others when I have scarcely read 6. It depends heavily on what else is going on. I don't do numerical goals and never have.

For the last few years, however, no matter how many others I read, I have had a 'big read' of some kind spread across the year: War and Peace first - since it has 365 chapters in total, then In Search of Lost Time, and this year Finnegans Wake - which I was reading with a group which scheduled in some 'summing up time' at the end so I have finished it already. In 2024 I have decided that it will be The Romance of the Three Kingdoms: so completing that is my goal.