Mike

End of year running challenge dreamed up by some running club colleagues: 31 on 31 - 31 Reasons to be Thankful (31km on the 31st December, if you didn't work it out). I did mine virtually (verified by GPS track) taking a loop around the pastoral periphery of our home village in North East Botswana.

I agree with the general sentiment (as someone who was born abroad and feels strongly British how could I not), but Spike Milligan wasn’t a British citizen. The laws restricting commonwealth migration left his stateless since he was born in India, and he had to become an Irish citizen

Hey #indieanimation fans and supports and #indiecreators #indiefilm I made a starter pack of black indie creators ( primarily Animation cuz that's what I know mostly ) that everyone should follow. Folks like to support Indie but make sure you're supporting black voices too go.bsky.app/AY6B9eE

Winter girl sketch :)

This week's garden visitor: a four foot long rock monitor lizard. Alerted by incoherent squealing of family members in the kitchen who saw it wandering down the driveway before it ducked into the garden. #botswana #wildlife #monitorlizard #rockmonitor

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” John Muir, who died on this day in 1914

Larger point: 45Q is arguably the most perverse energy subsidy from a climate pespective. Govt paying corporations to capture and store CO2, instead of actually reducing emissions, means incentivizing more extraction and combustion of fossil fuels because more emissions means more public $.

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

Steve is nagging at the universe's unanswered fruit-related questions again. Stop it, Steve. It's a fruitless endeavour. [#SteveThoughts](https://bsky.app/hashtag/SteveThoughts)

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’

I love you so much I have eaten nine photos of you. Call me ❤️

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

I have been doing entirely too much earnest posting about deep things recently, I need to do a proper thread about hippo testicles or something just to keep myself sane. Oh by the way hippos have migratory testicles.

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess...”

"Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good." - J.R.R. Tolkien

Asylum seekers, housed in hotels in Manchester, are reaching out in their own words to address the concerns of the local community. Please take a minute to read their letter, & share it with the people in your life who need to hear the truth about the people they are protesting.

The #comic Hugleikur Dagsson just got kicked off Meta. Let’s make him feel at home here on Bluesky. His work is dark, sarcastic, and absolutely hilarious in my view. Welcome to Bluesky @dagsson.bsky.social

Best start the psychological preparation now. November is just around the corner. #GSRC10x10Challenge #OurStridesOurStories

Bolide (probably) meteorite over Gaborone circa 3am CAT on 3rd August 2025. Camera faces roughly north-west if you want to try and workout direction of movement and so forth. #meteorite #Gaborone #Botswana

Consistently vile person

Joey Barton wrote 'everyone knows what's gone on' ahead of the police releasing any information about the suspect

Our final day in Palapye, Botswana. A day of culture and celebration!

New episode of Absolute Units is live! In this much shorter bonus episode, we discuss the future of the podcast (more to come late June!) and assorted topics, including trade deals, the story of the podcast, our summer plans, and posting hog on Bluesky. merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

How the Afrikaans apartheid regime dealt with refugees that fled South Africa for reasons of personal safety. www.facebook.com/share/193qXC... (Sorry about the Zuck-site link - I don't want to just copy and paste the author's work into a multi-post thread)

For those of us in America......that actually READ some of the books they want destroyed......

As the Internet is northern hemisphere-centric the 'net is full of Flower Moon posts, except we are in the southern hemisphere so this is probably closer to the Hunter's Moon or Frost Moon. #Kolwezi #moonrise #sunset #DRC 🇨🇩

A fine page migrating from one of the other places.

Hugely enjoyable evening @morethanadodo.bsky.social talking all things queer nature with the audience alongside Connor Butler (connorbutler.co.uk) and @daniel-a-villar.bsky.social. George's show is sensational - do go if you get a chance to see it! 🐬🏳️‍🌈🐌🏳️‍⚧️🦒 #Oxford #museums #queer #nature

Dramatic storm clouds as the end of the rainy season draws nigh in Lualaba Province, DRC. Bit of a sticky 5km in the aftermath.

Just pulled back the curtain and there they were... #ventral #insect #Lualaba #DRC 🇨🇩

Just going to leave this here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Q_...

Just going to leave this here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Q_...

Definitely worth following.