You Winchester, you lose some

I was chatting to one of the other parents at school yesterday morning and mentioned how little kid is totally obsessed with space, all day and every day. It’s literally the first thing he talks about when he wakes up, and he falls asleep watching Brian Cox videos. They had a special space day at school yesterday, too.

Auto-generated description: A child is dressed as an astronaut with a homemade space helmet and is holding a paper plate designed like a planet.

She helpfully suggested visiting the planetarium at Winchester, about an hour’s drive away.

I hadn’t thought about going anywhere outside of London.

Later yesterday afternoon I picked up my guitar for the first time in months, wiped all the dust off it, and strummed the chords to one of my old band’s songs, written by the singer who, coincidentally, hails from Winchester.

By evening, I’d forgotten all about school mums, planetariums and old mates, and I was more concerned about finishing my book and finding out whodunnit?

On page 306 of my book, right in the middle it said (in all CAPS and bold):

WINCHESTER

I checked out the planetarium and ordered four tickets for a nice family outing during half-term .

This morning I told little kid about it and he said he didn’t want to go.

‘The UK currently has schemes for some Afghans, Ukrainians and people from Hong Kong to come to the UK but no route for Palestinians.’

Keir Starmer pledges to close loophole that let Gazan family settle in UK bbc.co.uk

All in a day's housework

Busy day so far.

New school street comes into effect next month, so to prepare this morning we parked away from the school and the kids scooted in with me chasing after them on my flat feet.

Need to teach little kid how to use his brake.

Had to pop into the school office to ask for a parents’ evening form.

Went to Tesco to buy the items that Waitrose couldn’t deliver later.

No time for breakfast, instead peeled, chopped and boiled spuds, chopped and fried onions with lentils, prepared carrots and leeks for honey-roasting, cut broccoli florets for steaming, mashed potatoes and spooned on to onions and lentils mixed with gravy and HP sauce in a baking dish, grated Red Leicester to go on top.

Emptied our general waste bin, wet and dry recycling bins, and the food bin.

Unblocked the kitchen sink with the plunger.

Put my laundry away.

Washed up.

Put the groceries away.

Time for a late brunch.

‘Under UK law, it is now an offence to enter the country without permission, while international law states that refugees should not be penalised for illegal entry.’

Gotta love that rules-based international order.

UK to refuse citizenship to refugees arriving on small boats bbc.com

‘The BBC contacted Biden’s talent agency, which recently signed him, but no response was immediately forthcoming.’

My talent agency said, “WTAF?!”

Trump says he is revoking Joe Biden's security clearance bbc.com

AI will drink all our water, use up all our electricity, take all our jobs, deliver to us online shopping and pizza and feed our timelines forever and ever with slop, before framing us on made up charges of terrorism or sexual deviancy, or just go right ahead and murder us in our beds.

Concern UK's AI ambitions could lead to water shortages bbc.com

Pleased to see that Auntie has updated the headline on this story.

Public invited to suggest names for next archbishop bbc.com

Back home early from work after second meeting had been cancelled without anyone telling anyone else. So we were all sat there like lemons for twenty minutes until someone asked if we were going to get started. 🤦‍♂️

Oh, and printed a couple of things I’ll need later on our new home printer - only to discover the kids have used up all the colour already printing off photos of planets.

I could use the printer at work, but it’s almost certain not to work when I actually need it to work.

Spent the morning going over the AI’s homework that I assigned it last week, correcting it and filling in the gaps. Still quicker than doing it myself? Not sure, although I found its formatting helpful to follow, and that surely saved me some time.

Virtual meeting completed eventually after the organiser (initially) and my boss (all together) failed to appear.

Quick lunch and out for two back-to-back in-person meetings (likely with all the same people).