Existential question: in Springsteen’s ‘Open All Night’, if it ‘takes [him] two hours to get back to where [his] baby lives’, why does he later call her on the phone to say he’s ‘got three more hours but [he’s] covering ground’? Where has he been in the extra hours???

📚 Emily Tesh wrote the best SF book of the last couple of years (not just my opinion, it won the Hugo). Now The Incandescent is an incredible fantasy book, a magic-school story for adults.

She’s so good she almost scares me. Yet she just seemed to appear out of nowhere.

There seem to be more cops at this relatively tiny Free-Iran demo than at any of the Brexit ones.

March in London romorrow in support of the protests in Iran. I’ll be there. Not much reporting of it in the mainstream news, from what I can see.

Watched: Towards Zero Season 1 🎥

Or season ‘only’, as it is. An adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel, and quite a fun one. Where ‘fun’ includes murder, as it tends to with the Queen of Crime, of course.

I note in passing on this early-morning start day, that The Monkees (or songwriter John Stewart) had to get up earlier than The Clash, pre-fame. ‘Ring, ring, it’s seven am’ vs ‘The six o’clock alarm would never ring.’

🎥 Forgot to mention we watched Holiday Inn over the Christmas period. A singer gives up show-business because it’s hard work, to become a farmer! After a year he realises the obvious, and turns his house into a supper club that’s only open on the fifteen holidays in the US year. Great songs.

Trying out mb-cli, a command-line Micro.blog client from @timapple.

I fail to understand anyone who considers themself to be even vaguely ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘on the right side of history’ can not stand with the people of Iran. Sure, the US taking action might not be the best result, but as long as the Islamic Republic falls, the world will be better.

Five under par in today’s Minute Cryptic!

Minute Cryptic - 12 January, 2026 “7-Eleven uniform among ugliest uniforms” (5,4) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 5 under the community par (47,960 solvers so far). www.minutecryptic.com