Microposts
A quick note just to keep up my streak of having posted every day this year. Is that stupid? Maybe. Will mentioning it jinx it? Time will tell.
Watched: The Eagle Has Landed 🎥
if you’d have asked me I’d have said I thought I’d seen this back in the day. But no. Very much not. It’s a very odd film.
I thought it was going to be about some allied mission into or over Germany during WW2. It was actually the opposite: a secret German mission to kidnap Churchill from Norfolk. Including an IRA member helping them, and a traitorous English villager providing them with information.
it’s so totally not what I expected, but it’s pretty good.
Fun Minute Cryptic clue today.
Minute Cryptic - 20 February, 2026 “Dropped Jacksonville’s latest quarterback after non-pass?” (4) 🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 0 hints – 2 under the community par (71,660 solvers so far). www.minutecryptic.com
Watched: Ludwig Season 1 🎥
This was unexpected, and surprisingly good. David Mitchell playing a semi-serious (but still fairly comic) part, as a puzzle-setter whose twin-brother police officer goes missing. Anna Maxwell Martin as his sister-in-law. Good stuff.
Question being asked on BlueSky (saw it from @kottke.org: ‘Not big movies, more culty ones’) about what movies you saw on first-run at the cinema. Mine, actually premieres at the Edinburgh Film Festival back in the day:
- The Company of Wolves
- Repo Man
- Brazil
The latter two being two of my all-time faves.
Watching the Women’s Freeski Big Air final. They’re such incredible athletes. And Kirsty Muir, from Aberdeen, is currently in the silver medal position! (Briefly was gold, but changed as I was typing.)
Francisca Sinn: “@jamie I am an IP lawyer and…” - Mastodon
This Mastodon post reminds me that what I quoted Cory on the other day, regarding copyright in ‘AI’ training, may not be the whole story. Of course.
📚 Currently reading: Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan.
Looks like the Micro.blog book search is working again.
I’ve been trying to post that I’m currently reading Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan. But the Micro.blog bookshelves tool is not finding it in its database for me. Or finding any other books. Something’s wrong.
Minute Cryptic - 10 February, 2026 “For example, an elephant over 50 reproduced three times” (10) ⚪️🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣🟣 🏆 1 hints – 4 under the community par (95,093 solvers so far). www.minutecryptic.com
Minute cryptic’s a scunner today. But good maths.
I’m listening to the current Accidental Tech Podcast to see what they actually say about ’AI’ after much recent Mastodonage about it and them.
Lunch in Richmond today. Quick look at the Ted Lasso location by the Green, and the shop. Didn’t bother taking photos, but nice to see it.
Why are certain tracks on certain albums unplayable for me in both Apple Music and (just as a test) Spotify? For example, ‘Eat Y’Self Fitter’, the opening track on The Fall’s Perverted by Language? Greyed out, no length shown, and it just won’t play.
📚 Currently reading: How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin
The sequel to one I read last year. I got that for my birthday, this for Christmas.
I’m enjoying it, though so far I’ve got to say it’s not quite as good as the first.
And the third one is coming out this spring.
Yesterday there were people marching through London, ostensibly in support of Palestine, flying the Flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and pictures of Khamenei. They might as well have had swastikas and pictures of Hitler. I mean what the actual fuck is going on in these people’s heads?
Watched early in the new year: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 🎥
This is fine, a perfectly acceptable addition to the Spider-Man films. Though I have to say, a few weeks later, I remember little of it. And I blame that partly on its incompleteness: the fact it’s part one of two. Frustrating.
You know what’s a great album? The Absolute Game by The Skids. Who I’m going to see tonight.
Watched just before Christmas: The Shop Around the Corner 🎥
James Stewart, a Christmas movie, and not that one? Not specifically a Christmas movie, but part of it happens then, so why not?
Two shop workers hate each other, but fall in love with their mysterious pen pals. Guess what?
Not bad.
Watched: Hamnet 🎥
This is a fabulous film. It’s about motherhood and magic, and grief and how a genius can turn it toward one of the world’s great works of literature. And also about the special bond between twins.
But mostly it’s about grief. It is heartbreaking, yet also deeply life-affirming.