Back at the Brighton Dome for the Blue Film Programme of the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival world tour.

A theater audience is gathered for an event with a large screen on stage displaying "WELCOME" and "BANFF 2025."

I think spring is finally here.

A lush green field with tire tracks stretches toward a line of bare trees under a clear blue sky.

When you are young and naive you think the professionals involved will sit down soberly, look at the evidence wisely and then labour long to achieve a good end based on sound science and experience. As you get older you realise that it is commonly not this way.

— from Bringing Back the Beaver by Derek Gow 📚

Nice to have company up on the downs.

Four sheep are grazing in a grassy field with trees and a cricket screen in the background.

Last Sunday of March, the first of British Summer Time.

7.35am, South Downs, near Lancing College.

Song thrushes and skylarks singing.

A tranquil rural scene features blooming daffodils under a tree beside a wooden fence, with a grassy field and wooded hills in the background.A sunlit, grassy field is bordered by a wooden fence and decorated with blooming daffodils in the foreground.

Have no regard for the words of the witless. They neither love nor care.

From Bringing Back the Beaver by Derek Gow 📚

Oh, dear: UK on alert after H5N1 bird flu spills over to sheep in world-first - Ars Technica:

The H5N1 bird flu has spilled over to a sheep for the first time, infecting a domesticated ruminant in the United Kingdom much like it has in US dairy cows, according to UK officials.

😬

Such a teasel.

A dried teasel plant with spiky bracts is in focus against a blurred natural background of trees and foliage.

Sunset on Shoreham Beach.

A serene beach scene at sunset features a vibrant gradient of warm colors reflected on the water's surface with distant city lights.

Middle of March, and I’m still scraping ice off the car…

Ice on the back window of an EV, with an RSPB sticker showing through the ice.

Frost on the roof of a garage, with Shoreham-by-Sea in the background.

AI, My Ass:

… when I wandered into the bathroom and saw the bidet, I made a sound I haven’t been able to reproduce. Heated seat, glowing blue light, and the kind of steely-eyed menace you get from people who have a job to do and know what’s involved in getting it done.

This slice of life post made me laugh far too hard this morning. But, thankfully, not so hard I needed a bidet.

The hollowed world of the appistocracy:

The true power of the appistocracy isn’t measured in billions but in dependence. It’s a relationship that transforms us from citizens into users. Yet even as these digital dependencies deepen, so too does our capacity to question them – to carve out spaces of genuine presence in a world increasingly defined by algorithmic engagement.

Smart Home is an illusion:

So maybe it’s time we finally changed the way we talk about the Internet of Things (IoT). We keep talking about it as something achievable. Perhaps it’s time we started talking about what it really is: one of the biggest consumer scams ever invented.

Oh, I really want smart homes to be a thing. But Om is right. It’s a shoddy mess at the moment.

Quiet on the beach.

A pebbled beach features a warning sign, a fishing net, and a view of the sea with scattered clouds in the sky.

First lamb I’ve seen this year.

A frosty rural scene with sheep grazing next to a broken wooden fence and bare trees in the background.

I now have access to Sora, OpenAI’s generative video tool. So, I asked it to generate a stressed middle-aged blogger writing in a coffee shop.

The results are… interesting

Truth found in a second-hand bookshop.

An artwork with the quote "You can't buy happiness but you can buy a book and that's pretty close" is displayed on a wooden wall alongside dried plants.

Friendly wee fella.

A small robin with an orange breast and grayish-brown plumage is perched on a metal bar against a blurred green background.

Signs of spring.

Bright yellow daffodils are surrounded by purple and white crocuses on a grassy field.

Started reading: Renaturing by James Canton 📚