A fantastical place.

Sunday morning. The BBC engineers already hard at work in chapel. There will be a live broadcast this afternoon on Radio 3 between four thirty and six thirty. The sound of a full orchestral version of O come O come Emmanuel drifts across the road towards us. We stop, entranced, by the fish restaurant  and listen. How exotic the music sounds amid the street lights and parking cones of a small Scottish town. You know its advent proper when the BBC show up. 

The rain of the last week has gone and the skies are clear and still bright with stars. The town is surprisingly busy with a mixture of students heading home after a late night and early rising towns folk. A large marquee has appeared on the lawn down by the Classics Department. This will host the winter graduation ceremonies which start on Tuesday. This year 800, mostly post grads, will be saying goodbye and starting off on the next leg of their journey. We learn all of this from a couple walking a dog dressed up against the cold in salmon pink pyjamas. The couple are from Beith and are the ( extremely EXTREMELY ) proud parents of a soon to be newly minted PhD in organic chemistry. He is the first in their family to have gone to university and is off to start work with a pharmaceutical company in High Wycombe. They pronounce the High and Wycombe separately as if its an extraordinary and fantastical location that's not to be confused with ( if there is such a place ) Low Wycombe. Their happiness is infectious and we wish them - and him - well. They observe with a wholly justified 'match that if you can' tone of pride that there could be no better Christmas present.

Somethings have to be ordered now if you want to get them for Christmas :https://www.souschef.co.uk/products/amarena-cherry-panettone-1kg

Dogs :https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03755-5?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20251127

Once again the Scots are included as 'English'. If that had been true would there have been a Revolution ? Discuss :https://x.com/uncle_deluge/status/1991295715436556637?  Here is another take :https://x.com/CoKeynesian/status/1991974111715995964?

Overturning the moral scheme of things. Not everywhere is peaceful :https://snyder.substack.com/p/what-if-trump-wants-goliath-to-win

Like bringing a leaf blower to a funeral . Tips for those heading to France :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXShk6w8cSg