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On Sherlock Holmes day, I recall with sadness the death in 2022 of Nick Utechin, former editor of the Sherlock Holmes Journal, international authority on Sherlockiana of all kinds, and a staunch BBC man much missed by the surviving delegates of the YG1 convocation.

Strange outbreaks of mobbing among Norf London birds. Yesterday a large tribe of long-tailed tits bullying a crow, this morning crows taking revenge on a heron. Very noisy high-speed engagements..

This is old, but he's still one of my favourite names in present-day literature...

No idea why I did this - little call for colour work decades ago, except at Cream magazine, where J.B. Priestley certainly didn't belong -- but found it today so here 'tis. I did see JBP in action at an Arts Council meeting, and was amazed by the size of his head...

80 years ago today, my parents were married in Barmouth, Merioneth, Rev. Donald Southeard taking the service, and thereby acquiring a brother-in-law (as my mother's sister's husband). Tipped as a future Archbishop, he died of kidney failure at 40, before the days of dialysis etc.

Shoals of stuff fell out of the archive this morning, including this memento of the second worst football match I've ever seen. The worst was a goalless draw been Hibs and Morton (in those days).

Today's archive outfall, marked New Statesman. Can't recall Staggers asking for this, but it was Xmas. For those too young, cast: Harold Wilson, magnificent survivor Pam Ayres, Violet Carson/|Ena Sharples, Don Revie (Leeds Utd), Reggie Bosanquet, Hughie Green, Rowlf. 57p - a lot!

It’s so confusing…

Was the USA more innocent when this was made in 1959, making cosy fun of the map and paying kinda respects to "other" languages? Well, not much. Nasty stuff in the Civil Rights area, for example. But at least Hawaii and Alaska were admitted as new states. youtube.com/watch?v=EIVgZ-…

Why isn't this British song better remembered? I love the boxy sound of the session. Neither John Dankworth (billed as Johnny Dee for this) nor Dame Cleo remembered the studio as being very small, though the Esquire label's resources weren't huge... youtube.com/watch?v=vp0Tlj…

Alone among musicians of such sensitivity, control and emotional range, Brendel was actually born with a comedian's face, and some of a comedian's instincts. You always knew it was a whole person playing.

Glad to see the Merioneth Yacht Club webcams are back, in time to see Barmouth on the lucky/unlucky side of the Longest Day weather, depending how much you like the heat..

At lunch on the big day (I'm his son-in-law) Gerald recalled that Alfred Brendel had such brittle fingernails that he had to play with dressings wound round his fingers. "All the time?" Gerald asked. "Yes," Brendel replied, "I can only play when I'm plastered." Typical of both!

Tired of being tweeted the question "Who Remembers?" and being shown something I've got two of in a nearby cupboard.

Searing satire from The New Yorker Lars Kenseth

Hence that old pop-song whales still sing, "Please Kelp Me, I'm Falling".

This is for my son Matt who knows more about choral singing than most young persons I know, and supports Manchester United, but has never heard these young persons piping... youtube.com/watch?v=-vkpqH…