The jackdaws in town were making an astonishing racket today.
The object of excitement was a chimney of the type that has a little roof on top and a gap under that before the main part of chimney continues downwards.
Anyway, about 15 of them were taking turns yeeting themselves through the gap and into thin air on the other side, sometimes catching themselves mid-plummet while their comrades cackled and cheered.
Sometimes several of them would, in their excitement, cram in all at once, resulting in a flurry of black wings as they tried to extricate themselves with a modicum of dignity. (Spoiler: there was no dignity.)
But they were mostly queuing up with reasonable patience to go on this thrill ride, and were entirely adorable.
Honestly, this 1940s advice to young people joining the Maquis remains solid:
"Bring two shirts, two pairs of underpants, two pairs of woollen socks; a light sweater, a scarf, a heavy sweater, a woollen blanket, an extra pair of shoes, shoelaces, needles, thread, buttons, safety pins, soap, a canteen, a knife and fork, a torch, a compass, a weapon if possible, and also a sleeping bag if possible. Wear a warm suit, a beret, a raincoat, a good pair of hobnailed boots."
This is a tee for French anarchist industrial/sludge/black metal collective Non Serviam, for their album Le Coeur Bat (trans: The Heart Beats), a personal fave.
They have a small galaxy of sibling projects and release fundraisers for victims of police violence.
"average person uses 3 linux each year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person touches 0 Linux per year. Fediverse Georg, who lives in cave & compiles over 10,000 kernels each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
You nearly got King Diamond or Nick Cave, and very nearly got Legendarium, but I'm supposed to be writing, so I'm going to stop overthinking this again.
I have finally dragged on clothes, so welcome to #ShirtCheckSunday !
I share my tee, you show me your tee/shirt/outfit, everyone looks awesome and cute, it's great.
Today's shirt is Ashenspire's Three Months to the Gutter tee, art by Hagiophobic.
They're an avant-garde red/anarchist black metal (RABM) band, and Hostile Architecture is one of my favourite albums of the last few years. Equal parts beautiful and brutal, and upholding the rule that all metal bands with saxophones are good.
If you're near London in the UK, they're playing at Desertfest at the Electric Ballroom this afternoon at 14:30.
I starting rummaging through my CDs and LPs, looking for something cool and unusual and precious.
But then I realised that I had a much more recent precious thing.
This is the tape release of the dungeon synth soundtrack to the indie RPG Moonring - it's also one of my favourite DS releases of last year.
And I honestly love the fact that I can get tape, CD, or even LP releases of fairly obscure modern things (I have cassette decks and a turntable), produced on a small scale by people who care about putting them in the hands of enthusiasts.