Meanwhile its "translation" from Swedish refers to the Great Horned Owl as the Virginia vulture, the Virginia grebe and the Virginia creeper. This is quite an impressive taxonomic range.

Yes, Burnley is one of the councils where every ward has three seats and only one is up in each election. The by-election seat was won by Labour with 68% of the vote in 2022, but the comparison given is with 2024, when an Independent won with 69%.

Sorry to hear that

Looking at RealTimeTrains suggests they have run a replacement train from Chester to Birmingham and that that may turn into your train

The last time I was there it was ridiculously hot and I spent most of my time photographing a snow bunting. Ben Lawers and Ben More were visible though:

Using a combination of that site and Viewfinder Panoramas, something like Mull of Galloway, Merrick, Ben Lawers, Ben Macdui, Morven (Caithness), Ward Hill (Hoy), Ward Hill (Fair Isle), Ronas Hill, Out Stack. You can see England from Ben Macdui (on a very clear day) but not Galloway

What's the furthest into the Highlands that you can see from there?

Congratulations on that epic! Great to follow along as usual

Wikipedia has a whole article devoted to the variations of the Swedish sj sound.

Broxtowe Alliance, breakaway group from Labour and the largest party on the council

We certainly went to the school, and for some reason ITN always chose my school for A level results day. NB we had a different exam board for Chemistry than for my other A levels

That poem!

I might put it a bit more strongly than that. I don’t think it was just the timing of English school holidays that meant we never visited NI around 12 July when I was growing up

Wasn’t he at the non-racist end of the right-wing Brexiteer spectrum back when he was a UKIP MP?

I think all town council areas in Doncaster have four, eg Bawtry