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martinp13.bsky.social
MartinP
@martinp13.bsky.social
720 followers 190 following 2 posts
United Kingdom
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Reposted by MartinP
brianbilston.bsky.social
Happy World Pasta Day to all those who celebrate.
Remembrance of Things Pasta She blew her fusilli, my pretty penne, when she found me watching daytime tagliatelle.   Je ne spaghetti rien, I responded in song, but she did not linguini for long,   just walked out without further retort: a hard lesson to be tortellini, orzo I thought.   And so here I am, on my macaroni, and now my days feel cannelloni. Brian Bilston
October 25, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by MartinP
birmingham81.bsky.social
Here's another clip to celebrate Cliff's 85th birthday. This one features him walking around Birmingham in his 1973 film Take Me High. Look out for brutalist landmarks like the Central Library (RIP), Alpha Tower and New Street Signal Box
youtu.be/yfvsVcKlLQs?...
Cliff Richard - Winning - Take Me High - 1973 - 4K - Stereo Retro Remix 2005 Remaster
YouTube video by Cliff, The Shadows | And Other Great Music
youtu.be
October 14, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by MartinP
gleanniucha.bsky.social
So Brummies aren’t left out.

Some great footage of #Birmingham 50 years ago.

Six days a week Fred Davis travels the eerily empty streets to run his business in the Vegetable Market.

This edition of Look Stranger was originally broadcast on BBC2, 28th November 1976.

youtu.be/r257_UANnOA?...
1976: A Morning With the Fruit and Veg Men | Look Stranger | World of Work | BBC Archive
YouTube video by BBC Archive
youtu.be
October 12, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by MartinP
luckytran.com
🎵 They did the Monster Slash 😭 @ellecordova.bsky.social
October 8, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by MartinP
pastpostcard.bsky.social
We are here in Birmingham today. Can't say I like the place.
October 7, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Reposted by MartinP
trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social
30 years since this happened (28 since I wrote about it). I still recall that wonderful tree and the generosity of my patient in her final illness. www.bmj.com/content/315/...
Article 'The conker tree'. BMJ November 1997.
September 22, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Reposted by MartinP
buziashvili.bsky.social
True Bond. Pure class.
September 21, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Reposted by MartinP
localnotail.bsky.social
6 minute timeline cleanser #Queen
September 10, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by MartinP
brianbilston.bsky.social
Here’s a short poem called ‘On Falling for a Meteorologist’.
On Falling For a Meteorologist I write you poems and send you flowers you give me hailstones and scattered s h o w e r s Brian Bilston
September 4, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Reposted by MartinP
bioniclaura.bsky.social
Crafty friends The Divine Comedy have the most wonderful new song Invisible Thread. It’s lovely but also I’m in bits now. youtu.be/5VXSQQ5YDIU?...
The Divine Comedy - Invisible Thread
YouTube video by The Divine Comedy (Official)
youtu.be
September 2, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by MartinP
davidallengreen.bsky.social
Birmingham New Street to London Euston

Birmingham Moor Street to London Marylebone

These two train journeys are about the very worst and very best our transport network has to offer.

The latter train journey is one of the pleasant in the land.

The former train journey is horrific.
August 30, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by MartinP
brianbilston.bsky.social
Today’s poem is called ‘How Much I Dislike the Daily Mail’.
How Much I Dislike the Daily Mail    I would rather  eat Quavers that are six weeks stale,  blow dry the man bun of Gareth Bale,  listen to the songs of Jimmy Nail,  than read one page of the Daily Mail.    If I was bored  in a waiting room in Perivale,  on a twelve-hour trip on Network Rail,  halfway through a circumnavigational sail,  I would not read the Daily Mail.    I would happily read  the autobiography of Dan Quayle,  1001 Things You Can Do With Kale,  selected scripts from Emmerdale, if it meant I didn’t have to read the Daily Mail.    Far better to  stand outside in a storm of hail,  scratch a blackboard with a fingernail,  be swallowed by a humpback whale,  than have to read the Daily Mail.    If I was blind   and it was the only thing in Braille,  I still would not read the Daily Mail.    Brian Bilston 
August 20, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by MartinP
brianbilston.bsky.social
The mathematician John Venn was born on this day in 1834. To commemorate the occasion, here’s a poem in the form of a Venn diagram.
Poem title: At the Intersection The poem is divided into two overlapping circles. The left-hand circle is titled ‘me’ and the text reads: the day we went out to have an ice-cream, we said nothing just let our silence melt in the air as we walked across the common our love never tiring at all The right-hand circle is titled ‘you’ and the text reads: we should have talked it over but nothing ever seems to get in your fat head. You are so common that I wish we’d never met at all and I’d married Tim instead In the intersection of the poem (where the two circles overlap), the text reads: we have nothing in common at all
August 4, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Reposted by MartinP
georgetakei.bsky.social
Remember what Scotland thinks of Trump. Janey Godley got into some “good trouble” back in the day with a sign that said it all.
July 26, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by MartinP
brianbilston.bsky.social
Happy Spoonerism Day to all those who belly crate.
The Bad Salad of William Archibald Spooner   Why do I always watch my birds? I know that statement sounds absurd but today I reached an all-lime toe when I received a blushing crow.   It’s wetting gorse – and here’s the crunch: my conversation packs a lunch. I’m not sure when all this began but I think I need a plaster man   to help me when my stouth gets muck. I should sit, perhaps, and bead a rook, fight a liar, or flick some powers. No, I think I’ll go and shake a tower. Brian Bilston
July 22, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by MartinP
davidallengreen.bsky.social
From Wikipedia, this quite wonderful pre-war poster.

"See Birmingham's charming suburbs by 'bus."

(Love the apostrophe before "bus".)
July 15, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by MartinP
davidallengreen.bsky.social
The Asphalt Path

A couple, through no fault of their own, are thrown off Birmingham’s No 11 Outer Circle bus and resolve to complete the circuit by foot.

In doing so they have the spiritual awakening of spending half the journey walking towards Solihull, and the other half walking away.
July 14, 2025 at 6:00 AM
Reposted by MartinP
brianbilston.bsky.social
And now for today’s climate forecast …
Today’s Climate Forecast    And onto today’s climate forecast,  where we can expect to see a prolonged spell of inaction, interspersed with patches of hazy promises across many areas.    Over Westminster and other centres of government, a build-up of hot air will cause inactivity to soar to record levels over the coming days, in spite of the high pressure.   Elsewhere, a front of chronic misinformation  will sweep in from the east,    bringing with it a thick band of climate change deniers and the chance of scattered falsehoods,   while powerful gusts of idiocy and ignorance look set to blow across social media. Outbreaks of ‘We just got on with it in 1976’ and ‘It’s called the British summer, mate’ are likely.   In summary: unsettling.   Brian Bilston
July 10, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by MartinP
garius.bsky.social
Gonna take this opportunity to bust a bit of a myth about the mobile phone network during 7/7.

The wider London phone network never went down. The Security Services, TfL and the Met Police all wanted it up.

But it DID go down briefly in the Square Mile. Due to a C&C issue nobody had spotted. /1
navalairhistory.com Matthew Willis (Naval Air History) @navalairhistory.com · Jul 7
Wasn’t that partly because they shut it down because there was a possibility it was being used to remotely detonate bombs?
July 7, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Reposted by MartinP
garius.bsky.social
One other 7/7 thread today. Because I think how the bus network got running again is a real testament to some serious heroes that day:

The bus drivers and staff who got that network running again and got London home that night.

And TfL/the Mayor disobeyed the Security Services to make it happen /1
July 7, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by MartinP
brianbilston.bsky.social
Here’s another poem from ‘You Took the Last Bus Home’, and one of my more enigmatic offerings: it’s called ‘Frisbee’.
Frisbee Frisbee whizzing through the air, above our heads, over the sand, into the water, onto the waves, out to sea. You cried a lot that day. Frisbee was a lovely dog. Brian Bilston
June 12, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by MartinP
courtstats.co.uk
📈Today, 5 June 2025, 97 out of the 516 Crown courtrooms in England & Wales will not be sitting.
That's 19% of them.
#courtstats #CS05062025 courtstats.co.uk
June 5, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by MartinP
courtstats.co.uk
📈Today, 27 May 2025, 99 out of the 516 Crown courtrooms in England & Wales will not be sitting.
That's 19% of them.
#courtstats #CS27052025 courtstats.co.uk
May 27, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by MartinP
courtstats.co.uk
📈Today, 22 May 2025, 78 out of the 516 Crown courtrooms in England & Wales will not be sitting.
That's 15% of them.
#courtstats #CS22052025 courtstats.co.uk
May 22, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by MartinP
courtstats.co.uk
📈Today, 16 May 2025, 88 out of the 516 Crown courtrooms in England & Wales will not be sitting.
That's 17% of them.
#courtstats #CS16052025 courtstats.co.uk
May 16, 2025 at 7:00 AM