A privilege to see the great Scott Wallace at New York’s Explorers Club last night, where he gave a powerful talk on his time reporting the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s and early 1990s. Our paths briefly crossed there. www.gftbooks.com/books_Wallac...

I recently halted a Dalek invasion of East Anglia and the world. You’re welcome.

The Holme Post is at the lowest point in England, in Holme Fen, Cambridgeshire. In 1851 the top of the post was at ground level. Fen drainage has since caused the drying peat soil of the area to shrink and subside, exposing more and more of the metal post, which is embedded in the clay below.

RIP Tony Slattery, seen here in rehearsals for the 1981 Footlights pantomime “The Pied Piper.” A kind, brilliant man and star of the aforementioned “Premises, Premises” show in 1982, gone today, way too soon.

Sometimes it just takes a change of perspective to make the world seem strange and miraculous again, as it surely is. Our day-to-day brains are not geared to reality but to survival.

5. I toured the UK with these gentlemen in a comedy show in the summer of 1982. Richard Vranch was musical director, Neil Mullarkey one of the cast and I was the drummer. It was great to see them again tonight, 42-odd years later, in their fabulous show at London’s Comedy Store! #comedystoreplayers

4. The Spotted Eagle Ray looks remarkably like a person up close. Here’s one making a new friend at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, England a few months ago. Am I anthropomorphizing? Sure.

3. My avatar represents Old Scarlett, the gravedigger who buried two queens at Peterborough Cathedral and was interred there himself after dying aged 98 in 1594. Legend has it that he inspired Shakespeare‘s gravedigger character in “Hamlet.”

Image 2, and the first in an occasional series on Very Interesting Drums: Sir Francis Drake took this snare drum with him when he sailed around the world. Legend has it that, like King Arthur, it will noisily stir to life whenever England is in danger. Here it is on display at the Box in Plymouth.

First image: Trinity Church seen from Wall Street.