Before I checked the alt text (and zoomed in a bit) I thought that must be Tim Curry in an outtake from Rocky Horror. Oops. (No disrespect to either, a pair of legends in their different ways)

That 0% switch from Reform to Labour really is the icing on the cowpat.

I have actually read a couple of m/m curling romance novels (albeit set in Scotland) so the opportunity is there.

It is in that one instance. Chris Rea’s mother was Irish, which just adds to the confusion, but his father came from Italy (with the surname)

Chris Rea was from Middlesbrough. Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) from Birmingham; the Minghellas from the Isle of Wight. But the Italo-Scots do seem disproportionately prominent.

The Italian pronunciation of SCIZZA would be… unfortunate in English. They should have gone the other way and called it PISSORS.

I’m so glad it’s not just me thinking that. I try not to anthropomorphise too much with wild animals… but the EXPRESSION on its FACE and that constant hunching posture as it waited and stalked…I’m quite fond of gulls normally but I have been looking askance at the local herrings just in case…

Hippos in the Regent’s Canal would possibly be better from their point of view and would distract you from the snakes frolicking in the branches above you.

Aesculapian snakes were apparently native in Britain before the last ice age pushed them out, so they sort of belong here. A bit.

I was more freaked out by the herring gull that had forsaken its natural diet of chips and ice cream in favour of paying twisted tribute to Tom Lehrer by drowning pigeons in the park. It just looked so sinister, even by gull standards.