How to sort out parking on busy roads: this is what our council has done.

RAF A400M ZM416 (c/s NAPER60) being used to teach pilots how to fly at 600 ft. I assume they have the aircon switched on!

Excellent news that Bill Tutte is being commemorated on a VE-80 stamp. What a pity, however, that the Post Office doesn't seem to know that 'codebreak' isn't a verb and that codes and ciphers are different. If only there was a national agency that they could have approached for advice ... errr ...

From the other place.

A peacock butterfly on the blackthorn flowers, enjoying the sun and not thinking about tariffs at all.

I know that this sort of thing - that somebody' conscience was troubling them enough about unpaid tax or whatever that they sent an anonymous or unidentifiable amount to the authorities - used to be relativey common. But was it only in South Africa that it made the Gazette?

Plus ça change …

You probably are thinking of the attached image, a brilliant summary. I'm thinking of something rather more complex. For example, while it be wonderful if every piece of intercept could go direct via teletype to the Sigint Centre, that wasn't how things worked, even during the Second World War.

The lives traitors live(d)! Post-confession Anthony Blunt's drinks bill was £100 a month in 1965 and he claims to have lived for a day on gin: when gin was £1/10/- (£1.50) a bottle.

Though they make occasional outbursts much more interesting.

First we had Javier Milei channelling Bernard Manning: now we have Elon Musk channeling Brian Potter!

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a photo of the seasonal isle at Waitrose.

Help sought!

Can anybody identify the alphabet on this (probable) cipher wheel?

TIA

I don't usually comment on current events on social media: partly a hangover from not being allowed to, partly because I can't think of a worse medium in which to discuss politics.

But this poem by Clive James retweeted on X by Simon Sebag-Montefiore about Asma Asad is worth breaking the rule for.

We were invaded by dragons last night - well, a lesser spotted newt either managed to get 200 yards from the nearest stream or was brought along somewhere to expire in our garage. I've never seen one before.

It looks like the Cheltenham skyline is changing for ever.

This is from Paul Preston's biography of Franco.

I look at a new book on Second World War communications security in a new post on siginthistorian.blogspot.com and thoroughly recommend it.