Social realism

This is exactly what Scotland is like (30 seconds):

Mind the fumes

Photographing Brunel's legacy with an 1850s-style camera (3-minute slideshow).

Jenny lives with Spink and Taylor

(…as in "I'm living with cancer")

Politicians have a new punchbag.

Pitch perfect

Victoria Wood does Brief Encounter (4 minutes):

Five a day

Not a piece of health advice, but the current death rate of British pubs. Fight back with the Axe the Beer Tax campaign.

Name that pup

This diminutive Eighties gel-muffin is a famous fellow these days. But who is he? Answer (if needed) next week.

Completely the same

Announcing the Monty Python YouTube channel (2½ minutes):

Disgraceful

Elitist Obama talks in proper sentences.

He that plays Yorick

A Polish concert pianist achieves his dream.

Uncalled for

Tom Mabe's bravura response to a cold-calling salesman (3½ minutes):

The man who saved a palace

Forty years of hard graft - free of charge for the last twenty.

Hamper of tortures

When Hradyesh Namdeo bought a Royal Enfield Bullet motorbike, his troubles began.

Enjoy Kevin Bacon

…in the privacy of your own home - if you dare (2 minutes):



Hat tip: A Welsh View

Let patriarchal capitalism die

Penny Red glimpses Ginger Spice on the acute anorexia wing.

Renaissance Prince

Bruce Anderson salutes Prince Charles, "much the most important British public intellectual of the present day."

Trust your spellchecker?

More fool you.

One o' the Foightin' O'Bamas

Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys raise a glass to the President-elect's Irish roots (3½ minutes):

What's not to like?

Five minutes from Gabriel Pascal's 1945 version of Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra: Pothinus (Francis L Sullivan) warns Caesar (Claude Rains) against Cleopatra (Vivien Leigh) who promptly sends Ftatateeta (Flora Robson) to kill him:

C S Lewis was my supervisor

Alastair Fowler's detailed account of an enriching experience.

Handy resource

HasTheLargeHadronColliderDestroyedTheWorldYet.com.

(Hat tip: Screw You Hippy)

How to frame the Home Secretary

Campaigners against ID cards obtain Jacqui Smith's fingerprints.

High wire act

Stewart Lee, doing stand-up in Glasgow, has fun with the concept of Scottish national identity (2 parts, 12 minutes in all):

Best, worst and in between

A league table of US Presidents.

Never kill an enemy, but…

…always take very good care of Him or Her. Remember! you need them for target practice.

The artist Arabella Crum-Ewing - a dear friend for twenty years - has a new website.

O tempora!

Councils ban Latin.

Boxing's greatest loser

All hail Peter Buckley, who came off worse in 256 fights.

Dial-a-philosopher

Same-day service within the M25.

Make 'em wait

Marilyn Monroe serenades President Kennedy on his birthday in 1962 (4 minutes):

Very much a Londoner

Watercolourist Phyllis Dimond, who has died aged 96, is new to me, but if this painting is typical I'd like to see more. The only other image I can find online is a print on eBay, though the V&A has a page about the Recording Britain scheme of which she was part.

Mediterranean seed-spreaders

Might you have Phoenician DNA?

One kicks ass

With the US in turmoil, Her Majesty intervenes.