WTF-Beta

A tiny biting fly
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_midge

It is. Outside of towns it's often rugged, remote, windy wet and rainy much of the year and with midges.
But on a sunny blue sky day in the highlands with scudding cotton wool clouds on the mountains and their reflection on a loch, there's a wild beauty that touches your heart.
Ireland has a similar feel.

Crisp and fresh sunny spring day here. That's the transporter bridge in Middleborough btw

Lots of birds to see, rarer birds included Goldeneye, white fronted geese, water pipit.

Also a pair of stonechat, lovely birds...female

male was shy

The Tehran Times is probably the least trustworthy, along with many internet photos and videos of dramatic bombings on middle Eastern countries and your airbase. Disinformation is rife.

Watch
BBC: Verify.
Or
France24 Truth or Fake:
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20260302-disinformation-exaggerates-iran-s-military-successes-against-the-u-s-and-israel

It's that price because of the location.
Place it near a railway link ten miles out of London and you can add 3 million to the price.

Al jazeera propaganda, broadcast from Quatar which supports Iran and the spread of their 'clerical Islam'.
Makes me laugh at the crap they preach, then annoys how certain he is in his lies.

Trust BBC and France 24.
Not infallible but they double check stories/ai so are rarely first with news, and will correct themselves when needed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0023hc2/face-the-music

A delightful, timeless classical music quiz hosted by notable pianist Joseph Cooper throughout the 1970s. He poses puzzles to three personalities of the day.
Actually one of a very few programmes my father would watch. Entertaining, witty, with a star guest who I usually have never heard of.

Recommended watching!

Join you in ridding the world of a regime (& its proxies) that massacres its own people, that actively spreads terror and murder worldwide, that builds a vast arsenal to protect its nuclear ambitions, and smiles and lies at the UN while doing all this evil.

No one's declared war, not Iran nor Hezbollah, yet they've attacked our people on our land for decades, and most recently our RAF. So we're finally, just responding, from the moral high ground.

I have a neice living & working in Dubai. Just wondering if she'll leave at the first opportunity.

It's not like the US has been the only target for these fanatical terrorist clerics of Iran.

https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2020/sep/16/timeline-iran-assassinations-and-plot

For us in the UK, from a House of Commons report:
"In October 2025, the Director General of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, reported that security agencies have tracked “more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots” in the previous year. He has issued similar reports in earlier years.

Those targeted by Iran in the UK include dissidents, journalists, regime opponents, Israelis, Jews, and sectors including government, travel and universities. BBC Persian and the UK-based news agency Iran International are among those who have long reported Iranian state threats. In addition to its state agencies, including the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, Iran has used criminal groups to conduct operations in the UK and elsewhere. "

I will add that the RAF base on Cyprus has been attacked.
And the UK is helping, through Diego Garcia, and two airfields in England.

I have to ask those who wish to withdraw within your borders and do little or nothing to affect the external world, what would be your Pearl Harbour moment?

China taking over Taiwan? Or China taking over Mexico?
Russia taking over Ukraine. Or taking over Greenland?

Well the Iranian ambassador to the UN brought a wry grin when he said the US and Israel bombs had killed a hundred people of his people, forgetting that he and his mates had killed 30,000 in the last month.

Personally if I see a bloke with a big stick beating up a woman saying you must stay at home and wear a niqab, beating on a man saying his homosexuality is a sin & mental disease; and I have a gun, then I'll say stop. When man with stick continues, argues, threatening to kill me, I'll use my gun to shoot him in the leg. He continues despite argument and warnings then I'll shoot his other leg. He continues, I'll aim higher.

I don't care what nationality any of them are.
We live on one tiny planet and ought to help.
But it is our nature to be self-serving, tribal, nationalistic.

Whether you like or dislike Trump, this dreadful Iranian clerical regime needs to be wiped from the earth.
Long overdue, I wish the USA every success in their war against the Iranian terrorist regime. You can't negotiate with these people, be it Hamas, Hezbollah, or Khamenei himself

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/06/19/iranian-and-iranian-backed-attacks-against-americans-1979-present/

Here's a bit of fun for you in the style of the TV show, Antiques Roadshow:

Good better best.
Three paintings, in any order...
an acrylic and two watercolours, approximately in sterling, one is worth about 400, one is about 800, one is 1200.
But which is which?

An eagle in the garden. So jealous!

Ok, currently serving a prison sentence...

Ironic that the only person jailed for the abuse of so many young women by so many old men is... a woman. The brothel madam as it were.

I know some of you in the North and East of the US are enduring snowy storms so here's something colourful to look forward to.

These in the garden pale in comparison to the local councils planting hundreds together in roadside beds.