Not just great solely because it is, literally, the return of the Durutti Column after years of absence, but also a cracking album in itself – comfortably the best Keir Stewart-produced Durutti album, i.e. since Fidelity back in 1996. thedurutticolumn.bandcamp.com/album/renasc...

Renascent, by The Durutti Column

11 track album

thedurutticolumn.bandcamp.com

Magic train! (Half-hourly departures from Charlbury for Wilderness Festival, with the extras running fast through Hanborough. Festival-goers evidently eschew the quiet carriage though)

Almost the best final stage of the Tour since 1989.* Almost. But neutralising it for GC was a mistake, I think - the Seixas/del Toro subplot would have been magnificent. * and yes, I remember watching 1989 on Channel 4! Including shouting at the screen when Phil Liggett momentarily called it wrong…

🗺️ The Minister who signed off the "Greater Oxford" boundary grab was sacked days later. Look at the shape - it's a gerrymander, reaching for villages that have nothing to do with the city (but cutting us out?) I'd rather keep Oxfordshire whole. Please sign & share: www.oxonld.uk/lgr

This is amazing. Would love to do it in Charlbury (and stop the sodding Bull buying everything)

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 2w ago

The townspeople of Watlington are banding together to buy shops on their High Street, so they can “let them at fair rents to tenants who benefit the town” and keep them out of the hands of “landlords who want to maximise their yield”. They are raising £600,000 and have targeted three properties.

I’ve been trying to place the ‘bumper’ music in the Channel 5 Tour ad breaks and finally got it (I realise this places me squarely in a GenX demographic of one) m.youtube.com/watch?v=jbCB...

The Roxy - Episode 2 (June 16, 1987)

YouTube video by Greg Palmer

m.youtube.com

Turns out AI is pretty good at parsing structured(-ish) data from scanned documents – like this 1946 railway timetable. Next challenge is to feed it into the RAPTOR journey-planning algorithm. New Adlestrop Rail Enquiries, anyone?

Google Maps vs cartes.app, édition montagne.

I hate the fact that this is necessary but absolutely love that someone is doing it

The enshittification specialists who bought (already somewhat enshittified) cycling navigation app Komoot and sacked most of the staff.

Not sure today was the ideal day to go out on a research ride to freshen up cycle.travel’s Lon Las Cymru guide, but hey. Amazingly there are some puddles on the Old Coach Road section which are _still_ wet…

CAMRA‘s new beer report decries “faceless corporations”, “glittery packaging skilfully applied by marketeers“, and “passing off industrial beers as ‘craft‘”. It says “knowing where a beer has come from is important”. So why have they used AI from faceless corporations, not a real human illustrator?

And in contrast, look how good Machynlleth’s postcard is!

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · last mo.

Oxfordshire’s entrants for the ‘UK Town of Culture 2028‘ title have submitted postcards for the latest stage in the competition and… let’s just say that if you’re trying to convince judges about your arty little town, maybe lay off the ChatGPT a bit. A short thread:

FIFA, nervous about the potential popularity of the Tour de France highlights on channel 5 at 7PM, consider moving the England game to earlier on Sunday evening. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

World Cup 2026: England v Mexico could move because of storm threat

England's World Cup last-16 tie with Mexico could be moved to earlier on Sunday because of the threat of storms.

bbc.co.uk

This was an entertaining tilemaker bug to track down! An area outside the usual bounds of web Mercator (-85° to 85°) was causing an integer underflow, and hence an out-of-memory situation. #BlameCanada

Cartes@cartes.app · last mo.

Après des heures d'investigation, il semblerait que ce soit ce parc, ajouté il y a 20 jours, qui casse notre mise à jour des tuiles. Eh oui, il est assez gros héhé... et ça pourrait sa proximité avec la frontière du globe qui pète. www.openstreetmap.org/relation/209...

Seek Magic, Memory Tapes. First CD I’ve bought in ages, but it has mysteriously disappeared from streaming, and £5 on eBay was too good to pass up.

absolutely unnecessary stuff having 2FA these days. i do not need ITV to email me a code. i do not care if somebody sees which episodes of Midsomer Murders i've been rewatching this week

"labour is a socially liberal party" factoid actualy just statistical error. average labour cabinet minister is 0% liberal. bisexual roy, who does not live in a cave & wants people to have over 10,000 civil liberties, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

Cover of the Oxford Mail today is, even by their standards, and absolute disgrace

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Plus we also pontificate about local news a bit (for #IndieNewsWeek). If you’re as annoyed about the Oxford Mail’s front page today as we are, make a stand by donating to Asylum Welcome at www.asylum-welcome.org/donate/ or Refugee Resource at www.refugeeresource.org.uk/ways-to-donate ❤️

New walking and cycling ambition just dropped: someone has crunched river basins and elevation data to identify a European Continental Divide (and several branches, including one through Britain) continental-divide.eu/map/map.html

This is a stretch Citroen Ami with a face transplant from a Class 365

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 2mo ago

apparently the Mexican government has backed a new super cheap EV van, 100 percent made in Mexico, that looks sick as hell www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I wholeheartedly endorse this missive from our vicar who is scheming to despatch our church photocopier to the Other Place (hell, that is. Not a small Stratford theatre. Or Cambridge) www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Notebook: Fergus Butler-Gallie

Fergus Butler-Gallie on an unexpected ‘holiday’ in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

churchtimes.co.uk

Urban “quiet routes” are… literally LTNs? Which your party continually equivocates about? oxfordlabour.org.uk/labour-backs...

Cllr Brad Baines 🌹🐝@bradtbaines.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Fantastic to see the first ‘cycle street’ being introduced in Cambridge. Disappointing that Oxfordshire County Council is only interested in rural routes for its new ‘Quiet Routes’. Barracks Lane and Meadow Lane would be prime candidates for safety improvements.

we see you www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why? | Jonathan Liew

Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemption, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew

theguardian.com

First new Durutti Column music since 2010! (And… Vini is rapping?!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd3b...

Liars

YouTube video by The Durutti Column - Topic

youtube.com

🎉 One million routes! The 1,000,000th route was saved on cycle.travel today – this lovely journey along the River Loire. Today also saw May 2026 tick over to be the busiest month on the site yet (4 days still to go!). Fittingly it was on this exact same stretch I snapped this road sign in 2019… 🚴‍♀️🚴🚴‍♂️

The guy who writes _the_ most unremittingly bleak, miserable books says “optimism is a moral duty”? Dude www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Ian McEwan says pessimism ‘a bigger problem than climate change’

Speaking at Hay festival as UK breaks May heat record, author says optimism is a ‘moral duty’

theguardian.com

With respect to those who say the major problem in the UK is growth / cost of living, I'm sorry but I think the way in which everyday life seems at the mercy of often completely unaccountable organisations is worse. And politicians talking in the abstract rather than lived experience.

Yes!!! Fawler to Ashford Mill (aka Evenlode Lane) please. This could make the National Cycle Network better beyond recognition.

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 3mo ago

‘Quiet Lanes’ – rural roads that are closed to through motor traffic – are to be trialled across Oxfordshire. The County Council is looking for 10 pilot locations, to be suggested by parish councils, where an alternative route already exists for cars.

THIS is the sort of English culture I want to protect. Ancient Junketing and quarter-century beefs (beeves?) about the difference between fools and clowns.

Oxford Clarion@oxfordclarion.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The event is organised by SPAJERS, the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Junketing. Teams of at least two must arrive by 5pm at the Morris Clown pub. The Morris Clown was so named in 1975, provoking a 25-year boycott by the three local morris sides because they have fools, not clowns.