Toby Hall
@tobyhallwriter.bsky.social
Writer looking for a job and an agent. Likes Doctor Who, reading, birds, steampunk, folklore + lots of other stuff. Eclectic music taste. CV in pinned post. Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TobyAJHall
The UK is a very normal and well-functioning state where if you have enough money you can destroy the rights of minorities by throwing endless lawsuits at the government until they do what you want
And now we know where 'a gaggle of geese' comes from!
Well, happy 10th birthday to this headline...
Odd This Day@oddthisday.bsky.social · last yr.Roses are red Rainbows come from diffraction
When a group of ducks swims together, they're called a 'paddling'! Now that is cute!
Well, seeing as @themerl.bsky.social has inexplicably decided to follow me back, I feel it’s appropriate for me to employ the sacred words LOOK AT THIS ABSOLUTE UNIT
MOONRAKER (1979) Evil villain Hugo Drax's secretary, Corinne Dufour, has her employment terminated by Drax's HR department (his Dobermans). One of the more upsetting death scenes in a Bond film, and that's saying something. But at least it's beautifully lit - the forest scenes are gorgeous!
At Invermark, a peregrine was found illegally shot on land the estate owns, but the estate says it doesn't manage that land and is considering an appeal.
Two Scottish estates, Drimmie and Invermark, have lost their licences to kill common birds until 2029, after birds of prey were illegally killed on their land. At Drimmie, a gamekeeper was convicted of bludgeoning a rare goshawk to death after trapping her in a crow cage trap.
GUEST OF HONOUR: Peter Purves On Saturday, 15th August 2026, fans of classic Doctor Who will gather at Phoenix Cinema and Art Centre, Leicester, to watch the recently recovered episodes of “The Daleks’ Master Plan”.
Meanwhile, London is fast being seen as Europe’s data centre hub. Sadiq Khan's draft London Plan gives data centres a special exemption from rules designed to stop excessive green belt development. Read our latest article protectthewild.substack.com/p/labours-ba...
Labour's backing of AI datacentres is a threat to UK wildlife
The Labour government is aggressively backing the expansion of hundreds of habitat destroying AI datacentres. Protect the Wild takes a look at how this will impact British wildlife.
protectthewild.substack.com
Labour’s Planning and Infrastructure Act has bulldozed many checks and balances on corporate developments. AI projects are being classified as ‘Critical National Infrastructure’. Labour has created AI Growth Zones, where corporate developers are being promised laxer planning processes.
If animals judged what we did to them, the fox and the pheasant would not understand why they are killed for fun.
Ask the Scottish government to outlaw the Guga hunt:https://protectthewild.org.uk/outlaw-the-guga-hunt/
Outlaw the Guga hunt - Letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs - Protect the Wild
‼️ PLEASE READ ‼️ Please remember to include your name at the bottom of the letter. If you're having trouble using our email tool (for example if it’s not loading properly or you get an error…
protectthewild.org.uk
The image shows a Gannet chick about to be beaten to death during the Guga hunt in Scotland. See how you can help end this despicable practice once and for all in the comments.
Also today, it’s the 124th anniversary of a jaunt around the gardens of Versailles by two Respectable English Ladies, who either experienced a joint hallucination, or travelled through time and saw Marie Antoinette
Odd this day
August 10 — 122nd anniversary of a jaunt around the gardens of Versailles by two Respectable English Ladies, who either experienced a…
medium.com
A couple of people have asked this. Appalling dereliction of duty not to have included it in the first place, but: “the millions of gallons of water that had filled the canal were all draining into the nearby River Idle” (see first link in thread)
Jeremy Benson@jembenson.bsky.social · last yr.I can’t be the only person who finds myself wondering where all that water actually went…
The canal has other stories to tell (the 1¾ mile Norwood Tunnel was the longest canal tunnel in the country when it opened on 9 May 1775; tens of thousands of tons of stone were transported down it for the Palace of Westminster in the 1840s), but this one’s still the best
Another quite fun detail is that the man who posed for that photo the following day was not Kevin Bowskill, Mick Tweed or Jack Rothwell. It’s one Bill Thorpe, who also worked for British Waterways, but only arrived on 10th, and agreed to pose for the photo for reasons now lost
According to the Canal and River Trust, which replaced British Waterways, BW “tried to put a positive spin on events” by issuing a statement saying: “For years there has been a history of leaks on this section of canal. Now we know where the water has been going”
In the words of @timharford.ft.com: “Whatever records there may have been had been destroyed in the Blitz. The moral of the story: institutional memory is valuable, and if an organisation starts forgetting important matters (such as the existence of the plug) bad things happen”
timharford.com
If you’re wondering, as I was, why there would be an actual plughole in a real canal – rather than one in a cartoon – there is an answer. When the canal was built, there was no such thing as a dredger, and “excess silt had to be dug out by hand”, and the canal had to be emptied for that
Some facts were indisputable, though. Firstly, millions of gallons of water went down a plughole which had been there since the canal was opened in the 1770s. Secondly, quite a number of disgruntled holidaymakers were now grounded – including a Danish family, apparently. And the dredger.
collections.canalrivertrust.org.uk
It may have been three anglers who raised the alarm, and given that they have names – Howard Poucher, Graham Boon and Pete Moxon – maybe it’s true. Another telling says it wasn’t until the evening that “local police contacted Stuart Robinson, the British Waterways section inspector”
What happened next, you may not be surprised to hear, comes in different versions. It all depends who’s telling it... The person who spotted that there might be a problem may have been a member of Her Majesty’s Constabulary
Said large iron chain was attached to said dredger, “and, with one sharp tug, the obstruction was freed. The workmen hauled in the chain, along with a large block of wood that was attached to the end of it, and knocked off for a tea-break”
The Day They Pulled The Plug - Issuu
Rod Auton, Publicity Officer for Chesterfield Canal Trust tells us about the day the Chesterfield Canal went down the plug...
issuu.com
They had already been dredging as part of the job, dragging out “mud and rusting bicycles, prams and refrigerators”, so Jack, the foreman, told Kevin to go and get the dredger... Yes, you’ve probably guessed where this is heading, haven’t you?
They needed to instal shutter boards (which hold poured concrete in place until it’s set), but couldn’t, because there was a dirty big iron chain at the bottom of the canal, right in the way. They attached it to “a vehicle”, apparently (a lorry on the canal bank, I would guess) and pulled. No joy