A lot of brands do use bags containing plastic - which probably isn’t great in terms of you actually ingesting microplastic as you drink, let alone composting - but some do not. The trick is to find the brands that don’t and use them. They fully compost.

Long thought to have been damaged in the Great Fire of 1834 - which is believed to have originated in the furnace room of the hall’s basement - new archaeological evidence, supported by historical records, reveals that sections of the hall’s medieval stone walls not only survived the blaze and a nearby WWII bomb strike, but were restored, re-roofed and continued to be used until the building’s final demolition in 1851.

Hmm. Sounds like WWII started much earlier than I had heard.

I’ve read the books and thoroughly enjoyed them and am now thoroughly enjoying the show. The emphasis of the show is different, certainly, but in this case I am happy with that. After the first episode in which I was all ‘It’s not that way in the book…’ I am taking as it is.

My SO has not read the books and is also thoroughly enjoying it. It is probably her favourite show at the moment.

A good deal of the current Scottish population are descended from the Irish, which goes some way to explaining that side of your comparison, but I am not aware of Finland being particularly cloudy.

I have not consulted any climatic records, but I would have expected it to be less cloudy than the rest of Scandinavia, really, since the rain will have been deposited on the mountain in Norway and Sweden before the air masses reach Finland.

I would imagine that it is linked to the rainward side of the Urals, which I would imagine have more cloud and so would promote a selection for improved Vitamin D production, as with Ireland.

Evidently there are something like 300 medieval castles that have substantial stonework remaining in the UK. Don’t know about Ireland though. There are over twice that number if you include earthworks only - plus all the rest that are earlier.

I have been to nine listed on this map, and at least 20 others that aren’t.

My childhood imaginary friend(s) were a flock of flying bunnies of various colours. It is not often that you get to see them represented.

Yes, definitely. Why you are doing it makes all the difference.

There is - in my experience - a good deal of how you - and the organisation in general - do it too, and that accounts for much of the cultural difference. Charities tend to treat staff (and volunteers - since so many depend on vols) as people rather that resources much more, although there is also a tendency for the cause to outweigh everything, which can lead to staff, particularly, being expected to commit totally around the clock, and sidelined if they don’t. I have only encountered a few organisations that do this to a problematic extent really though.

I did in my late 20s after working in IT. I didn’t know what I wanted and wasn’t planning on non-profit or anything as such, but jumped ship, did a range of random things before spending some time volunteering (at something that was not in any way IT related)- which was the critical thing. That put me in a spot to A) show some commitment and B) get some training as it was offered. A paid post followed in due course after that.

That is a very simplified version, but volunteering was definitely the critical element for me.

Since then, I met plenty of other people who made the jump. Some simply moved with their existing skills to an equivalent role in a charity - and there are plenty that need project management skills - whilst others have taken the same route as me and spent some time volunteering.

Volunteering means you don’t get paid for some time, of course, so you have to either live off savings and/or find a live-in role and/or work part-time or something and you probably need to downsize one way or another, but people find a way and make it work.

Of course once you are in a role with your chosen cause, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be away from being overworked, stressed and given more and more responsibility. It is a trope that working for a charity means that you don’t do it for the money and you work waaay longer than the official hours say.

Certainly my role at the moment, with a large charity, is the most demanding I have ever had and there is basically nothing left at the end of the month for savings: I am just keeping afloat. For all that though, there is no way at all that I would go back to a for-profit role, and I have never looked back for a moment. The culture is totally different and leagues better.

I use Rainy Days for the radar, and - since I’m in the UK - the Met Office weather app, which has a Next Rain widget.

What they found is a mastaba, which were used as tombs - and pretty much for nothing else - for thousands of years in Egypt, in an area that was used for other tombs.

So, this would be like finding an arch shaped stone with a name on and flowers in front in a modern day cemetery. How do you know that it is a grave stone? You don’t, but it would be a pretty good guess, and if you guessed that it was anything else, you’d probably be wrong.

Instead, we’ll never know what silphium is like.

Sister ship of the Titanic. Following WWI, returned to being a cruise ship until scrapped in 1935.

From my point of view, the vast majority of the internet has too many ads, which is why I use an ad blocker. That in turn is why I have no idea how many ads individual sites have: they all have none to me - which leads me to post from here as much as anywhere else.

Novel - Corey’s The Mercy of Gods

Movies - Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Dune, part 2, Mickey 17 (this one particularly since it isn’t part of an existing franchise or a remake or whatever).

TV - Severance season 2, Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, Strange New Worlds season 3 if it drops in 2024.

I think that my criteria would be:

• Is it distinctive at a casual glance at emoji size?
• Is it distinctive on a misty horizon?
• Is it realistic to daub 20 copies of it on to old sheets, cardboard banners and t-shirts in a hurry in a crowded basement somewhere?

If not, then it is not fulfilling the basic requirements of a flag. If it is, then it’s off to a good start and we can start arguing about aesthetics.

No. Perhaps because when I get paid to write about science, I don’t use grammar like that.

If they do, it is probably to avoid grammar like ‘off of’.

Been using QBittorrent for longer than I can remember now. It certainly does everything I have ever wanted from it.

even more advanced than our own.

I don’t know what to say about that.