Sunday: Hili dialogue, Leon monologue, a rushy farm rush-hour and a load of tweets

November 24, 2019 • 5:47 am

by Matthew Cobb

It’s an overcast morning in Manchester, and I am gearing up for an 8-day strike in defence of wages, job status and pensions which will affect 60 UK Universities from Monday. I am also going through the proofs of my forthcoming book The Idea of the Brain (pre-order it now, folks!) and beginning to suffer from the usual authorial anxieties…

In Poland, Hili has no such problems, although it’s hard to tell if she’s pleased or alarmed (my cats would be terrified):

Hili: They’ve come.
A: Who?
Hili: Our guests.

In Polish:

Hili: Przyjechali.
Ja: Kto?
Hili: Nasi goście.

Leon, meanwhile, is clearly fascinated:

Leon: You can find many interesting things on a construction site.

Down on the farm, the fowl all came out in a real rush this morning, while the peahens get stuck:

As I’m sure you all know, today it is happy birthday to On the Origin of Species. My pal Jordi tweeted this:

It’s a chilly morning on Mars:
Dog-duck action (I’m sure we’ve posted this before):

My colleague Jamie Woodward tweeted this:

Owl magic:

Fabulous jaguarundi:

https://twitter.com/nadinejholmes/status/1170040826711433219?s=11

More sweariness from Paul Bronks, via Heather Hastie:

And more tweets from Heather:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1197876131346747393

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1198026192705794048

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1198238557984501765

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1198330805992509446

Finally, some elegant travellers in south-east London, late last night:

 

11 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue, Leon monologue, a rushy farm rush-hour and a load of tweets”

  1. Gee matthew, again? it seems like you just in the past year had to go out on a job action. I am so sorry to see this have to happen again. Best of luck. Who is impacted by the proposed changes? Arts and science faculty? Engineering, medical, law faculty? Support folks (janitorial, porters, dining hall? Coaches of athletic teams (do universities in the uk have athletic teams?). Are the 60 universities national universities…i worked some joint aeronautical projects for NASA with faculty at glasgow, york, and cranfield back in the 1980’s, but just realized that i know nothing of the structure of your university system.

    1. It’s a national strike, but only those institutions where, locally, over 50% of members voted in the ballot, are legally allowed to be involved. There will be about 60 universities on strike, and it affects not only lecturers but also librarians, part-time staff (many of whom are, as in the US, on precarious contracts) etc. More info here:

      https://ucu.org.uk/article/10453/University-strikes-ON-after-universities-refuse-to-deal-with-pensions-pay-and-working-conditions

      – MC

      1. Thanks matthew. Your reply and the link are very helpful. Quite an impressive list of participants.

  2. [ satire mode : on ]

    Oh really? Well, what is the FULL TITLE of Darwin’s most famous book?

    Checkmate evolution believers.

    [ satire mode : still on maybe ]

  3. Nice, as I’m watching all the cute animal antics, thinking how lovely the playfulness of creatures can be, it’s totally confirmed by the species filmed on the Thameslink.

    1. Yeah ,while on another tube train ,a RNJ of the christian variety was abusing a Jewish family ,caught on film he has been arrested .

    2. Yeah ,while on another tube train ,a RNJ of the christian variety was abusing a Jewish family ,caught on film he has been arrested .

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