Improve education for girls worldwide. A very strong link has been established by numerous studies.

Leaving aside points about driving licence numbers being unique or whatever, it would be the silver pentagram that I made back in the '90s and have worn (or occasionally carry in my wallet etc, when the cord breaks) ever since.

• A grass snake seems to have taken up residence under our compost heap. Hopefully it will be a suitable hibernation spot.
• New seasons of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Shrinking are out.
• My SO and I went for a good walk in a nearby woodland nature reserve. The autumn colours are really coming though now.
• I now have some cosy fleece pyjamas. I haven’t owned pyjamas for decades, but can see will that they will revolutionise my weekend mornings. I don’t know why I didn’t get some years ago.

Checking the ones that I usually buy the ingredients are:

• Butter

Or, if I go for salted versions:

• Butter
• Salt

Not quite a scrotum pole, but there is certainly an interpretation of this statue of Cybele where what we are looking at are not multiple breasts, but actually the scrota of her eunuch priesthood.

I think that the closest that I had at school was the library. Even decades later I am still happy when surrounded by books.

Otherwise, somewhere green: walking in woodland or sitting by a stream always improves things.

I’d not encountered Bloody Knuckles before, but we did have the card variant when I was at school - the trick being to get a new pack, flex it a little and push the card so that all the edges are available to strike the knuckles in rapid succession. I was extremely good at it, as i recall, both in inflicting and (particularly) withstanding the pain.

We knew this game as Scabby Queen. Evidently there is an actual card game called that, it seems, with the knuckle skinning merely the end result. We did not bother with the game part (or even know about it) - just the knuckle skinning.

• Kaos - I’ve only seen the first ep so far, but it looks to have promise.
• Le Bureau de Legendes - this French spy series has a slow and meandering start but picks up over a couple of episodes and the initial time with the characters pays off.
• Pine Gap - After the first couple of episodes, I’m struggling to care about the characters - and am caring a LOT about the absurd lack of a Faraday cage around the main building which would have prevented the main plot point in the first place. It is only miniseries, but I doubt that we’ll finish it unless it picks up a lot and gives me a reason to get my disbelief suspended again.
• Slow Horses - the third of the spy tales that we are following at the moment and by far the most fun and engaging. Season 4 is as good as ever, and Oldman’s Lamb is wonderful.
• Carol and the End of the World - a low key, introspective little exploration of self-discovery and where you find value and it’s really quite charming.

I’ve had the same number for 24 years now. I have only ever had a handful of spam calls in total over that time.

I probably get one a month or so on my work number.

Basically all of them.

A quick skim shows me that the only people who have called me this so far this year are:

• Doctor
• Dentist
• Sister
• Wife
• Close friend

I expect that this would be much the same for last year too.

I have no reason not to speak to any of these.

This evening: pizza and a film - Breaking Away (1979)
Tomorrow - gardening, then off to a medieval feast at a local museum
Sunday - probably out for a hike somewhere, then a waterway bat survey in the evening

At the point where you and the AI can see someone straightening their tie in a certain way and you and the AI can exchange a single wordless glance and you both burst out laughing 'cos it was just like that thing that you both saw 6 months ago and found hilarious then - then maybe.

Not before.

A few things off the top of my head:

• I made a particularly tasty shakshuka over the weekend.
• I saw a stoat leading her kits nose to tail, so that they looked like a single, bounding, furry snake as they crossed the track a few days back. I have only seen stoats doing that twice before in my life.
• in Forge of Empires, which I have recently started playing, my defending PvP army successfully defeated a challenger: the first time that has happened, and it left me feeling ridiculously happy.
• Albert Finney and Sean Connery’ interaction in the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express
• My partner’s pleasure at completing a 1940s style knitted top. It has turned out extremely well.

My first computer was a ZX81 - in 1982 - which, with my brother, I built from a kit and was astonished when it actually worked. We eventually added the 16k ram pack too: how could anyone possibly use all that?!

First phone. I think it was a Nokia 5110 or similar in 2000.

Lucas has said that we wanted it to appeal to 12 year olds - and I was.

Star Wars (A New Hope) - Lucas had a particular age of audience in mind. I was that age when it was released, and he hit the target.

Biggest one for me was swapping from setting the alarm as late as possible and then rushing to get out of the house, to setting it an hour earlier and using that to read, do a little qi gong and have a leisurely breakfast.

My main requirement is that it has to be available on my heavily locked down work phone and work laptop as well as my home ones. If it isnt in my face whenever I look at a screen, it isnt going to work. So it ends up being Google tasks.

Yes I would - very much in the same situation.

I think that Jaws is a good reference point here.

I’d say that if you genuinely prefer Benchley’s novel to Spielberg’s film then that is a pretty good indicator that you’re just going to prefer books no matter what.