In my first piece for the Sunday Times (£), I look at the growing pressures on both Russia & Ukraine: - struggling to recruit soldiers - suffering the effects of deep strikes on infrastructure - having failed this summer to achieve a breakthrough 1/ thetimes.com/article/7ccc55…

We have a list of every Anglo-Saxon whose name we know: it's an astonishing achievement & research tool. It took 10 years & is now available again: pase.ac.uk Reeves, moneyers, pilgrims; anchorites, assassins, archpriests; sisters, sons & seventeenth-grandfathers...

Your annual reminder that Ian Richardson's father, John, invented the Jaffa Cake.

Pantheon The largest unreinforced concrete dome roof on earth. Today. Nearly 2000 years after it was built.

Hanley old Town Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, in the French style. Closed since 2020. More than thirty rooms over 47,000 square feet on three floors, and currently on sale for £500,000. You wouldn't get a one bedroom flat for that in Hackney.

Design for a railway station. Charles Rennie Mackintosh. 1892.

Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister is holding weekly meetings of the national security council for the first time in years. I have learned that it meets every week after cabinet for a full hour, chaired by Starmer, having met more sporadically and infrequently when Boris

This from William Dalrymple is really important The BBC and Jewish Chronicle connection is really concerning and even more so in light of recent false reporting and resignations. Although worth noting that the Jewish Chronicle has reportedly had over 30 breaches of the Editors Code

UK steel UK Steel warns of “considerable harm” to British steel industry if HM Treasury does not synchronise EU and UK carbon border taxes (CBAMs) -- but HMT not budging. via @ft ft.com/content/b555a7…

Front page of Today’s FT. So many people are understandably telling Labour this. They really need to listen, in the country’s, and their own interests.

View of Houses in Delft, known as ‘The Little Street’ by Johannes Vermeer c. 1658 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Washing the tiles outside Vlamingstraat 40–42, Delft. The artist’s aunt, Ariaentgen Claes, lived with her children in the house on the right c. 1645-70.

Police and Crime Commissioners should be scrapped a round table for mayors told The Times and The Sunday Times Crime and Justice Commission as Daisy Eastlake reports thetimes.com/uk/crime/artic…

Now that children are back in school, it’s more important than ever to ensure they’re up to date on their immunisations. Protect your kids and those around them—it’s the best way to ensure a safe, healthy school year 🍎 nhs.uk/vaccinations/n…

Bisnow: Mike Ashley's £250M Shopping Centre Spree Leads Retailer Push Into Owning Brick-And-Mortar: “And there is no stopping Frasers. On Friday, Frasers Group acquired the 160K SF St Nicholas Arcade in Lancaster's city centre.” bisnow.com/london/news/re…

In France a law states that 50% of the materials in public buildings need to be timber or natural materials And this is the kind of libraries you get as a result By Atelier Woa in Paris

Can we have this for the new #Cambridge East Station please? Via Janice Morphet

Few English cathedrals can provide the wow! moment that Lichfield does.

Ooh this is interesting. For four years all the pressure in politics has been to adopt a self- defeating and self-harming isolation from the EU. Maybe the Lib Dems are about to try to change the weather

North Somerset Council is exploring whether to join West of England Combined Authority - which it'll discuss tomorrow.

Is that rejoin?