sollers

I suppose it's remotely possible that there's someone with a similar name to mine for whom this would be a relevant conference:

The ITISE 2026 (12th International conference on Time Series and Forecasting) seeks to provide a discussion forum for scientists, engineers, educators and students about the latest ideas and realizations in the foundations, theory, models and applications for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research encompassing disciplines of mathematics, econometric, statistics, forecaster, computer science, etc in the field of time series analysis and forecasting.

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I have discovered a new 'offputting phrase that, found in blurb, causes you to put the book down as if radioactive': 'this gargantuan work of supernatural existentialism' - even without the name of the author - Karl Ove Knausgård - who has apparently moved on from interminable autofiction to interminable this.

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A certain Mr JJ, that purports to be an Art Critick, on long history of artistic rivalries (between Bloke Artists, natch):

Shunning competition makes the Turner Prize feel pointless. It may be why there are no more art heroes any more.
Artistic competition goes to the essence of critical discrimination. TS Eliot said someone who liked all poetry would be very dull to talk to about poetry. Double header exhibitions that rake up old rivalries are not shallow, but help us all be critics and understand that loving means choosing. If you come out of Turner and Constable admiring both artists equally, you probably haven’t truly felt either. And if you prefer Constable, it’s pistols at dawn.

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I rather loved this by Lucy Mangan, and will be adopting the term 'frothers' forthwith:

I like to grab a cup of warm cider and settle down with as many gift guides as I can and enjoy the rage they fuel among people who have misunderstood what many might feel was the fairly simple concept of gift guides entirely. I am particularly fond of people who look at a list headed, say, “Stocking stuffers for under £50” and respond by commenting on how £50 is a ridiculous amount of money to be spending on a stocking stuffer. They are closely followed in my pantheon of greats by those who see something like “25 affordable luxuries for loved ones” and can only type “Affordable BY WHOM?!?!” before falling to the ground in a paroxysm of ill-founded self-righteousness. On and on it goes. I love it. Never change, frothers. You are the gift that keeps on giving.

Further to that expose of freebirthers, A concerned NHS midwife responds to an article about the Free Birth Society

Norfolk's first capybara café opening in Toftwood, Dereham

That's right. An area which has had FORM for escaping invasive large semi-aquatic mammals: see this article by a guy who dealt with the coypu menace in the Broads.

Animal rights and protection orgs are already up in arms:
FOUR PAWS strongly opposes the keeping of wild or non-domesticated animals, such as capybaras, in settings where their complex welfare needs cannot be properly met.
Freedom for Animals has united with our colleagues at Born Free Foundation, Animal Aid, OneKind, World Animal Protection, and RSPCA to strongly urge the operators, and the local authority, to halt these plans before they get underway. 
RSPCA criticises new ‘capybara cafes’

Apparently there is a whole thing of cafes where you can embrace cuddly animals in Asia: Cuddling capybaras and ogling otters: the problem with animal cafes in Asia: A boom in places offering petting sessions is linked to a rise in the illegal movement of exotic and endangered species, say experts:

Capybaras breed rapidly, can withstand a wide range of temperatures, and have a flexible diet of grasses and aquatic plants. “There is a high risk for them to be invasive,” Congdon says.

I will cop to have looked rather wistfully at a place in Australia which offered encounters with WOMBATTS, but a) that was in their native land and b) it looked like this was a sanctuary and they were rescue wombies, and thus one would be supporting the mission. (While interacting with ADORABLE WOMBATTS.)

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And because tradition: this is one that I haven't iterated overmuch:

What I read

After Hours at Dooryard Books was really good - set in 1968 in a used bookstore in Greenwich Village - this was so not a Summer of Love - but lots of Unhistoric Acts - also I really liked that what I feared was going to be one of those three-quarter way through Exposure of Dark Thing/Arising of Unexpected Crisis in Relationship actually didn't go angst angst angst wo wo wo.

Slightly Foxed #88: 'Pure Magic': pretty good selection, though rather irked by the guy fanboying over Room at the Top and all he can say about the sexism side of things is that the protag's behaviour to women 'may be less than admirable but he is not a cad'. O RLY. What do you call putting the local rich guy's daughter in the club and then chucking your older woman mistress, who dies horribly in a car accident?

Robert Rodi, Fag Hag (1992) - of its period perhaps. I think there may be works of his I remember more fondly than this one? Don't really recommend.

Dick Francis, Hot Money (1987): this is one in which I was waiting for the narrator to get, as per usual for a DF protag, nastily done over, probably by one of his siblings or in-laws in this convoluted tale of seething envies within the family of a much-married tycoon. He did get blown up but that was not personal and so did his father. No actually woodsheds but there was a glasshouse and various other nooks and crannies to see something nasty in.

On the go

Back to Lanny Budd - O Shepherd, Speak! (#10) (1949) - Lanny as ever finds himself where it's happening in the final stages of WW2 - have got to the aftermath of the war, and thinking about peace. Quite a way to go.

Up next

No idea.