2026-08-10 How to staycation better

T is not the first time I stay in Town during summer. We’ll travel around for a bit, but not go far as there’s no point. Staycations are good for people who like being where they are, vacations away (or abroad) tend to be for people who escape the job, the home, the routine, the culture, and maybe the local weather.

Thankfully for Rianne’s birthday the weather will be almost perfect. Sunny, not too hot, and exactly one week before Bank Holiday.

oday a squirrel was walking along the fence here (on top of it). It wasn’t the first time, but it’s always a nice sight. Someone near us has begun feeding the birds, so there was a flock of about 200 birds flying there and their population seems to be growing despite weather and climate hardships.

It’s always good to see other people “chipping in” and feeding the wildlife.

Tomorrow football resumes here. First match in nearly 3 month. The trees are still green and owing to recent rainfall the grass is visibly regaining some life.

Maybe tomorrow I can finally write something positive about football. The last game was awful. Didn’t want to even watch it…

‘ve just come back from the local Asda, where tomatoes were on offer – a very good offer. So I bought over a hundred of them. Rianne’s birthday is on Monday, so this weekend we’ll make one of her favourites, shakshouka. It does take a lot of tomatoes to make one very large casserole of it. The taste is rich.

have learned, over time, after 20+ years of investigative journalism that when people risk their lives (or livelihood) to bring out an important story or critical information you must all along be willing to sacrifice your own life (or livelihood) to protect: 1) the source/s and 2) the information the source/s risked a lot to bring out to light.

In just over two months from now Techrights turns 20 and I believe I kept my committent and stuck to my principles as explained above. It’s not always the easiest thing to do. It is, however, the moral thing to do and the right choice.

t was 54 years ago in Greater Manchester (Stockport, Salford etc.) that 10cc was formed, one among so many great bands that came into life in this music-rich place. It has a great story to it and good lyrical as well as musical legacy.

I only recently discovered and explored their “lesser famous” work.

The band didn’t last long. Social issues and ego got in the way, as is so often the case with bands and groups.

T was almost 14 years ago that I created this gallery (using Gallery, the software) for us to upload our photos after the main page mostly contained this dreary long list of photos to be shared. Sharing lots of photos by E-mail is just poor netiquette, E-mail is not a file-sharing protocol.

One point to make was, we “don’t need no stinkin’ Facebook” (or similar). It’ll soon clock over 8 million views.

Yes, on average it’s less than a million a year, but we don’t update that gallery much anymore (got better things to do).

think we now have 3 flocks of birds we can regularly feed and easily find. They almost chase us, even before any clapping (to get their attention).

Today I opened a new jar for Bottle’s Friend, the biggest of the birds. I enjoy seeing him eat. This mix is more premium than the typical premium, there are some very expensive seeds in it.

It is kind of sad that, at least the way it seems to us, many young people and kids (young adults sometimes still act like kids) waste their live away at skinnerboxes and “apps”. They could derive so much more joy from birding. And these are living things like us, with emotions, sometimes hunger, sometimes fear.

If we teach people – preferably when they’re still young and gradually form leanings – to be kind to animals they will also learn to be kinder to other human beings. Societies thrive in empathy and collaboration.

At the park, Rianne and I sometimes teach very young kids to feed the birds instead of chasing them. We say, “they are like friends…”