It was fun listening to Melvyn Bragg trying to get to grips with the ineffable mysteries of bird migration. The facts don't seem to have changed much since I taught the subject, decades ago,¹ although there are now many more of them. And almost all of those facts are clearly enough to make even Lord Bragg's mind boggle, as we heard throughout the show. But I kept waiting for one of the guests to make one key point.

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Michael Chabon is one of a couple of living authors whose words -- any words -- I fall upon with glee. Right now I'm working my way slowly through Manhood for Amateurs. Slowly both because these essays are so good that I don't want them to end and because they do also blend into one another, the most recently finished tending to obscure earlier ones.

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I've moaned publicly and to anyone who'll listen about how much I hate the way Instagram now shows me photos from the people I follow. Hating's not enough, though. You have to do something about it.

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One of the best aspects of subscribing to things is that it doesn't matter if they go dormant. Someone takes a break from feeding their website/newsletter/podcast? No problem. When they return, your subscription springs back to life.¹ So it was a special treat to see a new episode of Anxious Machine pop up in my podcast feed.

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Because I'm a snarky know-it-all, I complained to the nice people at Sugru about their misuse of a plant's scientific name. Well, someone has to maintain standards. And because Suguru is a class act, I got the nicest reply:

Thanks a lot for taking the time to get in touch and point out the g...

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