Safe journeys home, Commander Hadfield and crewmates.

(Jen reckons they’ve all been difficult albums.)

Incidentally, tomorrow also sees the start of a new TV cop show, starring Agent Scully from out of The X Files, entitled The Fall. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide.

Guardian: Queen’s speech to feature new curbs on migrants from EU

Apparently, there will be special dispensation for immigrants of German and Greek extract.

via Open Culture

Guardian: Edinburgh’s female panda artificially inseminated

Thanks to the Guardian for pointing out that it was the female.

BBC: ‘Small blogs to be exempt’ under press regulation plans.
Blogs with a turnover of less than £2m and those with fewer than 10 employees will not be subject to new press regulation, the government says.

Loyal readers will be relieved to hear that Gruts is just about safe. So the irresponsible frivolity will continue unchecked. It’s all part of the grand masterplan, you see. I have it on good authority that Murdoch is cacking himself.

… I thought the Lady wasn’t for burning!

Surely the most Tennissy Williamses.

(I’m here all week, folks.)

A helmet visor reflecting a reddish-orange computer display in Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic, Alien.

A helmet visor reflecting a reddish-orange computer display in last Saturday’s Doctor Who episode, Cold War. (I’m not sure why the letters aren’t the wrong way round.)

Did you watch Doctor Who this Saturday? It was OK, as far as Alien/Das Boot crossovers go. What was not to like? A scary monster running amok, foreign submariners shouting “ALAAAARM!”, a sonic screwdriver, and a cute new sidekick standing around being wet. Certainly a hell of a lot better that the previous week’s frankly shite episode.

Particularly effective for me was the sound editing. I loved the way you could hear the alien scrattling around in the ventilation ducts throughout the show—even over the dialogue, when the human characters were trying to explain what the hell was going on. Nice touch, that, I thought.

Imagine my and Jen’s surprise, therefore, when the scrattling sound continued even after our heroes had seen off the alien. It was at this point that we realised we had something scrattling around in our living room ceiling. Bats, Jen reckoned. Could have been rodents, though.

Perfect timing. Very atmospheric. And no licence fee to pay! In yer face, BBC!

(And, no, scrattling isn’t a word.)

Does anyone else think the "Oh, wait, . . . " meme is becoming too common? If you don't know what I'm on about, I guess I'm wrong.

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) April 11, 2013

@richarddawkins Meme, meme, meme, is that all you ever think about? (And no, I, for one, haven't a clue what you're talking about.)

— Friends of Darwin (@friendsofdarwin) April 11, 2013

@richarddawkins Me neither. I think your nice analogy has got rather out of hand. (Oh, that's right, that's what memes are supposed to do!)

— Friends of Darwin (@friendsofdarwin) April 11, 2013

Manchester from the International Space Station last night.

Liverpool and the Wirral (you can see my Dad’s house from here).

Some place down south.

Is it any bloody wonder we can only see a handful of stars these days?

[All photos by Commander Chris Hadfield]

Postscript, 20:23: I just showed my Dad the middle photo, and, when we zoomed in, we really could see his house!

A woman with two bottles on her head

BBC: Ikea pulls elk lasagne found to contain pork
Ikea has confirmed it has withdrawn nearly 18,000 of its elk meat lasagnes from sale in Europe after they were found to contain pork.

This will have been a cost-cutting exercise. Pork is relatively cheap, you see, whereas elk is deer.

A: Why, it’s Angular Merkel, of course!

(I’m here all week, folks.)

Irish Mick and a half-finished kayak recently

Irish Mick’s kayak

Pretty nifty, I have to say. But I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do with it.

Lots more photos of the kayak build here.

Independent: If you want to get ahead, be a night owl

Hebden Bridge this morning.

The joke is starting to wear a bit thin now.

More photos »

Murdoch must be getting desperate: he’s nicking my editorials now.