Backpack Full of Stones

Links TLC - "Waterfalls" Alex was four. No Such Thing as a Fish QI researchers' podcast; Merlin's been listening for years No Such Thing As Debreadtion — No Such Thing As A Fish — Overcast The episode Merlin mentioned Ken Burns' Jazz Episode 9 "The Adventure." TLC - "Unpretty" Merlin's favorite TLC song. Dead Drop Spycraft term for passing info without meeting Ken Burns' Baseball Source of the Lincoln "tiredest" quote A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms New Game of Thrones spinoff Why Are Icelandic Horses Not Called Ponies? (Iceland Mag) Pony-sized but Iceland said it's a horse Ship of Theseus (Khan Academy video) The philosophical paradox behind "Thesean Horse" Saint John Coltrane Church (KQED) Yes, there's literally a church for this album John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1965) The album that inspired the church "Is he quare?" Comedy repetition reference Harry Enfield British comedian; "Is he queer?" sketch Paul Whitehouse The other half of the old men in the club I Spy books (Walter Wick Studio) Merlin's analogy for how Claude Code sees things "40, 45 Years" - Stewart Lee The callback king Claude Code (Anthropic) The AI tool Merlin won't shut up about Rik Mayall: Lord of Misrule 2014 BBC tribute documentary; narrated by Simon Callow The Young Ones (IMDb) What you most likely know Rik Mayall from The Young Ones - "Bambi" / University Challenge (YouTube) Fry, Laurie, Thompson vs. the lads Nell (1994) Merlin's first memory of Liam Neeson as a lead Nell (1994) Trailer "Can't abide a canna peas," is a line Merlin feels like he remembers Jodie Foster's Nell saying Scotiabank Saddledome: Building Design Say it soft, and it's almost like praying. Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing Bob and Paul's fishing show Game of Thrones - "Fire and Blood" (Fandom) Season 1 finale; Daenerys and the dragon eggs Lucy Liu on the "Dragon Lady" Stereotype (NextShark) "I could have been wearing a tuxedo and a blond wig" The Slop Hash Merlin's project to get you excited about making something cool. "I never said she stole my money" has 7 different meanings Stress a different word, get a different sentence. The Butterfield Diet Plan (YouTube) "The results have been increbidle" The Night Left Eye Burned Down Andre Rison's Mansion (Investigation Discovery) It started with sneakers in a fiberglass bathtub Memento Mori "Remember you will die" Anterograde Amnesia The condition from Memento — can't form new memories One Hundred Years of Solitude García Márquez's masterpiece Kieran's very good post "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father was discovered and taken by ICE." Hammer A tool so durable it works across time Cottaging: History of the Term (Idiom Origins) How they got John Gielgud, Wilfrid Brambell, and poor Brian Epstein. Brian Epstein (Beatles Bible) Beatles manager; arrested 1957, blackmailed for years, died a month before decriminalization Clarke's Three Laws "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Ducking Stool Chair on a stick for dunking witches and scolds Roget's Thesaurus (Project Gutenberg) Category 1: Existence 12 Facts About Taking of Pelham 123 (Mental Floss) They fictionalized the dead man's switch to foil copycats The 36-Hour Day (Johns Hopkins Press) Read it before someone you love has dementia Some folks I love and admire do come off sounding a little like the same people who loudly hated Little Richard and disco music. Honestly, sometimes it's legit difficult to notice when we've gotten more emotionally invested than we'd realized in seeming right. And that shit is a LOT to decide to carry forever. 🐘