Quote of the day:

My mind works so fast. When I think of something I say it. Lots of times I say it even before I think of it.
—Gracie Allen

John Oliver is on a summer hiatus, but he’s provided this bonus segment in which he talks about Mike Lindell, the online marketplace that is his mesmerizingly bizarre version of Amazon dot com, and why you shouldn’t argue with the wind.

Meanwhile, the summer BBC Proms are well underway. As usual they are providing a wealth of great music played by outstanding world class musicians.

Some of the performances are finding their way onto YouTube and I fully expect they will be taken down in the very near future, so I’ve hesitated to link to any of them. You can easily find them by searching on “BBC Proms 2025” in the YouTube search bar.

This year, as every year, there have been concerts revolving around Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, there’s been a Viennese Waltzes concert, one where the musicians played Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony from memory, and one devoted to American songs.

Here’s the Viennese Waltz concert. Update: The video has been removed and the account is no longer active. Sorry about that, but I expected that would happen.

And here’s a YouTube account that’s devoted just to the BBC Proms concerts. As I said, I don’t expect it to last long, so it may be gone by the time you see this post: https://www.youtube.com/@geddylee503