From Lichfield

 That's Samuel Johnson, brooding over the town of his birth, in the fine statue that stands on the market square in Lichfield, between his birthplace – now a museum and (as is only right) a bookshop – and St Mary's, formerly a church and now a library, information centre and 'hub'. The café, built into the nave as a kind of mezzanine, offers quite a view of the East end of the Victorian church (by Fowler of Louth). Those strange halo  things are not UFOs but lights.

Mrs N and I are in Lichfield, staying in the George Hotel, which has a framed quotation from Erasmus Darwin (the city's other most famous son) on the wall of the lounge:

'But thou! whose mind the well-attemper'd ray
Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day;
Whose finer sense each soft vibration owns
With sweet responsive sympathy of tone;'
(at which point it ends abruptly, but it's nice to see it there). We're likely to be spending a good deal of time in Johnson's home town over the coming weeks and  months, as our son and his family have moved (t)here. And we shall be doing the same at some point. Yes, incredibly, Nige will be leaving the suburban demiparadise. Happily Lichfield is one of the very few places I would leave it for...