She found that their company revived her, carried her away from the constant presence of last night's terror, little by little, till she could begin to look back on it as something that had happened, not something that was happening, that must always be happening to her.
I remember hearing about an interview with a Michelin starred chef being asked what the secret of truly great cooking is. He said:
"Rule number 1 - add more butter. Rule number 2 - use more salt."
This is a great thread about working in a creative industry
Yeah, I had to go recheck the timeline, but Owen Paterson was just before Partygate, wasn't it? And that was all simmering along with other scandals along the way until the Pincher revelations finished him off.
Yeah, and it's interesting that this is what seems to do for them eventually. Politicians get tired of being sent out to defend their leader's fuck ups over and over again. The Chris Pincher stuff was terrible, but it wasn't the worst thing that Johnson had done, it was just the last straw.
It's interesting to see journalists and politicians pooled together in a kind of digital servant class not-person - for a worrying number of people online they don't seem to exist as actual thinking feeling human beings, just as receptacles for anger and providers of on demand content.
"I am entitled to your immediate and specific reply to my rude series of messages, for I am the main character of the universe."
If you ever get into drag or professional wrestling (or both, why not?) you've got a name ready to go...
Kasamatsu Shiro (Japain, 1898-1991) - Morning Waves [woodblock], 1953, 27 x 41 cm, private collection.
#art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt
Yeah, I think the core problem is that Starmer can't say "obvs he was a dodgy bastard, but we thought that he'd be OUR dodgy bastard". So he's left with the idiot defence ("I didn't know Mandelson might be sketchy, for I am the most gullible man to ever live") which is a lie and not a good look.
13. Extremely enjoyable historical/fantasy swashbuckler, set in and around the Indian ocean. Pirate queen comes out of retirement for one last job, and hijinks ensue.
My photo shows a set of Late Iron Age glass gaming pieces displayed on a sandy surface in a display case at the British Museum. The set is made up of 24 coloured glass domes; six each of white, yellow, blue, and translucent green glass. One of the yellow pieces is out of shot in my photo. Each game piece is decorated with five inset spiral motifs in a contrasting colour. Nearly all pieces are uniform in shape; domed with a slightly pointed apex and a flattened base. Dimensions approximately 2.57 cm diameter and 2.2 cm height. The gaming pieces were recovered from a richly-furnished Late Iron Age cremation burial in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, when it was disturbed during the construction of two gas-pipe trenches during the building of the Panshangar Estate in 1965.
Gorgeous glass gaming pieces from Iron Age Britain! 🤩
This unique set of 24 coloured glass domes with flattened base and spiral decoration may have been used for a game similar to ludo some 2,000 years ago.
British Museum 📷 by me
#Archaeology
12. These Shattered Spires, Cassidy Ellis Salter
Ghoulish gothic fun, magic school YA in the vein of Wednesday. A really gorgeous hardback as well with beautiful character art.
@anniegarthwaite.bsky.social Spotted in our hotel library in Turkey!
If he was in a film, you'd think we was an incredibly lazily written caricature.
Yeah, was fascinating reading Caesar's Conquest of Gaul recently - loads of canny politics, diplomacy, soft power, and divide and rule to go alongside the military might. Even the most powerful empires have to balance hard and soft power.
I never cease to be fascinated by how we've forgotten what the forums taught us about how to run online communities (you need clear rules, designated sub-forums, and strong moderation, or everything goes to shit very quickly).
If you like it, recommend Invisible Cities or Our Ancestors next.
Love this book! Calvino is so much fun, have you read any of his other stuff?
Tonight I'm thinking of the many Hungarians I've met over the years - many of them abroad against their wishes, many of them queer - who haven't stopped fighting, for sixteen years. For most of us, Orbán was an on-and-off nuisance on TV - at best. For them, he was a constant nightmare.
One of the pleasures of growing up pre-Internet was that, much like wandering around in Dark Souls, it was very easy to accidentally wander into an area that was way above your current level. Very interesting (and often enriching) to stumble into books and films and TV that were Not Meant For You.
And as I recall, the Quisling-style collaborator governor was also supposed to be there (but was not at the last minute), so it also had some of the qualities of a targeted assassination (which is also very morally murky, but more up for debate than blowing up a school).
No problem, do you still have the same email address (Gmail account with a number in it)?
Many thanks, hope it sticks the landing!
This cropped up on my Facebook memories - 7 years on from when I first saw it, but still one of my favourite poems.
Hall of fame FT correction
No problem, have pinged it your way.
Is it MANTASY or is it HIMDARK?
DM me your email address and I'll send you the PDF! It was really fun to write and I think it's very fun to read (very much inspired by the books of Dumas and Arturo Perez-Reverte), I was really pretty surprised it didn't find a home. Definitely an easier read than other books I've published.
I'll send you the book if you'd like? I'm enjoying sharing it as an occasional gift, even if it doesn't have a commercial future. (It's a knockabout swashbuckler set in Renaissance Venice, but apparently swashbucklers are out of fashion.)