Here’s a heartwarming story of how a dugong family inspired a community to protect an important bay in Indonesia.

Part of a lesser featured work of the Pearl Manuscript (British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x/2) in translation here. Of a more religious nature than Pearl and Gawain, Cleanness still contains the poet’s deep personality, wonderful metre and rich NW Midlands dialect. The whole codex is wonderful!

The Otters and the seaweed This is what you need to know: you need to know that otters wrap themselves in seaweed so they won’t, while sleeping at night, float out to sea . . . Are you imagining this? Can you see the otters actually doing this? Does it break your heart a little? Does it seduce you just a bit into loving more this odd hard world? Oh otters, wrap yourselves tight! And sleep, exactly like you do, floating but seaweed-held in our salty living waters! Oh otters, wrap yourselves tight! And you, the one who doesn’t, the one who doesn’t tether himself down right, we are with you as you float away, we are with you as you sleep and lose yourself in the night. Teddy Macker

To grow the economy we need more trams, and fewer kebabs Britain’s second-tier cities are being held back by a simple problem, too many people still cannot get across them quickly enough to reach the jobs, customers and opportunities that drive growth.

Why do our second-tier cities underperform?
Why do we have fewer trams in the UK?

I try my best to give an answer to these two interconnected questions.

chriscurtismk.substack.com/p/to-grow-th...

Happy Easter Bluesky

Pysanky, the Ukrainian art of egg decorating. www.presentandcorrect.com/blogs/blog/p...
This book is from 1968 and you can find it in full here

Very often on this day in the past on the internet one has seen the spoof photo of people resetting the "clock" at Avebury by moving the stones to their BST positions so I thought I'd post Walter Steggles' painting of "Avebury" from the 1970s along with the photo of the operation! #WalterSteggles

Croft, Coast and Hill: As Easter approaches, Kirsteen Bell and @annieworsley.bsky.social find sweet grass, sweeter herbs, and thin wobbles of lambs www.caughtbytheriver.net/2026/03/crof...

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

Don McCullin’s war of conscience Whether it’s capturing harrowing scenes in far-flung conflicts or quiet landscapes on his doorstep, the legendary photographer has only ever had one q...

“If I’d have been a much more intelligent, sophisticated person, I don’t think I could have taken on the wars and the tragedies and the dying children”, photojournalist Don McCullin tells Prospect’s David McAllister

Butterbur I believe, spotted in Lathkill Dale, Peak District earlier today #wildflowerhour

College cats of Oxford Once upon a time, we featured an image of Magdalen's kitten, Ozymandias, in our newsletter. We figured it might be a gentle contrast to our regular diet of planning and local politics. The grey ball ...

When we first published the wildly popular ‘College Cats of Oxford’ some of you wrote to us with more cats. And cat mysteries. We promised to update the article. So, here you are, the mystery of St. Anne’s and Mansfield cats solved. Because the internet always needs more cats, right?
#catmap

Le Carre it ain't :(

The place that stayed with me: after a treacherous route through open desert, at Mina Mina I saw holiness ‘One day, Nangala,’ Aunty Agnes would say. ‘We’ll dance together at Mina Mina.’ And one day, for no good reason, I answered her: ‘Let’s do this thing’ * Read more summer essentials There are places on this Earth that still belong to themselves, places where very few people have stood. And some of those places are holy. It was the summer of 2018 when we packed my old Hilux and a Troopie and set off from Lajamanu to Mina Mina. It had been Aunty Agnes’s idea. Although she’d painted this place for decades, she’d never set foot on Mina Mina, on her grandfather’s Country, in the jaws of Lake Mackay, Northern Great Sandy Desert. Continue reading...

The place that stayed with me: after a treacherous route through open desert, at Mina Mina I saw holiness

This story is a metaphor for the USA RN no?

Country diary: This is true water music – and the more you listen, the more you hear | Derek Niemann Frome, Somerset: Get tuned in to the river’s sounds and you’re treated to a symphony of noise, from susurrating hisses to great belches

Delightful start to the day with a musical watery @theguardian.com country diary by @derekniemann.bsky.social.

#countrydiary #naturewriting

8 different mittens in varying colours with strong geometric patterns and borders. Blue, cream, white, red and a burnt orange colour. The wool looks chunky and cosy.

For a Monday in January, the Swedish mitten museum digitaltmuseum.se/search?descn...
You're welcome.

Week in wildlife: monkey spa day, a frisky kākāpō and a camouflaged owl This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Week in wildlife: monkey spa day, a frisky kākāpō and a camouflaged owl

Rare hair ice phenomenon in bright white color looking like feathers in the sunlight with dark black shadows.

Close-up of hair ice forming on a piece of wood. Thin, white, silky strands of ice are clustered together, resembling fine hair or cotton candy. The background is blurred, highlighting the delicate texture of the ice.

Close-up of hair ice growing on a small branch. The ice appears as a fluffy, cotton-like cluster with soft, rounded shapes, standing out against a blurred background of brown fallen leaves.

Close-up of hair ice on a piece of rotting wood among brown fallen leaves. The ice forms delicate, white, silky strands and curls, creating a fluffy, feathery appearance against the earthy background.

Have you seen any hair ice? 🍭❄️

These silky ice strands form on rotting wood when temperatures dip below 0°C. A certain fungus triggers a process that changes how the water freezes, making it form into fine, hair-like strands instead of solid ice.

📸Ana Ele/Alby DeTweede/K Neville

#HairIce

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

‘Extraordinary’ iron age war trumpet find in Britain may have Boudicca links Bronze instrument or carnyx dug up in Norfolk in area inhabited by Celtic tribe led by warrior who fought Romans

Pretty sure that once upon a time, digging up an ancient war trumpet associated with bloody resistance to an overbearing empire would have been seen as some kind of omen.

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

‘Extraordinary’ iron age war trumpet find in Britain may have Boudicca links Bronze instrument or carnyx dug up in Norfolk in area inhabited by Celtic tribe led by warrior who fought Romans

Absolutely sensational find in Norfolk - the most complete carnyx or Iron Age battle trumpet ever discovered, anywhere. Buried in the first century AD in the territory of the Iceni…

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Iron Age Copper alloy war trumpet being excavated c Norfolk Museum Service

Iron Age shield bosses and wild boar standard

Iron Age Copper alloy boar standard being cleaned c Norfolk Museum service

More on the stunning Iron Age carnyx found in #Norfolk with boar standard and shield bosses

👇👇👇

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Found by PreConstruct Archaeology and featuring in episode 2 of the new series of #DiggingForBritain with @profaliceroberts.bsky.social on BBC2

Wowzers 🤩

A forlorn landscape of layered rocks in the foreground, with hills fading into the background haze. At upper top right, a small crescent moon, and a bright star.

Open up this picture fully.

Then look at the surface of Mars.

Then look up to the top right.

Spot Mars' moon Phobos high in the sky.

Then notice the bright spot beside Phobos.

That's Earth.

Dark Energy may be changing and with it the fate of the Universe A mysterious force called Dark Energy might be changing, in a way that challenges our current understanding of the nature of time and space.

'Consequently there will continue to be passionate, sometimes contentious, debate over whether the cosmos is gently whispering to us about its true nature, or whether astronomers are chasing celestial ghosts.'

A salutary, unusually poetic reminder of the contingency of scientific knowledge.

There's treats in the box! Merry Christmas bleaters

Day 23 and we've reached penultimate window of this year’s Coastal Lexicon Advent Calendar!

Today’s word is:

🌊 strand — 'the land bordering a sea, a shore or beach'

Common to Germanic, strand being the default ‘beach’ word in Dutch, German, Danish and Norwegian.

Country diary: The clock is ticking for these colourful castaways | Claire Stares Hayling Island, Hampshire: Piles of goose barnacles are stranded on the beach after a long journey hitched on a barrel. They’re fascinating creatures, but they won’t survive long

Barrel-travellers washed up on a Hampshire beach in today's @theguardian.com country diary by Claire Stares.

#countrydiary #naturewriting

Margot Robbie in red latex, Kate Bush impersonators and a pint of Emily ale: my crash course in Brontëmania As Wuthering Heights gets a raunchy Hollywood remake, our writer takes a pilgrimage through Haworth, the village where its author lived – and finds her spirit still electrifying the cobbled streets and windswept moors

Margot Robbie in red latex, Kate Bush impersonators and a pint of Emily ale: my crash course in Brontëmania

Museum Our Lord in the Attic - Museum Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder Hidden in the heart of the city centre of Amsterdam is a small wonder: Our Lord in the Attic Museum. Visitors will be going on a journey in a unique well-preserved canal house from the 17th century.

opsolder.nl/en/museum-ou...