Ah yes the good old classic longue durée lighter – as used at every Annales School barbeque 🙃 🗃️

Scented?

Overlooking the ocean, 12 massive sculptures by Galician artist Manolo Paz were created in 1994. The granite sculptures were inspired by the Neolithic menhirs that are found throughout the Iberian Peninsula. They are called Menhirs for Peace and are popular at sun set. #StandingStoneSunday

the interior spiral staircase of the Torre dei Lamberti in Verona, Italy

Alyn Smith: Dependency on oil is ludicrous when Scotland won the green energy jackpot An independent Scotland simply won’t run our energy market like this.

‘Sunlight travels 93 million miles to reach the earth, not one of them through the Strait of Hormuz,”
#Scotland
www.thenational.scot/business/259...

Notes for String Theory by artist Candace Hicks.

Sometimes I too feel ‘misbound but perfect’, Francis Jenkinson. Written in a copy of Gaspar Ens’s book on Dutch discoveries in the New World (Cologne, 1612). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social N*.5.51(G).

As the laid off Middle East News Editor, I concur. Management eliminated the positions of every single staff correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East.

A upright glazed jug with entwined dragon & snake. The dragon forms the handle.

Ceramic Jug
Norman Carling
1930

A snake is attacked by a dragon, its claws tightly gripping the prey. Note - wings!

Norman Carling (1902–1971) was an English designer/modeller in ceramics. He also worked for A.J. Wilkinson & later Maling pottery.

Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle

#Art #Ceramics

Go team Britannia 💪

Judge denies DHS bid to rush removal of Liam Ramos and his family Kristen Stenvik, superintendent of the district where Liam goes to school, said the ruling provides both “additional time” and “continued uncertainty.”

Breaking MS NOW:

The Department of Homeland Security *unsuccessfully* sought to expedite deportation proceedings against the family of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, according to a local school official.

At an asylum hearing Friday, the family was granted a continuance.
www.ms.now/news/dhs-rep...

Mamdani: "I speak of Renee Good, whose final words to the man who murdered her were, 'I'm not mad at you.' I speak of Alex Pretti who died as he lived, caring for the stranger. ICE shot him bc he did something they could never fathom ... let us offer a new path: one of defiance through compassion."

Please remind me of the artist of this portrait (which I think is posthumous ?)

I think the thing that bothers me most is seeing this mountain of email evidence across the Epstein network of the absolutely solid existence of a two tier system of (self invested) power, and the total disregard for those outside the tent. We are seeing the tip of the iceberg.

This thymiaterion has five individually hand-made women sitting on the edge of a red-painted wellhead, with one sitting in her own high-baked chair. All are brightly painted, and each woman has a 'hat' with a cup on top for the burning of the incense. All painted slightly differently - three with orange-yellow tunics, two with red tunics; two red himatia (cloaks), two purple-black himatia, and one yellow himation. They each once carried an attribute in each hand, but several are missing. In this photo, one woman carries a yellow (meant to be gold) phiale, an offering plate, and a pomegranate; the other woman facing us carries a spindle with wool. Met Museum (2012.546)

One of the best examples of ancient #polychromy that I know of is this terracotta thymiaterion - incense burner - in the form of a group of colorfully dressed women sitting around a wellhead. The iconography reflects a local cult, perhaps of Demeter and Kore. 🏺 1/

4th c. CE. #MetMuseum
📸 me

May I please share this with you, from over on FB?

This Wolf Solved a Multi-Step Puzzle Scientists Thought Only Primates Could The “Tool-Using” Wolf Seeing a gray wolf haul a crab trap out of the ocean looks like a scene from a science documentary that forgot its own rules. In a short video from Canada’s Pacific coast, a fema...

Humans are arrogant assuming only they are the smart ones on this planet, anyone else with a dog that cocks it's head and looks at us like we're morons understand how smart they really are.

www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Reminder that, as of the latest reports, Liam Ramos is still in prison in Texas - now for 5 days.

His parents are legal asylum seekers with no criminal record.

"In this whimsical maiolica sculpture, a well-dressed man leans forward in his seat with his head in a covered pot set above a fiery hearth. The vessel beside the hearth almost certainly held ink. The man’s actions are explained by an inscription on the chair: "I distill my brain and am totally happy." Thus the task of the writer is equated with distillation—the process through which a liquid is purified by heating and cooling, extracting its essence." https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/188899

Detail of inkstand showing damaged inscription

Side view of inkwell

Tips on coping from the Renaissance

Inkstand with a Man Distilling his Brains, maiolica, probably Urbino, ca. 1600. Inscribed in black on back of chair: “[…] CERV[...] IOTUTO LIETO” (Mi lambico il] cerv[ello] io tutto lieto; I distill my brain and am totally happy) (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Self portrait - Edward Hopper, 1925-30.
Source : Whitney Museum, New York 🇺🇸

A pilot just flew through one of the strongest aurora storms in years — and saw the sky explode in color. From the cockpit of a Boeing 787, pilot Matt Melnyk had a view like no one else. Flying at 37,000 feet over Manitoba, he watched as the auroras filled the entire sky.

@palaeokatie.bsky.social any similar Scottish traditions?

C'est le weekend, je vous emmène sur Mars !

United States Completes WHO Withdrawal WASHINGTON —  January 22, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of State today announced the United States’ completion of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) due to the organization's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.

The United States has officially withdrawn from the World Health Organization.

This is a shameful move that puts both Americans and people all over the world at greater risk from disease outbreaks, which require international collaboration to contain.

Chess Piece of a Queen
Spanish 12th century
Walrus ivory, which was cheaper than the elephant kind. (Walters Art Museum)

A biography of Jane Austen with an illustration of Jane on the cover. Googly eyes have been added to the image.

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a library in possession of a good Jane Austen biography, must be in want of some googly eyes.'

Imagine being a 12 yo newly landed in an Anglophone country and learning most of your English from reading Sir Walter Scott.

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle

Final line of the Inferno.

Round glass bead with a green base color, featuring a portrait of a woman with a necklace framed in red on a blue background.

Fascinating world of ancient #glass: a glass mosaic face bead. 1st century AD.

📷️ Landesmuseum Württemberg

Busy evening