Recently updated blogs

—-Email—–I saw the secret on your site that said “I love the idea of suicide hot lines…” and talked about people making sure total strangers will be okay. As one of those volunteers, I obviously can’t speak for everyone, but personally, I don’t think of the person on the other end of the phone as a stranger. I may only know them for a very short period of time, I …

This batch of Battlefront 15mm German Grenadiers has been sitting on painting pegs, waiting for me to finish them off, for literally years. I don't know exactly how many years, but possibly ten or more. Never let it be said that I rush things.I finished them off today, simply because I wanted them out of the way.For some reason I don't much enjoy painting 15mm infantry, possibly because I'm not …

I wrote about The Cinema Museum after a visit in 2013 and I have been back a few times. Every time I go there I discover something new or get talking to someone who inspires me. Last year, in January 2023, I was lucky to be able to sit and chat for a while with its founder Ronald Grant, who set up the archive – an engaging man with lots …

Yinka Shonibare at the Serpentine 2024 If you live in or around London, you have access to regularly changing blockbuster art exhibitions on your doorstep. Today, Monet’s paintings of the Thames have just gone on show at the Courtauld Gallery, sixty paintings by Van Gogh are showing together at the National Gallery, Michael Craig Martin has a large solo show at the RA and, finishing next month, The Expressionists is …

Fellow bird photographer, Steve G, found a lost SD card. It was back in August, in Snettisham, Norfolk, UK, a popular birding spot. The interesting thing about the card is that it had 3700 photos from a trip to Iceland, mostly birds as I understand. Steve has been trying to track down the card’s owner ever since. There are no people in any of the photos, not EXIF data, no …

The other morning I noticed there was a dead mouse in our yard right by the door, and I didn’t feel like dealing with it, and Dr. Mrs. Q didn’t feel like dealing with it, and that night we didn’t feel like dealing with it either, and we said, knowing we were just procrastinating, “well maybe some animal will carry it off in the night but if not we’ll deal …

The following photo is from 1984 and shows one of the many Blue Coat figures which can be seen on surviving charity school buildings from the late 17th and 18th centuries across London: Forty years later, the statue is still there, looking good and has obviously been restored since the 1984 photo: The figure is on the building that was once a Bluecoat School in Caxton Street, Westminster, and as …

[fragments from a prototype book review much different from what made it into print...]Few would claim that we’re living through a golden age for music. But there does seem to be an emerging consensus that this is something of a golden age for music books. Early in 2011, U.K. magazine The Wire staged Off The Page, a two-day festival dedicated to music writing that was so well-received it’s now set …

A man planting cherry saplings on his field in Salkaya village near Elazig, eastern Anatolia, found a huge ancient floor mosaic depicting a dazzling array of local animals and plant life. It dates to the late Roman Imperial period or the early Byzantine period. Mehmet Emin Sualp spotted glimpses of patterns through the planting holes and reported it to the Elazığ Museum Directorate and the gendarmerie. The museum and the …

Every so often, the web development community gets into a tizzy about something, usually web components. I find these fights tiresome, but I also see them as a good opportunity to reach across “the great divide” and try to find common ground rather than another opportunity to dunk on each other. Ryan Carniato started the latest round with “Web Components Are Not the Future”. Cory LaViska followed up with “Web …

The publishers at DC Thomson like any excuse for a good old knees-up. Any time one of their comics reached a landmark issue or anniversary, the entire edition would very often be given over to celebrating the milestone, usually in an epic feat involving all the different strips running at the time, and sometimes this would even extend to the anniversaries of specific strips (such as the Beano marking fifty …

Visibly moved after a visit to the Galleria Borghese, my friend recounted their first encounter with Bernini’s The Rape of Proserpina, especially the texture and yielding softness of the skin. Years later, after spending an hour before that cruel yet tender marble, I felt deflated. As exquisite as Bernini’s statue is, it couldn’t quite surpass my friend’s emotional re-creation of that initial experience. This memory resurfaced as I read Everything …

This past week I was in Durban, South Africa presenting at the Innovations in the Science of the Teaching and Learning (ISOTL) Conference 2024: Bridging Ethics, Equity, and Innovation in Higher Education, organized by the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It was a pretty hectic trip, flying out Monday night and getting back Saturday afternoon. That said, […]

Today's post features a moderately adequate representation of a bad photo with bad kitchen lighting and a very nice fall garden harvest. :) Allow me to introduce you to this afternoon's random late season garden haul. I took Philip to the soccer field by my community vegetable garden to try a Chuck it with him...Read More

Neil from Ebeaut has launched a new forum named “Renovate Forums” dedicated to all things renovation. This platform features multiple category forums covering various aspects of renovations, along with a marketplace where you can buy, sell, or trade goods. Get ready for great deals and professional and amatuer insights! Please be aware that ensuring security is challenging, as there are individuals actively seeking to exploit others for financial gain and …