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I first came across Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul simply by browsing in Waterstones Piccadilly. It was on one of those display tables, and I was struck by how beautiful it was. Jonathan Cape have done a lovely job. It’s a chunky hardback with thick paper, and a striking photograph on the front from Celia Paul’s studio. Everything about it feels luxurious and artistic and interesting – but …

A note before we begin: This week, I'm overwhelmed by the stream of news about Meta, ProtonMail, and other tech giants going mad. Instead of creating a humorous caricature or a long blog-post about it as I usually do when tech news goes chaotic, I'm shifting my focus to highlighting positive impact. This article was born out of this reflection (and also maybe, my coping mechanism). - - - As …

West India Dock welcomes a visit from a number of French Navy ships with the arrival of FS Leopard (A748), FS Lynx (A751), FS Guepard (A752) and FS Lion (A755). All the ships are Léopard-class training ships built for the Marine Nationale (French Navy) to train French officer-candidates in basic seamanship. There are eight of these vessels built. They were built by La Perrière in Lorient, Ateliers et Chantiers de …

The base game of Kingdom Legacy, Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom, has been one of my favourite solo experiences of 2024. As a small package of 140 card deck and some stickers, it is affordable yet packs a mighty punch. In 3-4 hours, you’ll build your kingdom from untouched grasslands to castles with knights, astronomers and merchants, mines and monsters. It’s a play-it-once legacy system where you use cards to produce …

Walter Pidgeon and his group of submarine sailors head down into deep waters in the 1961 action-adventure film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, produced by 20th Century Fox. In this scene, Robert Sterling and John Litel share Walter Pidgeon's concern that the Earth will burn up and sync their watches as the Seaview races to launch a rocket to blow up the Van Allen belt before the Earth …

Bandying the word "apocalypse" feels a little off after the local events of last week, but here is Kieran-Press Reynolds on The TikTokalypse - a Pitchfork piece on the drastic effects of TikTok's potential banning in the USA on the memey end of music culture. And here's another K P-R report, this time for GQ, on hopecore - "the last gasp of a less-toxic internet?".This kind of thing brings

The cocktail shows that this isn’t our usual haunt, but we had a great time doing the mid-week suburban drinks and golf thing in downtown Sunnyvale. Tipsy Putt has a nine-hole traditional mini golf setup, plus a nine-hole 1-2 Putt tabletop format. It’s all indoors and there is a large selection of beer and cocktails on tap, plus pretty good bar food too. There are several Tipsy Putt locations in …

TikTok may or may not be banned in the USA within the next 24 hours or so. Here's a pattern you can use to download all of the videos from a specific account. Using yt-dlp directly After first publishing this TIL I found out you can point yt-dlp directly at an account page and it will download all videos for you: yt-dlp 'https://www.tiktok.com/@username_goes_here' -o "downloads/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s" The rest of this TIL …

Near the end of 2024 I decided it was time to replace the Thinkpad X270. I still think the X2{6,7}0 is Peak Laptop. Unfortunately, as software gets worse, I need more CPU. Everything on the market seemed inferior in one way or another to the X270. I considered: Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 9 (used) Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 12 (used) Star Labs StarBook (new) Framework 13 (new) After about two …

Mid last year I bought a cheap Sonos speaker from Ikea and it was a huge upgrade to my home life. For the last decade or so I’d almost always listened to music only through headphones. Occasionally I’d airplay a bit through my TV but it sounded pretty terrible. One problem I’ve encountered is that fairly often the music would just stop and I’d have to restart apps and the …

And so they drifted along between dull brown distempered walls, arms in arms, what was left of Addison's reefer still hanging on his lips, while the two ladies continued to pass back and forth what was left of their own reefer.Addison had the distinct impression that he was floating, and that the ladies too were floating. His feet not only felt far away, they felt as if they belonged to …

Hercule Poirot excels at cold cases so he is intrigued when Carla Lemarchant turns up for an appointment with a murder from the past. When she was 21, she learned that her mother had murdered her father, Amyas Crale, a well-known painter. Caroline Crale was convicted and died in prison, a year later. She left her daughter a letter proclaiming her innocence and now that Carla is engaged, she wants …

Today, Daisyfield Viaduct is part of a greenway, affording spectacular views for walkers and cyclists. On one side lie the outskirts of post-industrial Bury, and on the other the River Irwell, making its way past open fields. The viaduct carried the Bury to Bolton railway line, created by an Act of Parliament in 1845. The […]

Saturday A fight. Three bodies: one is flat to the ground, another screeches by their side, a third holds the first one down with a heavy foot as they prepare to attack again. Behind them a rowdy crowd goads them on from the trees. I clap my hands loudly and yell at them to stop. Reluctantly they take flight: one for sorrow, two for joy, three for the birth of …

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