I think the technical term is "phwoar"

People reply to ask, how do they know this? And the answer is because a modern marvel of social science asks thousands of people every year about what crime they've actually experienced, not just what got reported to the police. www.crimesurvey.co.uk/en/index.html

For anyone looking to do textmining on EEBO-TCP texts, this is a brilliant resource. #EarlyModern

This looks amazing.

Our bird feeder ran empty while we were away for the weekend and I came back to it’s camera roll full of disappointed looking birds

Katze und Tauben, Adam Brenner, C19th. #Caturday

Merlin, the Museum Cat, Bert Lee. #Caturday

GenX erased again 😢

2/2 Sense of smell. Stench. From five senses series, 1637, by Jan Miense Molenaer of Haarlem. Husband of Judith Leyster!

Children's musical party in 1627. Love the girl who's playing the helmet! By Jan Miense Molenaer, because it's his day.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

Today I pretended to be a Grown Up for a couple of hours and ordered a new bathroom. 😬

a local restaurant has a quote in the window - I've forgotten who it's by - along the lines of "I went on a diet and stopped drinking and smoking for two weeks and I lost 14 days"

yeah sure just innocently eating

"You've let me down, you've let the squadron down... and worst of of all you've let yourself down."

Young daughter of the Picts, covered in A+ tattooing (& not much else!) as depicted by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues around 1585. Today is his day.

Marie Petiet, The Laundresses, 1882, Oil on canvas. 113 x 170 cm (Limoux, Musée Petiet)

Two adorable Egyptian figurines: a roaring hippo and a baby hippo, dating ca 1,800 BC. Hippos were associated with life and rebirth. On display at Neues Museum Berlin. 📷 me 🏺 AncientEgyptBluesky

2/2 Oculus bursting through the ceiling of the Camera Picta -- but not. Tour de force of humor & perspective by Andrea Mantegna, whose day is today.

The “bang bus” owned by adult entertainer Bonnie Blue, visiting Oxford for Freshers’ Week, will not be eligible to pass through the High St bus gate. An Oxfordshire County Council spokesman told the Clarion: “Having taken the risk of googling Bonnie Blue’s Bang Bus, the vehicle appears to be a van.”

Amazing headline.

Good morning! Three schoolgirls on the bridge by the Westermarkt, Amsterdam. By George Hendrik Breitner who was born on this day in 1857.

2/2 Woman playing with a cat. By George Hendrik Breitner, whose birthday is today.

I see Mandelson has reclaimed his rightful place as Most Disgraced Politician from those Tory upstarts who were only sacked twice.

This science story has everything: - a superheroic scientist who has the condition she is battling to drive work on - a riveting scientific breakthrough story (I was gasping) - an absolute gutpunch about whether her work will be defunded www.science.org/content/arti...

In the battle between Carnival and Lent, 1559, the festive & impulsive side of human nature fights against the restraints of ordinary life. And charity is a question for both sides. By the great Pieter Bruegel.

Finally -- the end of a long day's work, in the Hay Harvest. To say nothing of the veggies & fruit! Fabulous seasonal landscape by the great Pieter Bruegel, who (alas!) died on this day in 1569.

3/3 It's been a horrible week, month, harvest season, and Pieter Bruegel knows exactly how you feel.

Start your day off with the unfettered pleasures of Pieter Bruegel's marvelous Children's Games of 1560: an entire town taken over by children at play. Today is Bruegel's day.

"Instead of death rays, this gun fired ice into cocktail glasses. Activated by a spring-loaded plunger and trigger mechanism, it crushed ice cubes and 'shot' the ice spray out through the rubber gasket, to the delight of guests" Opco Company 1935 Minneapolis Institute of Art

Bookmarks! 📌

Only one week left to submit your abstracts for the 'Medieval Wales and the March' International Medieval Congress sessions sponsored by the Mortimer History Society. Deadline is 15 Sept. Don't delay, submit today! @imc-leeds.bsky.social #IMC2026 #medievalsky #skystorians #academicsky

In the “Pelican Portrait” of 1574, Elizabeth I pulls out all the stops with unbelievably elaborate outfit. You can hardly stop looking at the amazing detail of each piece & layer. Happy birthday to one who knew how to accessorize.

A response to @greg.org this morning got me thinking of ceramic sculpture, & it occurs to me we could all use a mood lifter, so here's a thread of David Gilhooly's delightful frog food sculptures. First up: Frog Farmer, 1973 (cc: @darthbluesky.bsky.social)

Historical hottie du jour AND today's artist wout a known birthday: Godfried Schalcken of Dordrecht, Leiden, The Hague etc. Here, looking handsome in his Rembrandt phase (everybody had one).

they should have listened to Nina. youtu.be/SdVMGFtK4Pc?...

I see TOTP on BBC4 is *still* trudging through 19fucking98. And I know the normal state of pop music is shite, but that doesn't mean you can't get phases of even worse shite. Boyfuckingzone. Shed fucking Seven. Celine fucking Dion. Steps. (Although the internet reminds me there was also Cornershop.)

huh, this must be the political equivalent of "I thought they'd died already".

The glories of empirical observation: lecture on the orrery, painted by Joseph Wright of Derby who was born OTD 1734.

John Staveley, wonderfully portrayed in an oil sketch by Joseph Wright of Derby, who was born on this day in 1734.

If it's Joseph Wright of Derby's day today, perfect excuse to post this magnificent self-portrait which I swooned over a few months ago at Derby Museum & Art Gallery. artuk.org/discover/art...

Joseph Wright of Derby was born on this day in 1734. Children playing with pig bladders is a surprisingly common motif in art, but somehow Wright managed to elevate this low genre trope into the realms of the sublime:

Love this! 🐾

2/2 Another confusing man by Lorenzo Lotto, in 1525. What does his gesture mean? Warding off a visitor, taking the measure of the world, hailing a cab?

I've updated #EarlyModern Resources earlymodernweb.org/resources/ Quite a few new links but also a big overhaul of the site to be more usable + a visual refresh. (If you can't see a change, you may need to clear your browser cache and refresh hard. 😬)

New #OpenAccess article from @drjpw.bsky.social in Transactions of the @royalhistsoc.org on 'mad' supplicants in Elizabethan England, showing how 'distressed subjects exercised rhetorical agency when petitioning those in power.' #EarlyModern #PowerOfPetitioning 🗃️ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Well, when the competition is "how I love to sit on my Great British chair shagging the Union Jack", why should they bother really.

“Good morning, my little minions.”

I've updated #EarlyModern Resources earlymodernweb.org/resources/ Quite a few new links but also a big overhaul of the site to be more usable + a visual refresh. (If you can't see a change, you may need to clear your browser cache and refresh hard. 😬)

Always something new to go wrong with fucking websites.