Yankee Go Home!

I've been trying to sell the benefits of road atlases to my sons for years.

Mid C19th Shirvan rug.

Rug of the Day Carpet from Isfahan bought in 1616-18 by the son of Bess of Hardwick. Too posh for the floor, it's been on this table for the past 400 years.

Sculpture from the "Unspeak the Chorus" show by Kira Freije in Wakefield youtu.be/2efkRdFvxdY?...

Make Britain Great Again #woolspinning #Wakefield

I love this icon of St Mark being photo-bombed by his bull and the dove whilst posing for his official portrait. It's in Wakefield Cathedral, and I can't find out who the artist was.

"Rug" of the Day Twill weave cotton textile by Danish ceramicist Axel Salto featuring kilim-style patterns At The Hepworth, Wakefield.

Cat, that's a coffee pot from the back. From the wacky imagination of William Kentridge.

Rug of the Day Well-worn Heriz carpet belonging to William Kentridge on view with his current fabulous sculpture and film exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...

Melpemone, the Muse of Tragedy in for her Neuralink upgrade.

I'm in Yorkshire wool country. Here's Stonehouse's Albion Mill in Wakefield*, spinners of worsted yarn for making carpets. Now a shopping mall. Can confirm sheep are still available to process, but capital, equipment and labour gone since the 1980s. * pics from Wakefield Museum collection.

TIL: It's just a shade of green.

Water is life and key to all the geopolitics in the region “The region’s monarchies are often described as petro-states, but they have also become what I call saltwater kingdoms, global superpowers in the production of human-made fresh water drawn from the sea.” theconversation.com/persian-gulf...

Rug of the Day Post-war austerity era hooked rag rug by artist Lucy Aldridge, seen in the painting (with husband, John) making one very like it. stillsketching.substack.com/p/the-contra...

Something to look forward to.

Onè of five vape shops around the station caught fire. A shop full of tiny bomblets containing lithium batteries and inflammable liquids. They must be all over our critical infrastructure.

Sounds interesting

I wrote a new thing on GreenGale greengale.app/pmcghee.bsky...

There are two types of people in the world: Those who expect things to get markedly better within their lifetime—not just a “return to normalcy”, but real justice and radical change for the better… And those who do not. I think we should be the first one whenever we can.

Apparently these missiles cost a couple of million dollars to buy and can be launched from 1000 miles away. Imagine what those children's parents could have done with $2million. How brave was the "warrior" who launched it to murder them? How do you feel if you work for Raytheon and see this?

Today's car boot sale treasure. Candlestick or incense burner with four Argali wild sheep. 1950s (probably) casting of a bronze age design from the Koban culture around Chechnya and Dagestan.

A great piece of writing

Useful maps

Nirvana Spice, late For audition, so sadly Not one of The Girls #DailyHaikuPrompt (Nirvana , Spice) #haiku #senryu

Excellent obit of an old friend of ours who deserves to be better known. Suitable for Radio 4's Other Lives. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Rug of the Day Kilim woven in Urmia, N W Iran in the 1890s, to a design by an English missionary, but copying an older design from the region. It's a long story. It's currently in Erbil, not far from the airport and the Rotana Hotel, so a new chapter in its history may now be opening.

Important Work!

Next Supreme Leader? Trump reviewing CVs Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber) - No, funds Democrats Pierre Omidyar (Ebay) - No, too French, too Woke Arash Ferdowsi (DropBox) - Maybe - MIT, but not busy Shervin Pishevar (Sherpa Capital) - No - Backed Obama Hey Stephen, don't you have any good fascist Iranians?

Making a sundial in my garden and I find I have a tree whose shadow obscures my gnomon from 8.30am to 10.00am. (antignomial?) So I'm going to need multiple gnomons (gnómonas Gr) as well multiple dials, which will all need to be adjustable for British Summer Time. (Posted as a non-war diversion)

If you want to know more about the origins of the United States’s difficult relationship with Iran you’ll find more here:

UNESCO-listed Golestan Palace damaged by US/Israeli bombing. www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/03/u... A historic building and archive of priceless objects like the Timurid era Shahnameh that we visited in Art of Persia (from 28 min 24s). www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

EU's Made in Europe criteria. Investments of more than €100m - 50% of staff in Europe - 51% of capital shd be Europe -. 1% turnover needs to be invested in R&D in Europe - 30% of components from Europe Partners will be judged on location of factory etc not on nationality - which opens path for UK

Trump Attacks Iran. How Operation Epic Fury unfolded… The new Private Eye is out now.

Some patterns from Thomas Spring's amazing parclose in Lavenham Church. (1520ish) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...

TIL about a large number of operators/tools that can be used to make Google searches much more focused and productive 🧪 #philsci cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has...

Rug of the Day Carpet in the Mirror Hall of the Golestan Palace, Tehran, featuring Naser al-Din Shah Qajar en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_...

Rug of the Day Hereke carpet given to the Peace Palace in The Hague in 1911 by Sultan Abdul Hamid. This is a placeholder Rug of the Day while I find a picture of the fabulous garden carpet he gave to the Shah of Iran for his Golestan Palace.

Honestly the collective national level of disdain for Brits living in Dubai on all my social media platforms today really is bringing the UK together as one in a way that's hard to achieve in the modern era.

Rug of the Day Persian rug given to a Cambridge academic after the wedding of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to his third wife, Queen Farah, (lately of North Potomac, Washington DC) seen here in her coronation gown designed by Marc Bohan of Christian Dior. Note the reciprocal botehs in rug and gown.

From yesterday's Observer.

Every time I see either of these men:

Commander: Claude, what do you know about the town of Minab in Iran? There's an installation there that looks like a barracks. Shall we bomb it or not? Claude: I can't answer that question, but Minab was the birthplace of Ahmad Nosrati and it has an interesting drainage system. Want to know more?

I don't (yet) know exactly where this picture was taken from, but if that's the Call Building at the back right, the location of the Anthropic HQ might be in the leveled area bottom left.

I'm finding San Francisco's history endlessly fascinating. Periods when it supports world war seem to bring out that spirit of the Gold Rush, sleeping in tents, moving fast, breaking things and peering unwaveringly into the face of Armageddon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhCi...

Rugs of the Day Have with you to Saffron Walden* to Reeds Antiques, where they have a few of these newly woved wiggly kilims after the fashion of Kurdish Bidjar. Allegedly, these are still made in Iran, not further east. Nice colours. Cheap. *obscure Brit lit ref

A propos AI Agents. UKleG being right as usual.

If all parties put up qualified tradespeople at the next election they could usefully turn over the next parliament to doing DIY.

'I didn't grow up wanting to be a politician, I'm a plumber' The green Party's Hannah Spencer has won the Gorton and Denton, with Reform in second and Labour finished third