Having learned more about the amoral inventor of the notorious Maxim Gun courtesy of @davidolusoga.bsky.social A Gun Through Time (Leeds Grand Theatre) I was reminded that we have this cynically marketed Pipe of Peace in @leedsmuseums.bsky.social collections. Not sure it mitigates much.

Hanging a chandelier at @leedsmuseums.bsky.social Leeds Discovery Centre. A moment of mild peril but very satisfying.

We could wait years for any results and then lock ourselves into using oil and gas supplies that could be disrupted with one bomb or Britain could more quickly provide battery storage in homes and use the cheap overnight windpower that currently goes to waste. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Magic Arzonic Soap anyone? Claims to clean grease, paint, clothes and babies and even cure scurvy. I suspect it just scoured several layers of skin. A gem found inside a scrap album donated to @leedsmuseums.bsky.social in 1961. Leeds c1885. @leedscivictrust.bsky.social @thackraymuseum.bsky.social

This is the sort of thing a cashless society robs us of, the opportunity to try to get away with paying the bus fare in Carthaginian currency www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Abbey House Museum exhibition "In the Picture" finally opens today. Linking some fantastic objects with original pictures and photos. A real visual feast. @leedsmuseums.bsky.social

🧵A photograph of Kirkstall Abbey by Leeds born photographer William Lyndon Smith (1836-1865) dating from around 1855. Smith exhibited widely around Britain from the 1850s until his untimely death in an ice skating accident attempting to save a couple who had fallen through ice

Wishing this amorous pair of mandarins a happy Valentine's Day

Pretty pleased with our #BigGardenBirdwatch tally this year. 12 species including bullfinches, goldcrest and nuthatch. @rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social @wildsheffield.bsky.social

The WW1 soldiers who wrote messages on the surface of their basic emergency ration biscuits before sending them to their loved ones in Leeds. @curatorkitty.bsky.social 👇 BBC News - Wartime Christmas greetings sent by biscuit revealed in Leeds - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My last object cataloguing of 2025 for Leeds Museums @leedsmuseums.bsky.social and an inspiring message for the coming year (courtesy of The Gang of Four, currently on show at Leeds City Museum music exhibition).

The two magazines delivered to our door yesterday. A rather sinister symmetry.

Without asylum: Marks and Spencer wouldn't exist Queen would have been without a front man The other queen wouldn't have had a husband Judith Kerr would never have written The Tiger Who Came to Tea And thousands of less famous people wouldn't have been teachers, politicians, neighbours, etc

@leedsmuseums.bsky.social @leedslibraries.bsky.social @leedscitycouncil.bsky.social

I love linking @leedsmuseums collections to old trade catalogues. Proves that this is not just a humble school abacus (in Leeds Education Committee lime green) but part of the long argument for the superiority of the Decimal System. 1921 catalogue of Leeds based school suppliers E. J. Arnold

Some very imaginative ways of representing struggle, conflict and protest in the history of Vancouver @museumofvan.bsky.social. Lots of ideas to take back to @leedsmuseums.bsky.social

Rational recreation' was an ideal that nineteenth-century middle-class reformers hoped to impose on the urban working class. They believed that leisure activities should be controlled, ordered, and improving' The Leeds Rational Recreation Society was created

#RIP Cleo Laine. I hope that the Sheffield Lydian Singers can do justice to this song of hers in our concert tomorrow night (St James Church, Norton, Sheffield 7.30pm) youtube.com/watch?v=-2Mj...

Cataloguing this fantastic set of Yorkshire Relish bottles into the @leedsmuseums.bsky.social collections is whetting my appetite for lunch. A couple still have their contents but are probably past their best after 80 odd years!

Lovely little film from @wildsheffield.bsky.social about building climate resilience into Ughill Farm. Happy to have contributed a few pennies to help them buy this little plot of hope. youtu.be/T8eEQcakWCs?...

Council run museums provide a £47.3 million boost to Leeds. 👇 BBC News - Council-run museums and galleries bring Leeds a £47.3m boost - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Time to put up a few more #clocks at Leeds Discovery Centre @leedsmuseums.bsky.social, including one showing a view of #Leeds Town Hall c1858 @leedscitycouncil.bsky.social

A good day for #birds in Lathkill Dale today. These are the ones that stayed to be snapped - plenty of others were less co-operative with the camera! @rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social @peakdistrict.bsky.social

sheffieldbachchoir.com/sheffield-ba... A wonderful concert at St Mark's, Broomhill, #Sheffield this Saturday 21st June including Bach, Handel, Elgar, Holst. Tickets available on the door. @classicalsheffield.bsky.social

Another confused German nudist for @museumbums.bsky.social. Clearly a hat an boots are obligatory, but nothing else (spotted on the Puppenbrücke, Lübeck)

Valley of the Aire, Armley Pastures and Kirkstall, Leeds, 1853, by George I. Alexander, 1832-1913 (Leeds Art Gallery). #NorthernArt

Had the moors to ourselves apart from a cuckoo and lots of curlews, lapwings and golden plovers. @bbcspringwatch.bsky.social @wildsheffield.bsky.social @rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social

Very shocked to see the images of the landslide and destruction in #Blatten in Switzerland. We have visited several times and bought one of the iconic Tschäggättä masks, and later returned to buy one for the @leedsmuseums.bsky.social collections.

Museum takes time to pay striking tribute to city’s classic clocks https://www.europesays.com/uk/137846/ Beautiful vintage clocks will take museum visitors in South Leeds on a journey through time this week. The…#uk #news #uknews

A few new additions to @leedsmuseums.bsky.social Leeds Story, #Leeds City Museum.

Brutal 17th century scold's bridle goes on display at Leeds City Museum. The device contains an iron plate to stop the tongue moving. /1 @curatorkitty.bsky.social BBC News - Torture device used to punish gossip put on show in Leeds Museum - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Found some calm landscapes by a namesake (Kitty Kielland) who found beauty in peat bogs (as do I) #art #museums

Hurrah - a bit of blue sky! @museumbums.bsky.social Visiting Vigeland Sculpture Park on a chilly windy day made me feel rather sorry for the innumerable naked figures on display.

Exhibition of vintage Leeds clocks to be held at the Leeds Discovery Centre. 👇 @curatorkitty.bsky.social BBC News - Leeds Discovery Centre vintage clocks stand the test of time - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Happy to have added a few new (or old?) items to the @leedsmuseums.bsky.social #Leeds Story, Leeds City Museum. 1. Leeds cabinet maker Joseph Theaker by Charles Schwanfelder (2024 gift) @leedscitycouncil.bsky.social

#VEDay Happy to learn that as well as making Monopoly escape kits for POWs #Leeds firm #Waddingtons printed escape plans in invisible ink on white hankies which you had to pee on to read. Washing in cold water made it disappear again. Sadly @leedsmuseums.bsky.social don't have any as far as we know.

Bank holiday bonus - spotted a muntjac munching our flower beds. Certainly a newly confirmed species for our #Sheffield #garden! @wildsheffield.bsky.social @mammalsociety.bsky.social #deer #gardenwildlife

Any one able to help with this #photo? Part of @leedsmuseums.bsky.social Burtons photo archive. Original caption: Peter Robinson "Pop Group" 1965. Are they a real group or just models posing?

Enjoying nature closeup and closeby - a selection of #Sheffield #bluebells, #birds & #butterflies @wildsheffield.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social @rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social

Love spotting links between @leedsmuseums.bsky.social and @leedslibraries.bsky.social collections. Music in the Frank Kidson archive published by Joshua Muff who made our 1820 glass harp (viewable at Leeds Discovery Centre). #music collections symposium @universityofleeds.bsky.social

Looking forward to sharing our @leedsmuseums.bsky.social project to record lost music written in #Leeds and also by neglected #women composers at today's Music Collections Symposium @leedslibraries.bsky.social youtu.be/n5qeOquRHCs?...

Great trip to @rspb.bsky.social Rye Meads to watch ducks dabbling - I think I can now remember the difference between a pochard and a gadwall! @rspbengland.bsky.social #birds #birdphotography

Lovely to be invited to the launch of latest book from @chrisnickson2.bsky.social and to visit the site of Kirkstall Forge #Leeds. Sorry I had to dash off before the cake was cut. I'm sure it was delicious.

Happy #PuffinDay. A nod to the Puffin Books that shaped my childhood imagination. @penguinbooksusa.bsky.social

I want you to realise the scale. UNESCO estimates that the damage caused by russian aggression since 2014 to Ukrainian cultural heritage exceeds $2.6 billion. This looting of Ukrainian museums is believed to be the largest since the Second World War.

Wearing pollen with pride! (Common carder bee enjoying the forget-me-nots) #Spring #bees #gardens

More #butterflies enjoying the spring @europebutterfly.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social

This peacock #butterfly cheered me up on my lunchtime walk from #Leeds Discovery Centre @leedsmuseums.bsky.social @europebutterfly.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social

Rather murky walk around Ughill Moors, but we heard and saw lots of curlews. Can't find a consensus on the collective noun for curlews: herd? curfew? salon? skein? @rspb.bsky.social @rspbengland.bsky.social @wildsheffield.bsky.social