Ironic if it takes the paralysis caused by the Labour coup to show us how much the government was actually doing.

Polymarket is giving 86% odds that Trump will order the Strait of Hormuz to be whipped and branded by noon tomorrow.

And of course, Trump has smeared himself over NASA and the extraordinary courage of the astronauts.

Very lucid encapsulation from Jeremy Bowen www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Through the Round Window... Just over four months since @thebrooking.bsky.social launched on Instagram and Facebook – even as a trustee of the collection I'm learning so much from these posts! www.instagram.com/p/DUS_F7DDok...

Earlier this month, we welcomed BA Interior Architecture & Design students from the University of Portsmouth to our warehouse. Among doors, windows, and fittings, they traced the language of making through sketches, rubbings, and plasticine impressions. We can’t wait to see where these studies lead!

A survivor from Orient House on London’s New Broad Street, this c.1907–08 baluster features crisp uprights, framed circles, and wrought-iron scrolls that project from the newel almost like a signature. It was sectioned and saved in 1987–88 when the building was demolished. The façade remains today.

A salvaged survivor, this seventeenth‑century paneled door retains Tudor‑leaning scratch mouldings, chamfered edges, and a latch that still wants to click. Once bare oak, it was later painted and raised with one (perhaps two) planks at the top. Today it’s wearing St Patrick’s Day green! 🍀

Now this is a job opportunity!

Marbling is quite a boring job, so you can forgive the painter who gets carried away… 📸 from Aphrodisias 2025 field season report.

The age-old cycle of flooding in the @wolfsonoxford.bsky.social water meadows.

Through the Round Window... Just over four months since @thebrooking.bsky.social launched on Instagram and Facebook – even as a trustee of the collection I'm learning so much from these posts! www.instagram.com/p/DUS_F7DDok...

We are looking for a new trustee to join the board of the Brooking Museum of Architectural Detail, @thebrooking.bsky.social. It’s an exciting time as we shape the future of the charity - find out more and apply app.nurole.com/roles/6964e1...

🚸 Imagine generations of schoolchildren passing through this grand door from Ripley Church School, crafted in 1846 with striking Gothic ironwork. Originally painted green, the door now displays its solid oak, carefully revealed by the restoration work of our Founding Collector, Charles Brooking.

Fragments of the Apocalypse - I missed this amazing story last year www.culture.gouv.fr/regions/drac... ##culture

Job alert: Director for Historic Churches Scotland, deadline Monday 9th February 2026. Anderson Knight is delighted to be partnering with our member Historic Churches Scotland to appoint a new Director at a pivotal stage in the charity’s development. For more information, go to: buff.ly/eteYlh1

Exciting times for The Brooking and we have a dynamic, multi-talented board. We're looking for a Finance Trustee and second trustee with professional experience in one of a range of areas.

Water high at the 800-year-old R. Thames crossing at Bablock Hythe. near Oxford.

Great post combining Christmas jumpers with one of @thebrooking.bsky.social’s several prison cell doors!

New year, new equipment: a larger trolley custom-built to handle our collection, with no more tipping when we move hefty doors! The trolley is already earning its keep by helping our staff to move a cell door from Guildford Police Station, which dates to 1854.

Yes. He should stop! In the name of love.

My knowledge of the first 64,000 years of the history of art is embarrassingly sketchy. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Extraordinary. “Thomas could also be audacious - we found a poem which he managed to get published himself in Boy's Own … but was a copy of a poem already published in Boy's Own 15 years before." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A Roman Antonine youth? No: stucco head of a Buddhist bodhisattva(?) from the Tapa Kalān site near Jalahabad, Afghanistan. Photo via the incredibly valuable Hadda Archéo Database haddaarcheodb.com/en/objet/tet...

Sad door in Portaferry, Co. Down 📸 Google Maps

A Gandharan Buddha head from Afghanistan presented to JFK in 1963 jfk.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/5114...

The newly opened Colosseo-Fori Inperiali subway station houses a full museum's worth of finds discovered while digging under the city. Including this 4th c. CE gold glass fragment depicting the goddess Roma, which had been affixed to a wall in the ruins of an ancient military barracks. 🏺 1/ 📸 me

💯 'Time is well overdue for international policy bodies to acknowledge the totality of evidence on the science of masks and masking and to show leadership in providing such messaging to policymakers, clinicians, and the public.' @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social et al journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

It's #sketchpadvent – celebrating amazing modernist concept drawings and models. December 1: Milton Keynes from 1981

Cataloguing the Hampi Vijayanagara archive @britishlibrary.bsky.social - this would be an interesting part-time job for the right person www.linkedin.com/posts/malini...

Training Officer Rubicon Archaeology Salary: £39,000/ €45,000 Closing Date: January 9, 2026 Location: United Kingdom / Ireland www.bajr.org/job-ad/train...

This late Roman silk fragment from Egypt, in @ (L), makes me think that the contemporary woollen tunic of Yingpan Man in the Tarim Basin is really of Roman origin (which I had rather doubted) - some remarkable similarities. collections.mfa.org/objects/6855...

Late Roman box inlaid with ivory, from Egypt. @britishmuseum.bsky.social www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...

I am reposting this without the 'adult content' 🙄

Satyr and maenad on a c. 4th century AD Roman textile, tapestry weave wool on linen, presumably from Egypt. Cleveland Museum www.clevelandart.org/art/1975.6?u...

This stone head with coronet was found on the site of Merton Priory, Surrey, in 1797. The diplomat and collector Sir William Hamilton FSA presented the head on behalf of the Priory’s landowner to the Society in 1802.

It's a Flavian villa with mosaics, isn't it? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"We can’s air-condition our way out the extreme heat crisis." #OxfordSmithSchool Radhika Khosla The Global Cooling Watch 2025 report was launched during #COP30. It addresses the dual challenges of escalating extreme heat and the resultant rising global demand for cooling.

1884-1897 focus for this opportunity to edit and publish archival material re Working Ladies’ Guild

Sounds rather like Spittlefield Lady in London, including the gold-threaded textile.

The Noheda mosaics give a realistically eerie impression of what performers in masks looked like. [Photos here from historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/maravilla-... ]

The truly remarkable 4th-century Roman mosaic at Noheda, Spain. [Photos from: visitacuenca.es/en/content/a...

Tickets are now out for this exciting event! Free and open to all. Book your free tickets on Eventbrite. Akram Khan, MBE in conversation with Marcus Bell (UCL), co-organized with Dance Scholarship Oxford (DANSOX) Friday, Dec 5, 2025, 14:30 Jaqueline du Pre Music Building, St Hilda's College Oxford.

Extraordinary (from BBC). Can any journalist really think this is what's going on?!

Twitter pays people based on engagement (views, retweets, comments, etc). It appears that many MAGA accounts are based abroad and they use AI technology to generate low-effort rage bait. My guess is that this will get worse as AI tech improves. For instance, fake videos of minorities doing crime.

This is very much my approach to diy repairs. Late antique mosaic in Madaba Museum, photo from Helen Miles helenmilesmosaics.org/blog/mosaics...

Help us save the last Curlews of the Upper Thames www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-us-sa...