Sane rubric: “In consumerist cultures, relatable animals are sold to us as scheming foxes, Stetson-wearing bunnies and cute, wise-cracking pandas, all-too-human caricatures dressed up in animal skins. Rather than entering their world, we force them into ours.”

Today. Edinburgh. Muriel Spark. The front page. Photographed on 25th May 1960.

Distressed loudspeaker at Leytonstone station. An almost Kleinian blue. #londonunderground #lookup #loudspeaker #london #peelingpaint

Salon cartography and choreography at the Queere Moderne exhibition at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, with artists including Lotte Laserstein, Ludwig von Hofmann (whose painting ‘The Source’ Thomas Mann took with him into exile) and British artist Gluck (born Hannah Gluckstein).

She captures the movement in work and a burdensome urgency, whilst keeping a sense of grace.

Mary Robinson rewrites Paul Simon…

Worth digging deep into this piece on Gathered Meeting. It includes principles which will be needed to re-civilise politics over the next decade or so…

Epping Forest magic this afternoon with views over London from Loughton. #eppingforest #autumn #light #treebathing #london

‘Who wants to sit all day in some anonymous state office building listening to testimony about utility rates? …now we’ve trained up a whole cadre of older Americans who show up with a basket of knitting or a crossword puzzle book and are there witnessing, testifying, organizing.’ thirdact.org

My re-imagining of the Bell Rock Lighthouse off the East Coast of Scotland. Based on one of the original engineering drawings. spyglassillustration.com/product/bell...

Saughton Park bandstand. #Edinburgh

It can heat a whole town See them Talking about it at: m.youtube.com/watch?v=OOSN...

Fine piece that says new things about a concept that has previously been resistant to thinking that is not of an either/or variety open.substack.com/pub/petergra...

Every new home without a nest brick is a death sentence for swifts. They're cheap, easy to install, and save lives. Let’s make swift bricks mandatory in all new builds. Sign the petition to protect these amazing birds 👇 protectthewild.org.uk/swift-bricks...

Two of my favourites🫶! THE MIRACLE OF THE BURD AND THE FISHES ach sun jiss keepyir chin up dizny day gonabootlika hawf shut knife inaw jiss cozzy a burd luvur day yi ach well gee it a wee while sun thirz a loat merr fish in thi sea From: www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetr...

“Put yourself in my place For just a little while Why don't you try it Why don't you try it Why don't you try it baby” Lamont-Dozier-Holland We could do with more of this…

Her first life…

“if it is possible to find Millet too subversive, or conservative, or religious, it is perhaps because his art remains open to all interpretations in what it so lucidly shows – which is nothing less (and perhaps nothing more) than the toiling and hauling and straining of life on the land” Sublime

Thi Wurd are the real thing. Their classes are straightforward, to the point and very welcoming. Now online as well as in-person…

Remarkable conclusion from the International Court of Justice: “Failure of a state to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from GHG emissions…may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that state.”

“Life is only difficult for those who pick and choose. You just take it. And that helps you feel whole, and maybe flying with the birds helps you be with the deep levels of hell…Do not look away. Do not avert your gaze. Do not turn aside.” (from this fine dialogue with the late, great Joanna Macy…)

George Eliot’s the real thing…

Sometimes mainstream, popular culture can express things that people have gone silent about. Series 3, episode 3 of the series ‘The Crown’ soberly used the conduit of the Queen to represent the Aberfan disaster. See also @thierryaaron.bsky.social below m.youtube.com/watch?v=UPp0...

@adriennebuller.bsky.social (author of The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism) in a particularly good dialogue with Ha-Joon Chang, especially after 10 minutes in, on social discounting of future generations and nature. Also worth peeking at @the-breakdown.bky.social

For once, the gamification of society might spur some social change. Where else could this be put to work in our use of depleting resources?

“The vacancy left by unsatisfying work isn’t filled by leisure, but by work in the garden, where you indulge in blunt and basic force.”

I'll be in conversation with @francescawade.bsky.social tomorrow evening @londonreviewbookshop.co.uk to discuss her brilliant @faberbooks.bsky.social biography of one & only Gertrude Stein. I highly recommend the book, & also this piece in @friezemagazine.bsky.social by Francesca!

RIP 16 October 1944 - 17 May 2025

ICYMI, Donna Haraway said the years between 2000 and 2050 should be called The Great Dithering…welcome to its pinnacle 💅🏼

Caroline and Corentin have converted a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Paris into a remarkable home that is healthy, fair, sustainable, exciting and very,very surprising.

A little reminder that there is purpose beyond that which is sold and bought…

If you know anyone in Scotland who has a short documentary film they want to make in mental or physical health, this great opportunity has just been announced. (And there are some bursaries too): nfts.co.uk/documentary-...

'Meadowsweet, loosestrife sway along the ditch Waiting to cross over at the end of our days.' Dear Michael Longley.

So sorry to hear of the passing of Michael Longley,a great poet & longtime friend & colleague to my beloved uncle, Brendan Kennelly. In 1993 they spent some time on the Greek island of Santorini, with Michael’s wife Edna. This wonderful photo was taken on that visit. RIP Michael

Any researchers/writers/academics fancy a creative start to 2025? I shared this last year @ BACP research conference. Experiential workshop using thinking from my decades of writing work combined with academic possibility. All writers and will-be writers welcome. Booking: bit.ly/4a9QCSY

And here in the Scottish Borders on 1st January 2025

Bapsi Sidhwa lived minutes away from me in Pakistan (before she moved)…I grew up reading ‘The Ice Candy Man’ and ‘The Crow Eaters’ and later, ‘Water’, ‘An American Brat’ and ‘City of Sin and Splendour.’ Pakistan has lost a literary giant. May she forever rest in peace.

Links Satire. Rechts Realität.

For a mathematician, this is like a clue in a murder mystery!

The Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health - the ATACH - now counts 93 countries and over 70 development partners among its members. If you haven't already done so - run, don't walk, over to www.who.int/initiatives/... for more information and to join up.

Londoners! & other locals. Next month the Amar Gallery is opening the first British solo exhibition of Hélène de Beauvoir (sister of the frequent subject of my posts here). Its title and theme—The Woman Destroyed—is drawn from a joint project of 1967, written by Simone, illustrated by Hélène.

Presented without comment (not my workplace)

This was a great Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth session--fewer people than usual for this spot, but some good conversations. What follows in this thread are some of the things we talked about.

“It was as though we were being trained to have low standards and small dreams for the future; to prop up the economy as labourers or die of indifference” A cracker of an essay from photographer Johny Pitts on the Tate’s new exhibition: The 80s - Photographing Britain

IT IS HEROIC TO TRY TO STOP TIME

Neal Ascherson!!!

Ernest Lehman, screenwriter, born on this day in 1915. Interesting to see, below, the different titles his movies had in France. North By Northwest was his only ‘original’ screenplay but his adaptations were magnificent too.

Particularly good De Beauvoir pic

"Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below..." Noam Chomsky #botd is an American theoretical linguist. His work from the 1950s revolutionized the field of linguistics by treating language as a uniquely human, biologically based cognitive capacity.