Good morning! [Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, A Soul in Hell, 1670-1700, Wax, 11.5 cm x 10 cm (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)]

Good morning! This week's theme is the River Thames. ------ 'Bridge in London' (1908) by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky (Private collection)

1898 - The Greatest Showman Alf Ball's boxing booth at St Giles Fair, Oxford. Alf, a top 1880s middleweight, on the right. This was around the time he stopped fighting a Mexican Puma - you can see them depicted in the middle banner - and started getting a bit more into being a Bioscope presenter:

London's most haunted mural including an avian coo' d'oeuil

The Hay Wain, rural Brixton, October 2025.

And going on into the C20th, see Alison Oram's 'Her Husband Was A Woman': Women's Gender-Crossing in Modern British Popular Culture (2007) (now so many papers are digitised I think one could probably find more, as I recall without checking my copy, she used The News of the World).

Two Grey Herons having words at Venus Pool nature reserve #ShropshireBirding

so many 19C cases like this

what style of dress marked a man as a quaker in London in 1820? is it some kind of hat/cravat thing?

My own family cookbook from the 1790s has a recipe for Mutton Cabob’d

Famed architect Palladio’s last commission was the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. The stage set for its first performance in 1585 was a masterpiece of illusion which convincingly depicted roads disappearing into the distance. Incredibly it’s still there to this day. Tks @JonathanMendel1

Jean Béraud's picture of a gentleman's club (1904) is painted in a few warm, deep colours. There is no central figure, and the men are positioned in such a way that their faces are either partly or entirely hidden. Privacy in a private club.

Copper Beeches, 2013, painting by Yorkshire-based artist Kate Lycett. #WomensArt

Warren Street, Stockport, painting by Arthur Delaney (1927-87). #NorthernArt

One book. Pssshaw. Cancelling the new tower in the East Wing.

Scharf makes old Covent Garden market look quite attractive, I have to say

definitely not obsessively refreshing the Anthropic Settlement page to see if the books list has been put up yet.

going back to my earlier post, this simple perspective drawing produces more joy in me than many a laboriously constructed virtual space

lovely perspective view of the newly built Covent Garden market from 1831

The ultimate Victorian London panorama? (not open to public as yet, but you can watch the trailer) Not sure what I make of Minecraft worlds; their blockiness is cute but also kind of empty and homogenous. Hopefully some kids will love it.

The Bridge ~ Valerie Thornton, 1954

It's a wet evening, so here's a 13th century whale making some people even wetter. Unknown illuminator, c. 1270 (The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig XV 3, fol. 89v)

'The Café Royal', Regent Street (1915–16) by Adrian Allinson (Private collection)

'Best Kebab', Old Street, Hoxton (2003) by Georgia Peskett georgiapeskett.com

Graf Zeppelin shaped harmonica

Congratulations to Sara Lodge, The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective has been shortlisted for the 2025 #WolfsonHistoryPrize, the UK's most prestigious history writing prize. The shortlist: www.wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk @wolfsonhistory.bsky.social @victoriandetective.bsky.social

'The Automobile,' (1900) by Ramón Casas in which a solitary woman drives a motor car directly at the viewer is a remarkable declaration of modernity. Casas was highly influential on a generation of his contemporaries, including Joaquin Mir, Isidre Nonell, and Pablo Picasso.

awful stuff all round.

'frags' ... one for @misterslang.bsky.social ... never comes across this book before, detailed a look at Cockney dialect from 1803 babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=um...

Urban wildlife of south east London

the Covent Garden conservatories, 1832

The Knife Grinder

Mournful art deco garden gate slowly returning to the earth. Etterbeek.

Apologies for the gap between last episode and this one. But: new episode of the podcast! This one on Marvel Comics #1, in which I cover a bunch of stuff, but mostly Namor the Sub-Mariner, who (sorry) is nasty. Transcript & audio link here: www.patreon.com/posts/139931... Site here: 500issues.com

Lazy Sundays 😸

"Isleworth parish is remarkable for producing great quantities of raspberries which are sent partly to Covent Garden market, but chiefly sold to distillers or makers of sweets. "

what am I, applying to be wildlife photographer of the year or something?

If you're into the 1920s/30s and art depicting common people's lives and night scenes of New York, you'll love the art Martin Lewis (1881 – 1962) made. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_... Here's a small selection of his work;

Forton services, M6, painting by Jen Orpin.

The Fighting Yank #11 (March 1945). Alex Schomburg cover art.

Louise and Robert Armstrong in a still for A Girl in Every Port (1928).

ridiculously disturbing.

a whole early Victorian world in this paragraph

intrigued that someone was walking as far as, say, Epping Forest, to gather decorative leaves for Covent Garden market in the 1830s; and that they went with chestnut leaves, for that matter.

Remembering Clara Bow who died on September 27, 1965 at the age of 60.

fine gaslight shadow

seems this interpretation is even more radical than I expected

Good morning. Here's Gareth Hunt demonstrating the dangers of trying to work whist nursing the mother of all hangovers.

'The Barbican' by Louise Hayward www.re-printmakers.com/artists/79-l...

Les enseignes du rétro @ Rétro truck 🚚 camion Citroën HY des magasins l'Economique 1965