Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate, 1650: painter & rebel. Gutted her family by becoming Catholic. Here by her art teacher Gerrit van Honthorst, whose day is today.

Sigh ... youtu.be/OAl-EawVobY

WHAT? LRB on Gris-Gris? Bookmarked with a JAVELIN.

He’s turning into a parody.

Shanked www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1964 First Release East German A1 - Schleissing Grouppe Artwork movieposters.ha.com/itm/movie-po...

this unremarkable knob routinely sets unholy gobs of money on fire to pretend his boomer sneaker ad company is innovative and interesting, and the press just endlessly normalizes it

Diana would’ve loved all this

blimey www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Andrew Windsor should move to a new residence with a royal connection, one which starts with HMP

also a supersized boot scraper (the missus generously modelling)

This week’s #CookbookCorner stars Curry: Recipes from Indian Home Kitchens by the wonderful Maunika Gowardhan! Read more about it and get her recipe for Sweetcorn and Pepper Curry with Cumin, Coriander and Garam Masala right here: www.nigella.com/cookbook-cor...

Kemi Badenoch is absolutely right about this. At the time she hacked Harriet Harman's emails it was an offence carrying a prison sentence of up to five years

Weather good, we are gradually working our way north in search of the Loch Ness Monster.

#OtD 30 Oct 1944 the left-wing Greek People's Liberation Army liberated Thessaloniki from Nazi occupation. They stopped the Nazis from blowing up power plants and food factories and attacked retreating German units, then paraded through the streets stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1033...

We’ve all done it.

I have never seen, nor do I intend to see, any “Traitors” programme. Whether celebrants/celebrities or not.

Donald Trump’s meeting with Xi Jinping resulted in most of what he wanted—but the agreement does little more than extricate Trump from a crisis of his own making. Michael Schuman on the pattern in Trump’s dealings with China raising long-term concerns:

A poignant retrospective of Don McCullin’s extraordinary work, with his commentary. I was once at a dinner party with him: fortunately not seated next to him, because I was far too overwhelmed by his presence to say anything even slightly interesting. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Xi's face is PRICELESS. 'Can someone pry get this begging prick off my hand.'

Calling for a British born Muslim MP Zarah Sultana to be deported and now calling for disabled people to drive unsafe tricycles to mark them out as disabled- are there no lows this piece of shit won’t stoop to but he’s right on brand for the Nazigraph

How come he gets to keep the Andrew? We'll have that back too thanks mate

*record scratch* Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how these vast and trunkless legs of stone got into this crazy situation. My name is Ozymandius, king of k

OK, NOW you can officially do your "The Andrew formerly known as Prince" jokes

God help us.

Good heavens. Everyone was playing this. What a strange cultural phenomenon “lock down” was.

Somebody in Philadelphia needs to give this lovely older lady the foster home she deserves

Magisterial

I never understood this when I was a kid in school and I will never understand it. A friend of mine had Marmite with pickled onion crisps in his. I can only assume he grew up to be a serial killer.

Digital ID is Starmer's Metaverse, and he's out here desperately pitching his daydreams about how it could one day be useful to a disinterested public because he's already invested too much in it to back out now.

I make no apologies for banging on about The Abergele Files over the next few days and weeks. A comedy with jokes *and* heart? Oh yes. From the team behind Bravo Two Charlies.

Another Lake Orta waterscape…

17 years ago today this tiny, determined floorball moved in with me. Now she's a glorious diva of firm opinions and very high standards, and, of course, the Very Best Cat.

‘His desire for territory was more existential than ideological. Rhodes was desperate to leave a mark on the world and had no domestic attachments to fulfil or distract him.’ @michaelledgerlomas.bsky.social on what drove Cecil Rhodes. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This week's post: What the call for fiscal headroom reveals mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/what... Exaggerated claims about market reactions to debt and deficits infantilize fiscal policy, and that can be dangerous. The call for more fiscal headroom is just a small example of that danger.

‘Quiet as a whisper’: German firm launches ad campaign after its lift was used in the Louvre heist.

"Nigel Farage should conclude that his party did not just fall short what it hoped for yesterday; it fell short of what he needed to be on course to become prime minister." kellnerp.substack.com/p/caerphilly...

new level of Not Writing Book unlocked: that's my tax return sorted

‘Most of the panels were made from southern European lime wood, showing that it wasn’t only a preference for naturalistic portraiture that had been imported to Egypt from the Roman Empire but also some of the materials.’ Elisabeth R. O’Connell on the Fayum portraits. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Remember the Republican Party clutching its pearls about confederate statues being torn down because it was 'erasing history'? And now this gaudy prick demolishes the East Wing of the White House without a word of protest.

Q: How did these explosives get there? Do these devices just grow in Gaza's soil? Or did a military put them there?

Final push before bed: Daphne is 50 votes behind Bert the dog, and would love to be the face of March in the excellent @lawpawcalendar.bsky.social, which raises lots of money for charity. Thank you! lawpawcalendar.com/vote-here-fo...

Tree in colour

Victorian way of death

Some of Kaleb Horton's recent writing: What a kind and wonderful man. kalebhorton.ghost.io

Kaleb Horton was the kind of writer whose talent made you ashamed to call yourself one too. To interact with him, however occasionally or distantly, was to know the sweetest, most fundamentally decent guy. All my love to his friends and loved ones. kalebhorton.ghost.io/big-fish-not...