Book Review: Medieval Bodies Life and Death in the Middle Ages by Jake Hartnell

Art Historian Jake Hartnell takes us on a macabre and enthralling journey from head to toe in the medieval human body. This is fascinating because, even though we share the same bodies as our medieval ancestors, we had wildly diverging beliefs about the inherent symbolic power of parts of our bodies and what could heal, harm or kill us.

Book Review: To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

Eowyn Ivey is a master craftswoman and her sentences are smooth and flowing like treacle. Her debut the Snow Child was one of my favourite novels. It told the magical tale of a child that emerges out of the icy Alaskan tundra and provides an ageing couple yearning for a baby, with the promise of a living child.

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #122

Learn about twin souls and mystical connection, an exquisite stained glass window, encouragement for your creative spirit, funky house music and much more. It’s edition #122 #InterestingThings #ContentCatnip

Underground Resistance: Detroit Techno as a Personal Revolution

Underground Resistance subverted the racist stereotype of the “black trouble-maker” and turned it on its head. Through their provocative, uplifting and joyful techno, Underground Resistance gave young black people with a different way of being and living: an empowering, positive, uplifting and autonomous way of seeing oneself in the world. This is perfectly expressed in their classic techno track “Transition” In my humble opinion, if you don’t like Underground Resistance you don’t have a heartbeat.

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #121

Learn about a mysterious #Egyptian goddess, the worst names in history of give to a child, comforting Lo-Fi music, baroque church pulpits in the same of dragons and much more, it’s edition #121 of interesting things.

Comforting Thought: Sunrise by Mary Oliver

“I thought how the sun blazes for everyone just so joyfully as it rises
under the lashes of my own eyes, and I thought I am so many!” – Sunrise by Mary Oliver

Here be the Viking Hoard: The Mystery of the Lewis Chessmen

The Lewis Chessmen are a treasure of Viking and Scottish history and have elicited awe and wonder since they were first discovered. They were likely to have been made in Trondheim in Norway from walrus ivory. This kind of bone was hard to come across at the time (1150-1200 A.D). The craftsmanship of these tinyContinue reading “Here be the Viking Hoard: The Mystery of the Lewis Chessmen”

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #120

Did you know that Mars was once coated in a green magma ocean? This week you can read love letters that never reached their destined recipient, learn how to make a Zen waterfall in your loungeroom, Jetson’s-style futuristic bubble cars and much more – it’s edition #120 of interesting things!

10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #119

Join me this week for a hypnotic aural journey into Polish Drum and Bass, debunk some boomer memes, uncover the rudest sounding town names in America, dozens of abandoned mini castles in Turkey and much much more!

Book Review: Nature’s Palette by Thames & Hudson

Do you love nature? do you love colour? If you love these two things then this book is a must-have for your collection. A traditional reference guide originally published in 1814, a beautifully bound and illustrated new version is now available.

Nature’s Palette features all of the hues and colours you can possibly imagine in our green and blue verdant planet. Along with exquisite nature drawings and paintings. Opening this book is like being transported to a more earthy and connected era where nature in all of her splendour was all people knew about sourcing colour. This book is perfect for a gift for the artist you know. Or if you’re an artist, designer, nature-lover or aesthete, I think you would also enjoy it.