If I were in charge

Painted portrait of a white woman, upper half facing forwards in a red top, hair tied back, against a dark background

Welsh artist Gwen John, Self Portrait, 1902 #womensart

Exquisite and totally wearable then and now.

I’m always interested in the neck and waist circumferences, often almost equal in these stylised images. How women must have suffered (breathing, not eating, restricted movement etc). I’m sure someone will have written an academic analysis of this?

It’s said it refers to a cattle crossing at Rushey Green which was a marshy meadow full of reeds. Sadly no cattle now, or reeds.

Next it will be the BluePeter badges.

Under President Trump's domestic spending agenda passed by Congress, the Kennedy Center will receive $257 million. That is six times what it normally gets from Congress annually.

But no money for Medicare

Tomorrow the sun will rise,
and tomorrow the sun will set.
Be gentle with yourself,
and may the sun calm our troubled souls.

Oh dear. She’s deluded.

China's approvals of coal power plants grow after 2024 decline China approved 11.29 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power plants in the first three months of 2025, already exceeding the 10.34 GW approved in the first half of 2024, a new Greenpeace report showed on Thursday.

China's approvals of coal power plants grow after 2024 decline reut.rs/3ZfPdq6

The right is creeping across Europe.

Print in vivid colours featuring the entrance to a London tube station as people enter and outside to the right a man with a guitar stands

'One man band' by contemporary English printmaker Gail Brodholt #ReframingWomenPrintmakers

Lizard Orchid Himantoglossum hircinum just coming into flower

Two spikes of Burnt Orchid Neotinea ustulata

Round-headed Rampion Phyteuma orbiculare

Duke of Burgundy butterfly resting on a leaf of Italian Maple Acer opalus

An early morning walk yielded a flowering Lizard Orchid and several Burnt Orchids.
Later the Col de Pennes wowed us with a mix of dry grassland and woodland flowers, Short-tailed Eagle and argumentative Duke of Burgundy butterflies

@wildlifetraveller.bsky.social
@beardybirder.bsky.social

Timeless and would grace any red carpet today.

Print featuring the head and shoulders of an older Black woman with angular features looking sliight right wearing a hat with wide brim and a green jacket closed with a pin

Elizabeth Catlett, Sharecropper, 1952, two colour lino cut. The US artist utilised printmaking with extreme skill to explore themes of her fellow African Americans in a 20th century era of Civil Rights activism #womensart

Print with stylised different coloured blooms in a pink jug

Anemones, 1925 woodcut by Australian artist Margaret Preston #WomensArt

On the ball already.

Canada’s liberal party, led by Mark Carney, secures election victory after dramatic reversal of fortune Party written off months ago secures fourth term in stunning comeback after Donald Trump’s threats boosted campaign * Results tracker * Joy for Liberals: follow the election results live Canada’s Liberal party has won a fourth term, capping a miraculous political resurrection for the party – and marking a landmark victory for former central banker and political novice Mark Carney as he prepares to face off against US president Donald Trump. Late on Monday, the Liberals had won or were leading in enough seats to prevent any other party from forming government, according to the national broadcaster CBC. As results from Canada’s Atlantic provinces and vote-rich Quebec and Ontario came in late on Monday, supporters at the Liberals’ election night party erupted in cheers. Continue reading...

Canada’s liberal party, led by Mark Carney, secures election victory after dramatic reversal of fortune

YouTube video by Soulful Sounds Ben E. King - Stand By Me (Audio)

Keep going and move forward. We’ll get there.
Ben E. King - Stand By Me youtu.be/hwZNL7QVJjE via @YouTube

The refusal of the Egyptian authorities to free this peaceful activist triggered Laila's act of maternal determination.

Listen to Laila Souief: A Mother’s Life on Radio 4 at 1.30pm

Pres Michael Segalov
Prod Michael Segalov and Andrea Rangecroft www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

📸 Misan Harriman

Since last September, 68-year-old Laila Soueif has been on hunger strike.

Laila is the mother of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British national imprisoned in Egypt for the best part of 12 years. He’s one of Egypt's highest profile pro-democracy political prisoners who was due to be released in late 2024…

I predict he will have surpassed any score possible on a cognitive test.
Orange skin testing will also be above tangerine level.

Tameside has massive poverty, someone living there all her life told me she never voted because politicians are all the same. It was heavily pro-Brexit. An area that was crushed by Thatcherism in my opinion.

UK Parliament recalled tomorrow for emergency debate on the future of British Steel.

Must be permanent nationalisation, not temporary where public purse nurses the company and it is then sold to private sector.

Need industrial strategy: Can't rescue steel/others without controlling energy costs.

The forgotten art of letter-writing 😁

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die.

Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

All actions have consequences and I wonder how long it will take Americans to realise the consequences of their voting for Trump?

Deeply sad.

I’m not surprised.

Cherry blossom season kicks off in Tokyo after warm weekend At approximately 2 p.m. Monday, the Meteorological Agency announced that its reference Somei-Yoshino cherry tree at Yasukuni Shrine was officially in bloom.

Tokyo's cherry blossom season has kicked off, with the Meteorological Agency declaring that a cherry tree at Yasukuni Shrine had bloomed on Monday, five days earlier than last year.