Blakey French

Your experience is, obviously, not my experience. Good to hear. You've cheered me up.

Stormzy calls reading a ‘superpower’ as he backs accessible books campaign The musician is championing the annual Quick Reads initiative, which will release six short, digestible titles for ‘nonreaders and lapsed readers’ in April for £1 each

"Books have the power to carry you through life." Stormzy (2026)

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

2026 European Anthropology Days are here! Check how anthropological associations are celebrating across Europe!

The European Anthropology Days 2026 are here! EASA endorses the EAD 2026 and has prepared an overview of the programmes unfolding locally throughout February and March. A real feast in these gloomy days, celebrating from Stockholm to Rome, and Olomouc to Torino!

easaonline.org/event/2026-e...

Circular Grassroots Webinar Series Spring 2026

🌱 Join the #CircularGrassroots Webinar Series this Spring! 🚀 Four Zoom sessions exploring grassroots sustainability, circular economies & urban transitions with activists, researchers & policymakers. Free & open to all! (Dates: Feb. 2, 26, March 2, 23). www.gu.se/en/business-...

Oslo Center for Environmental Humanities (OCEH) - Department of Culture, Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies An open and collaborative platform for interdisciplinary, humanities-led environmental research.

Want to join us? Most events are open to all, but some require an RSVP or have Zoom links.

Check the full program and get all the details here: 🔗 www.hf.uio.no/ikos/english...

#EnvHum #EnvironmentalHumanities #Oslo #UiO

Iris van Herpen - Kunsthal Up to and including Sunday 1 March, Kunsthal Rotterdam’s HALL 2 will be entirely dedicated to the work of the world-famous Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen (1984). Van Herpen is one of the most ...

If in Rotterdam: an engrossing exhibition, profiling the strikingly fresh creativity of Iris van Herpen: www.kunsthal.nl/en/plan-your...

ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US Plans for such centers and jails in nearly two dozen communities have sparked protests over suitability, proximity to homes and schools.

The largest infrastructure projects currently being built in the US appear to be data centers and detention centers. The AI boom has coincided with ICE becoming the most heavily funded government agency. It's hard not to see a connection: This is the architectures of digital fascism

The near universal adoption of fiat currency, in a decade after the 1973 Nixon Shock.

"School materials (except text books) enter Gaza after being blocked by Israel for two years."

Mr Rutte now seems to be in the 'dangerous friend' club ...

bsky.app/profile/blak...

bsky.app/profile/blak...

When I visit England, in the rural North, the conversation can turn quickly to 'stopping the boats', largely thanks to the BBC upping a 'migrant crisis'. This is utter bollocks. The huge English crises are, as ever, poverty & illiteracy.

bsky.app/profile/blak...

Front page of NRC, a Dutch daily newspaper, with a large photo of an American 'police' ICE agent, threatening a civilian observer.

America is making a movie that very few people in Europe are wanting to watch:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Wikipedia

For those new to Nassim Taleb, a wiki summary: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_...

Amsterdam harbour as twilight approaches, looks calm, but is it?

Woke up thinking with Taleb; AI frenzy is a 'white swan', we see a bubble & know how such stories go (Nortel etc); the $ looked 'anti-fragile', but such in-fighting (in a G7 country) has no precedent - a 'black swan' takes flight?

YouTube video by SINTI MUSIC Mozes Rosenberg Trio - Peko

If you see Mozes Rosenberg play ... oh my; lean elegance, from flawless technique: m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z4x...

YouTube video by Henri SELMER Paris Angelo Debarre - After you've gone (Selmer Guitar)

If you see Angelo Debarre play ... oh my; here's a taste: m.youtube.com/watch?v=2StN...

Two men on a matinee jazz stage, coaxing wondrous music from their guitars (a manouche acoustic and a slim chambered telecaster).

There's still joyous stuff out there; Mozes Rosenberg & Anton Goudsmit - so much soul, fun & stylish technique: @bimhuis.bsky.social

Black and white portrait of a young boy with neat hairstyle and a collared shirt, looking slightly to the side with a gentle expression.

25 January 1935 | Dutch Jewish boy, John Groenteman, was born in Amsterdam.

He was deported to #Auschwitz from #Westerbork in September 1942. He was murdered in a gas chamber after the arrival selection.
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Children at Auschwitz:
🎧 Podcast: https://youtu.be/aYKx_zpLSqA

The task for political leadership now is not just to tell the truth, but to make people care about what is true and what is not.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis - Wikipedia

Less an 'umbilical', supporting life and growth ... more like a fungal infection creating EU zombie-ants : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophioco...

If Boddies was still on tap, I'd stand you a pint of mild; if Labour block you, stand anyway as an independent? Beste!

Cometh the hour, cometh the voice ... ('off to the record store!) @lucindawilliams.bsky.social

"Warnings ... point toward what is to come and are meant to involve us in the possibility of a radical break, a discontinuity with the present signaled by alarming signs that we are asked to confront." Santiago Zabala (2025) #warnings

Whoops! Should have included this link, to the author, here: @hkohpeiss.bsky.social

Book cover for the new English translation (2025 trans. Grace Nissan) of 'Bourgeois Complacency' (2023) by Henrike Kohpeiß (pub. Divided).

"Europe is the site where violence and bourgeois complacency meet." Henrike Kohpeiß (2023)

What do you feel is the biggest threat to our national security right now?

The UK Joint Intelligence Committee has released its report on the threat of biodiversity and ecological collapse on national security.

Its a chilling read: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0e...

Done. I let the fund manager know why I'd sold. They emailed straight back, keen to understand retail 'investor sentiment'; EU asset managers will now see the $ with fresh eyes, as unsafe.