Nicola Kerr

and that's why I have a subscription to @financialtimes.com #FactsNotFluff

FWIW I thought this comment from Neel Kashkari was probably one of the most interesting ones — and one that we should still be thinking about today.

Great work by the @financialtimes.com. Just staggering given the kerfuffle over the Robertson loan to buy the Notting Hill house.

HMV in Oxford Street selling I Swear DVD 📀 at the same price as the Bezos behemoth. And although I could have bought David McCloskey’s The Persian for a couple of quid less online yesterday, my copy from Waterstones on the King’s Road is signed. 📖✍️ #SupportTheHighStreet

Plus developers may levy service charges only on 'market housing' with lower or no fees on the affordable housing element, so maybe 70% of the homes bear 100% of the cost.

Service charges can really mount and cut into mortgage capacity. Shared services can include unadopted roads, gardening, maintenance / replacement of shared furniture eg benches, fences, playground equipment, SuDs - water absorption systems for rainwater run off with pumps plus shared energy supply

My first time in Notre Dame since the fire… and she didn’t disappoint!

Chain Pier, Brighthemstone 1826 by John Constable

Magnificent stormy painting of 1826 Brighton with the Chain Pier looking towards Marine Parade. My grandfather claimed he remembered seeing it but he would have been a tiny tot when it was lost in 1896.

Free solar? Alex Honnold’s other mission He shocked audiences with his outrageous climbing feats. Now he’s bringing solar power to isolated communities

Lots of mixed opinions on Alex Honnold's solo of Taipei 101 today, which will be streamed live on Netflix (!). Many won't know about his non-profit, Honnold Foundation, to which he donates around 1/3 of his earnings. My interview with him for FT HTSI from 2023: www.ft.com/content/fdc1...

Great cast, great play from Luke Norris at the Royal Court. Robert Aramayo, basking in his Bafta nomination, and theatre superstar Rosie Sheehy.

Would be so much nicer if the announcement pieces celebrated the positive story of those who had been nominated.

Looking east, and a bit south to the Cascade Range in Washington State. The greens in the field in the foreground are muted by frost, the trees and landscape mid-frame, obscured by fog. There's a golden glow above the mountain, the small pop of white is the sun reflecting off an aircraft. Don't know if I'm breaking a rule here as I've set my sky to the white balance assigned in-camera, everything below was "corrected" by Capture One. In any event the outing became a "fog" theme as the curtain of fog rose to meet / cover the sunrise.

Frozen Hour Meets #GoldenHour

Awaiting the big yellow orb to rise above the mountains this morning. It's -2°C, it feels colder. #StunDay #SkySunday

Langley Twp, British Columbia

#photography #landscape #sunrise #fog #nature #originalcontent #mountain #langley #BritishColumbia #imagesofcanada

Lego kit Notre Dame

A good day for the Lego kit to arrive.

And there's a cat!

Sunday in the Park with George | Barbican Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande will star in a new stage production of Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical, Sunday in the Park with George.

www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/eve... Ariane Grande and Jonathan Bailey 😍. on sale May 2026 for summer 2027.

Booked Owain & Henry in November to see @mmchshe.bsky.social play Owain Glyndwr for his @welshnattheatre.bsky.social enterprise. All credit to him for his energy, time and financial commitment to support the arts in Wales.

Margam park Roman villa find could be 'Port Talbot's Pompeii' The largest Roman villa ever found in Wales lies less than a metre under Margam County Park.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Best left as a 1952 silver screen classic.

Turner's sketchbook at Tate Britain.

Snowy Norfolk earlier in the week. Doesn't stop the air force practising their skirmishes overhead.

Nuuk, capital of Greenland. August 2024

Prince Christian Sound, Greenland August 2024

Stromness this afternoon. The sun sets as another snow shower arrives.

A chubby and wet polar bear cub walks toward the photographer on a gravel surface.

Two wet and dirty polar bear cubs peek out from behind a small pile of boulders and a patch of pink fireweed.

Two chubby and wet polar bear cubs walk towards the photographer along a gravel surface.

Looking back on some of my favourite moments of 2025. These 8-month-old cubs coming to check out the tundra buggy was definitely one of those unforgettable encounters. #mammals 🌿

Theatre: Royal Court season plus Branagh, Erivo, Sheen and Manville/Turner Les Liaisons are the recommendations.

First theatre show of the year and it's a train crash. 🕛

Fair play to Thames Water which worked overnight to fix a broken water pipe under the road within 24 hours of being notified this week.

YouTube video by [bluefrog] Final shutdown of MTV Music (UK) - 31/12/2025 6:00am

It’s done: The four MTV UK/Europe music channels have shut down. But they went out cheekily.

Final song on MTV Music was “Video Killed the Radio Star,” natch. youtu.be/9hqJ9Fe-FeQ?...

My photo shows a small figurine of an amber bear carved some 10,000 years ago during the Danish Mesolithic period. The bear is seen in profile facing right. The legs are incomplete. The ears, muzzle, and mouth are defined. The figurine is displayed on a small metal stand. The display lighting shines on the bear’s head and neck enhancing the translucence of the orange amber. The neck of the bear has a polished groove indicating it was once suspended on a cord or string. Length 6.5cm. The Fanø bear was found in 1991 on a beach on the west coast of the Danish island of Fanø, located off the south-western coast of Jutland. In the Stone Age the Danish coastline was different from today. “Since then the coastline has been influenced by later changes to the sea level as well as the rising up of the land after the last Ice Age. This rising of the land is still going on today. North of a line on the map the land has risen up and south of the line the coast has become submerged because of the subsequent rise in sea level. Therefore a proportion of Stone Age settlements south of the “tilt line” now lie under water or at the edge of the beach. Thus objects can be washed out in the sea and later be found on the beach”. The Fanø bear is one of a small number of amber bear figurines from the Baltic Sea region which have been assigned to the Mesolithic period by means of a typo-chronological approach Amber has many amazing properties: it’s warm to the touch, it’s a glossy translucent colour when polished, it gives off a fragrant scent when burnt, and when rubbed against fur or hair it can produce static electricity which ‘magically’ emits green sparks in the dark and can make hair stand on end.

As the year draws to a close, I’m signing off 2025 with a magical find!

An ancient amber bear. Carved some 10,000 years ago, it washed up on a beach at Fanø, Denmark, from a submerged Mesolithic settlement in the North Sea.

✨ Happy New Year all! ✨

National Museum of Denmark
📷 by me

#Archaeology

All My Sons is just as good as everyone says. Paapa Essiedu and Bryan Cranston are outstanding. Last theatre trip of 2025!