Wanda Opalińska

Monochrome horse heads looking left on a cave wall

May you have the energy of these fabulous Ice Age beasts as you enter the lunar New Year of the Horse! 🦣🐎

A close up side view of nine of the ivory hound and jackal pins placed in holes on the game board

Look at the superb hound and jackal detail on these ancient game pieces! 😍

📷 The Met

Carol Carter:

Surely to God there is a way to keep events like this free-to-air without this intrusion.

One of the best actors of her generation. Easily one of the best comedians of all time. As much Catherine O’Hara as we got, it was nowhere near enough.

Instead of this if the country were offered a free maths skills upgrade / numeracy / physics/basic biology refresher, THAT would really help people. But no tech giants will fund that. Infuriating.

Front page of Royal Historical Society blog post with image of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, photograph by Rudolph Simon, 2013, Wilkimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Text reads: "On Holocaust Memorial Day we need more history, not just more memory' and abstract: In this post, Andy Pearce – Director of the Centre for Holocaust Education at UCL – considers the current levels of knowledge of the Holocaust among UK secondary school students. UCL studies, in 2016 and 2026, reveal a troubling and enduring divergence between popular understandings of the persecution and murder of Jews in Europe, in the 1930s and 1940s, and the findings of scholarly historical research. 27 January 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain. As Andy argues, prevalent and popular misperceptions risk being sustained if the Holocaust becomes a subject for remembrance and memory, rather than of history and historical scholarship. It is only though ‘more history’, shared widely and publicly, that we may seek to redress error, distortion and denial."

"On Holocaust Memorial Day we need more history, not just more memory" bit.ly/4t6wPx6

Dr Andy Pearce, Director of @uclholocaust.bsky.social, writes today on the RHS blog.

#Skystorians

I am so sorry to hear this. Felix brought such joy here - he radiated goodness. I am so sorry for your loss

Channel 4 quote posting their own post. Original post: "Because we did not win the BAFTA for best TV channel ever we have decided to try and claim ITV as ours." Quote post: "Update. The BBC has said they would give us one of their BAFTAs to calm us down."

Update from Channel 4:

Opting Out of the Anthropic Settlement: What Authors Should Know - The Authors Guild The Authors Guild has received numerous emails from authors asking about letters they received from different law firms advising them to opt out of the Bartz v. Anthropic settlement and to join separa...

The @authorsguild.org offers guidance on the proliferating solicitations from lawyers/law firms urging authors to opt out of the Anthropic settlement with the (highly speculative) promise of more money authorsguild.org/news/opting-...

Text: Old adversaries Sir, Your obituary (Jan 19) of Mr Justice Blofeld rightly referred to his fine sense of humour. When he first sat in Winchester a barrister called Richard Bond stood up to open the first case. Mr Justice Blofeld began to stroke the white ermine on the sleeve of his High Court judge’s robes as if stroking a cat. He then said with a smile: “We meet at last, Mr Bond.” Sir John Royce Clifton, Bristol

Letter in Times today

If you haven't seen it, Bill Watterson gave a speech in 1990 to his alma mater, Kenyon college

Full speech is here and it is absolutely worth your time: www.neil.blog/full-speech-...

This is my favourite part

Green woodpecker collage, made from a Yorkshire Tea cardboard box.

Collage assembly in progress - scissors used to dismantle box and cut pieces to form woodpecker shapes, and Pritt-stick used to fix pieces to paper

✂️ Yesterday I finally responded to @agakowalska.bsky.social’s challenge to make a collage from a single piece of packaging. I present to you a green (tea) woodpecker, made from a big Yorkshire Tea box. It was fun and I’ll be rooting through our recycling bin for more materials later on ♻️

That’s superb!

we’re in the vet’s office waiting room and they just called for Agamemnon. we all looked at the Great Dane but it turns out Agamemnon is an orange kitten in a backpack that makes him look like an astronaut cheese puff

BIG FIGHT AT POLAND’S WROCLAW ZOO!!!

He’s making a list
He’s crossing it out
He’s making a list
He’s crossing it out
He’s making a list
He’s crossing it out
He’s making a list
He’s crossing it out
Santa Claus is really struggling with his first draft

That gave me a much-needed laugh in the middle of some slightly-fraught festive wrangling. Thank you

Then they came for the sarcastic people and I was like oh great that's exactly what we need right now well done to all concerned.

Funny animal videos no longer being trustworthy just fucking sucks all around. I love the wonder of animal behavior and what it says about the experience of being alive. It's because it happened in reality that it's so fun. It's not fun if it was just made up. There's no wonder there.

Relatable Corvid

Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Sigourney Weaver, in her career-defining role, being asked to reconsider her narrative arc by a xenomorph

Getting notes…

There are so many nasty bugs about. (Mine left me rasping like Albert Steptoe)
Hope you feel much more modern v soon xx

That’s the new middle age!

Tom Stoppard: A BBC Radio Drama Collection Audiobook on Libro.fm The collected BBC radio productions of the internationally renowned playwright Tom Stoppard One of the giants of British theatre, Sir Tom Stoppard has been writing for the stage and screen for over 50...

libro.fm/audiobooks/9...

With Stoppard's death it's worth mentioning that you can get the BBC radio versions of pretty much his entire body of work for a single audiobook credit (also available on Audible, but Libro.fm is far better)

Thank you for reminding me of one of my favourite Stoppard lines!

He was magnificent, wasn’t he? What a bloody shame.

Oh no! He was a kind, wonderful, generous man. What a huge loss.

It’s such fantastic news! What an achievement (and a v cool photo too!) xxx