Loot and Plunder

YouTube video by Nyamakop Relooted Announcement Trailer

"We are going to do whatever it takes to take back Africa's belongings. And we're going to do it together!"

Relooted, coming soon from South African game developer Nyamakop @nyamakop youtu.be/KgPxPfXb734

Inside America’s booming immigration detention industry The enormous US deportation programme is enriching companies as detainees complain of poor treatment

"About 85 per cent of people in immigration custody are held in places run for profit, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), an archive of government data and reports. "https://ig.ft.com/us-immigration-detention/

Detail from the southern door at St. Nicholas Church, Barfrestone

Detail from the southern door at St. Nicholas Church, Barfrestone

Detail from the southern door at St. Nicholas Church, Barfrestone. A rabbit riding a goat?

Detail from the southern door at St. Nicholas Church, Barfrestone

We don't need plunder. We have enough treasure of our own.

The southern door at St. Nicholas Church, Barfrestone (pop. 60) near Dover - s645975992.websitehome.co.uk

"One of the best late Norman churches in Kent," said John Betjeman.

Grave of Sir Francis Younghusband, Lytchett Minster Parish Church, Sunday

You've heard of the Prince and the Plunder.

Meet the Love Guru and the Loot.

Lytchett Minster Parish Church, Sunday

Screenshot of Guardian article: "Liz Truss and hard-right group accused of scaremongering over Parthenon marbles. Ex-PM among those saying they will take legal action over ‘covert’ plans to return sculptures to Greece,"

Here starts the campaign for Britain to repatriate the plundered acronym "PAC", in fact the whole concept. It belongs in the US of A.

"Great British Pac calls for an end to any negotiations to return the Parthenon sculptures or risk legal challenges."
www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Cover of "The Prince and the Plunder" by Andrew Heavens

Thrilled to report that Barbara Blake Hannah - yes *that* Barbara Blake Hannah - has reviewed "The Prince and the Plunder".

"So vivid and descriptive that at times I felt I was watching a documentary film, not just reading a book." Thank you! www.theprinceandtheplunder.com/2025/07/02/r...

Ethiopia's 1983-85 famine: the musical.

Sacred to the memory would be the way to start it, I guess.

And on the dates, Alemayehu died on November 14, 1879 and was buried in Windsor on November 21.

His generally acepted birthday is April 23, 1861 - rather suspiciously, St George's Day. But I have never seen the source for that.

Latin scholars, please help.

I am trying to translate this memorial for Ethiopia's Prince Alemayehu in Rugby School chapel.

How close has Google Translate got me?

Cunning - really? Players or playmates? And are those dates right? They don't match the record.

South London Press closes down after 160 years covering UK capital Independent local newspaper the South London Press has abruptly closed down after 160 years as it goes into insolvency proceedings.

The South London Press, where I did my first work experience, just "abruptly" shut down. pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/r...

The first newspapers to pay me - the @chardandilynews.bsky.social and the @expressandstar.com - are still there, but scaled down.

Brave new future a little less shiny this am

Bow down to him on Saturday / Salute him now his birthday's come #happybirthday #bobdylan

I have never come across that. But it sounds like a beautiful thing to do. An echo of the children's hand prints people keep at the beginning of life.

On death masks. In the small world of Prince Alemayehu Studies, my thing, the search for his mask is one of our holy grails.

It seems weird. But then I look at the locks of babies' hair - even some milk teeth - that my family has kept over ther generations. We are all just a little odd, and always have been.

Signed photograph of Elena of Montenegro, Queen of Italy and Albania, Empress of Ethiopia ... briefly

Yours for up to 200 Swiss francs ($240) www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

A 1930s anti-fascism poster with 'Abisinia' as the victim.

"Envy and Greed have married, and from this vile marriage is born, like a fruit of rot, the law of the strongest ... or the most envious."

A historical artefact with nothing to teach us today. www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auctio...

i thought you'd like to know
that 'the parrots of the caribbean'
have saved my day

Wild camping won! www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Very excitingly, the V&A has started taking bookings for its Order an Object scheme. You order things from the museum's vast storerooms - and they bring them out to you!

Here are my 5 treasures from Britain's 1868 Abyssinian "expedition". Have a go www.vam.ac.uk/info/order-a...

Should holy relics be put up for sale? The market for sacred artefacts is an ethical minefield Sotheby’s has postponed its sale of gems linked to the remains of the Buddha, in a case that has sparked legal and moral debates

"Do cremated ashes classify as human remains? Should there be international trade in religious relics? What, in the words of the fictive archaeologist Indiana Jones, 'belongs in a museum'?"

And don't get me started on tabots.

www.ft.com/content/489a... via Melanie Gerlis in @financialtimes.com

@righttoroam.bsky.social #dartmoor #freecamping

Darwall and another (Appellants) v Dartmoor National Park Authority (Respondent) - UK Supreme Court Does section 10(1) of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 (the “1985 Act”) confer on the public a right to pitch tents or otherwise make camp overnight on the Dartmoor Commons (“the Commons”)?

A big judgment coming next Wednesday. Will Dartmoor remain the last place where we can camp freely in England? Or will the landowners win? @supremecourt.uk @righttoroam.bsky.social #dartmoor #freecamping supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2...

Robert Francis Prevost has been elected Pope Leo XIV—why does this matter to the worlds of art and heritage? The Chicago-born pontiff—the new spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics and the proprietor in trust of the great art and architecture treasures of the Vatican—has publicly supported his predecessor...

"Leo XIV becomes proprietor in trust of the great art and architectural treasures of Vatican City, and will be looked to as a moral authority ... Under (his predecessor) Francis, the papacy made a number of symbolic gestures around ... cultural restitution." www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/05/08/r...

Treasure found while flat-hunting in Lewisham

Happy 5th Day of May to all who celebrate.

🎥: Bob Dylan performs “Isis” with the Rolling Thunder Revue in Montréal on December 4, 1975.

Spike Island (film) - Wikipedia

10 minutes in, I realised Spike Island was a costume drama en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_I...

A ray of joy, as ever.

Edinburgh University returns indigenous Ainu skulls to Japan Three skulls donated to the university by a Scottish doctor in 1913 have been returned to Hokkaido.

Scotland leads the way again.

"Rather than a diminishment of the University's collections," Prof Gillingwater said, the returns "represent an opportunity for the University to work with communities in order to build new relationships and friendships." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Sudan: How war ravaged museums and priceless artefacts Sudan's national museum is among the institutions that have been looted and vandalised during the war.

"They destroyed our identity, and our history," Ikhlas Abdel Latif Ahmed, director of museums at Sudan's National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, told the BBC's Newsday programme.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Happy Birthday to Ethiopia's Prince Alemayehu ... and England's William Shakespeare