First time at my best friends house 35 years ago, her dad, a hilarious and much missed man, made me laugh and I spat tea all over their cat. Mortified and I don’t think the cat never sat on my lap again. No keyboard damage though

Merry Christmas - will miss you in IMC, but hopefully see you in something else this year

Yep- promised myself a lovely lie-in- awake since 6.30.

The most brutal way of telling someone they’re a few sandwiches short of a picnic that I’ve heard in French is t’es pas la truite la plus oxygénée de la rivière. It means “you’re not the most oxygenated trout in the river.”

* read on for similar insults from around the world (a thread)…

“A Busy, Busy Day at the Airport”

By @rubenbolling.bsky.social, after Richard Scarry.

Genius.

Click in.

Order and chaos- lady maisery

Met Museum photo of an Ancient Egyptian artist’s painting of a swallow on a flake of limestone, dated to the New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, c. 1479-1458 BC. The sparrow stands in profile with head to the right. It is delicately painted with a pinkish body with the outline and details painted in a reddish/brown. It’s legs, eye, and beak are painted black. H. 6.6 cm (2 5/8 in.) W. 10.6 cm (4 3/16 in.) This may have been a practice drawing of the sparrow hieroglyph which was used for words meaning ‘small’, ‘poor’, or ‘bad’. The Egyptian artisans who decorated tombs and temples made practice sketches on flakes of limestone which are known by egyptologists as ostraca (singular: ostracon). Sometimes the drawings were used as a template when transferring an image to the wall of a tomb or a temple. Limestone flakes were readily available for this purpose as by-products of the construction of temples and rock-cut tombs. A number of ostraca were recovered at Deir el-Bahri during the 1922-23 MMA excavations.

Artists have always loved to sketch!

Sketch of a sparrow from Egypt dated c. 1479–1458 BC.

Some 3,500 years ago in Egypt, artists used flakes of limestone rather than paper sketchpads!

MMA excavations 1922-23, Deir el-Bahri. 📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology

I had this on a postcard in my room in my teens- beautiful

Just so so joyous

men and women gather talking on island in Seine

Here’s what Renoir & Monet saw one day in 1869 when they sat side-by-side to paint the scene at La Grenouillère, a popular meeting, eating & boating spot on the Seine ~ Renoir's emphasis on pleasantness contrasts with Monet's vibrant treatment of the water www.artinsociety.com/floating-ple...

"The Visitation" (Fols. 39v–40r) features two women, dressed in blue gowns and gold robes.

Penitential Psalms and Litany (continuation) (Fols. 80v–81r). Text of silver and gold is offset with green initials and surrounded with a floral border, set against a blue field.

"Mass of the Virgin" (Fols. 22v–23r). A large gold initial against a green field and a small black and gold dragon are key features of this folio.

"Massacre of the Innocents" (Fols. 62v–63r) A miniature depicting children being taken from women in front of a king. Floral border against a blue field.

The extraordinary Black Hours, a medieval Book of Hours created in Bruges, Belgium around 1470. The vellum, dyed black, contrasts with a limited color palette of gold, blue, rose, green, gray, and white.

Morgan Library & Museum (MS M.493)

#medievalmanuscript #oldbook #c15th #skystorians 📚 🗃️ 📜

Reminder to the NHS staff among you that there’s a workforce consultation in process with imminent deadline of Dec 2 I think. It’s your chance to have a say, especially if you want to put staff well-being front & centre. change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

Just asked for it for my birthday after reading this- always love his restaurant reviews

Studied this for my A levels 32 years ago- found it in a book shop last week and going to see how much life has changed my experience of it