Fr David Goode

Wonderful service. I was in the Proctors’ procession.

In the front garden just now.

#Photography
#Ely
#Fujifilm

My photo shows a Roman fresco of a brown rabbit with long ears, curled on the ground, with a rounded, soft-looking body. Its head is lowered as if nibbling at three figs placed in front of it. The figs are small and round with short stems, painted in dark reddish and bluish tones. From Pompeii. Now on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Here’s a charming Roman fresco of a little rabbit eating figs 🐰❤️

From Pompeii, 45-79 AD.

Now at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. 📷 by me

#FrescoFriday
#Archaeology

The image shows a rectangular Roman dice tower (turricula) made of four copper alloy (bronze) plates with punched cut-out Latin letters and cut-out decorative patterns. At the bottom front is a stepped exit chute with small bronze bells attached to the opening. The tower is a Roman anti-cheating device. It has an open top and is hollow inside except for three staggered, downward-sloping plates, designed to randomize dice as they fall, ensuring unpredictable dice rolls. When the dice rolled out of the exit chute they rang the bells! There is a decorative dolphin either side of the stepped exit chute. The top of the front plate has two decorative pine cone finials. Height 25 cm. There is a single die shown next to the stepped base to illustrate how it was used. The front inscription reads: PICTOS VICTOS HOSTIS DELETA LVDITE SECVRI Translated as: ‘The Picts defeated, the enemy has been destroyed, play in safety’. Around the top of the three remaining sides, a second inscription made with cut out letters reads: ‘UTERI/FELIX/VIVAS’ translated as ‘Use happily; may you live well’. Found at a Roman villa at Froitzheim in Germany in 1985.

Roman anti-cheating gaming accessory!

This Roman ‘turricula’ (dice tower) was used to ensure a fair roll of the dice! 🎲🎲🎲

Dice dropped into the top, tumbled over sloping internal levels, and appeared randomly below.

From Froitzheim, Germany, AD 300-400

📷 LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn

#Archaeology

This image, despite its muted colours and tones, is all about power – of water, diesel powered narrowboats, the railway's overhead power lines, solar panels, and the lines bringing power to Holt Fen Pumping Station to drain the fen after heavy rain unleashed by the power of nature.
#Photography

My friend Mike visited me on my boat this morning for a cup of coffee.

#BlackandWhite
#Ely
#Monochrome
#Photography

There’s something wonderful about the flat, grey light of a misty morning, muting and diffusing everything. No such thing as bad light, just bad photographs!

#Ely
#Photography

I’m moored on Ely Riverside tonight, opposite the moonlit Cathedral Marina.

#Ely
#Photography

Here's a shot I took a couple of weeks ago of a lovely couple sitting on a bench by the river.

#Photography
#StreetPhotography
#Ely

It's a misty start out in the Fen on the Old West River.

#BlackandWhite
#Ely
#Monochrome

I’m not so sure. Here’s the result from today’s YouGov poll. There’s no room for the don’t knows on the screenshot, but they were 18 per cent.

Holt Fen a few minutes ago from the flood bank of the Old West River.

#BlackandWhite
#Ely
#Monochrome

The view from the office this morning. I'm not sure work views get much better than this.

#BlackandWhite
#Ely
#Monochrome

Starmer has the spine of an invertebrate and the integrity of a spiv.

Exactly. People like Trump only ever gamble with other people's lives.

In the front garden again.

#BlackandWhite
#Monochrome
#Fujifilm
#Ely

Really concerned to hear the Defence Secretary refuse to rule out UK's involvement in future strikes on Iran.

Iraq lessons must be learned.
Further escalation in the Middle East makes us all less safe.

Starmer must rule out UK involvement immediately.

Galileo's sketches of the moon from en:Sidereus Nuncius, published in March 1610. Five circular engraved illustrations arranged on a white page — one at the top centre, two in the middle row, and two in the bottom row — each depicting the Moon at a different phase. The images are rendered in fine crosshatching and stippling, with dense black ink filling the shadowed portions and detailed textural work in the illuminated zones. Along the terminator — the boundary between light and dark — rugged, jagged edges suggest mountains, craters, and uneven terrain, with small circular formations visible that read clearly as craters. The uppermost image shows the Moon mostly in shadow with only a crescent of illuminated surface visible at right. The middle and lower pairs show progressively more of the lit surface, with the terminator cutting diagonally across each disk. The overall effect is observational and scientific rather than decorative, conveying a three-dimensional, geologically complex surface. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereus_Nuncius#/media/File:Galileo's_sketches_of_the_moon.png

A Scholar Recognized the Inscriptions in the Margins of This Manuscript. The Scribbles Turned Out to Be Galileo’s Handwritten Notes

by Christian Thorsberg

www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/s...

Galileo at PG:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subje...

#books #astronomy

Cardinal found with phone during secret conclave to elect Pope Leo, book says The secret conclave that elected Pope Leo head of the Catholic Church last May was interrupted when one of the 133 cardinals involved was found carrying a cellphone, a massive security breach, a book ...

The secret conclave that elected Pope Leo head of the Catholic Church last May was interrupted when one of the 133 cardinals involved was found carrying a cellphone, a massive security breach, a book released on Sunday revealed. For @reuters.com

Two ancient copper spoons with decoration on the handles

In honour of #StDavidsDay here are the wonderful Penbryn Spoons, which were found in 1829 beneath a heap of stones inside the Castell Nadolig hillfort, near Penbryn in Ceredigion, Wales. The pair of cast bronze ‘spoons’ date to the Late Iron Age (c. 50 BCE–100 CE).

March is the time for digging the beds in the garden. #MedievalCalendar
MS M.399; Da Costa hours, illuminated by Simon Bening; ca. 1515 CE; Belgium; f.4v

March is the time for pruning.
#medievalcalendar
Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. D. 939; Astrological and ecclesiastical calendar in six pieces; 14th century; England; section 2ar @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Lost 19th century film by Méliès discovered at the Library | Timeless Library conservators recently made a startling discovery in a batch of decaying film reels -- a long-lost 1897 film by early cinema icon George Méliès. The French magician-turned-filmmaker's

Lost 19th century film by Méliès discovered at the Library

blogs.loc.gov/loc/2026/02/...

Books about motion pictures at PG:

www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subje...

#film

Never mind about the headline. The way to success with the teaser must be "Stop reading the Daily Mail".

Meanwhile, in the Betty Wu Lee Garden the horse is smiling.

#BlackandWhite
#Monochrome
#Cambridge

Another orchid.

#BlackandWhite
#Monochrome
#Cambridge

On the windowsill in the corridor outside my room in College the beautiful orchids are starting to blossom again after their winter prune.

#BlackandWhite
#Monochrome
#Cambridge

I’ve been in Cambridge today, presenting a cohort of my successful students for their degrees in the Senate-House. But first the buffet reception in College, for which we needed fizz, and lots of glasses.

#BlackandWhite
#Monochrome
#Cambridge

Starmer is finished says someone who never even got started.

Keir Starmer – living proof that man can survive a triple charisma bypass.