Alex MacFarlane

Fitzcarraldo

Can this be a solution?

Far Side cartoon showing a liner with a party taking place on board sailing towards some floating mines and a small boat apparently manned by pirates with a machine gun. There is a warship in the distance. It’s dated 12/6/87 and captioned “Through a gross navigational error, the Love Boat steams into the Strait of Hormuz”

Unexpected bit of pop culture prescience…

Sorcerer (1977), Dir. William Friedkin

A google maps view of the area around the Strait of Hormuz, with crude markup showing the 4 steps to successfully clearing the strait: 1. Build up speed 2. Hit Trampoline 3. Cool backflip 4. Nail the landing The boat is illustrated using a clip art yacht, and the trampoline is also just kind of floating there.

wait. wait. everyone hold on. i've solved it

two birds with one stone, really

maintaining my hyper-online inner monologue as I fall unconscious under a medieval-looking hedge and die

all I can think is that this woman is going to die of exposure (walking around in a sodden rag? too exhausted to shiver? extremities going numb? why is this all chatty modern hyperbole and not the last hours of a person's life)

The fish and the otters in particular. They're so good. They do also have people on them (no monarchy! Nan Shepherd on the fiver, which is cool).

I'm glad we're getting animals on the Bank of England bank notes, simply because I've loved the Royal Bank of Scotland ones for years and wanted the ones down here to be so lovely.

when I saw we're getting animals down here, I just thought that someone wanted to replicate how lovely the RBS ones are

what a banger

Coin used as Leeds bus fare was 2,000‑year‑old currency The coin was handed down to Peter Edwards from his grandfather in the 1950s.

This is the sort of thing a cashless society robs us of, the opportunity to try to get away with paying the bus fare in Carthaginian currency www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Mohamed Atta boarded an American Airlines flight for what could have been a peaceful flight to LA....

I need to be put into the machine that heals pokemon at the pokemon center

Andrew O’Hagan · Stay Classy: Mummy’s Favourite The late queen can be held responsible for much, but nobody could accuse her of seeming to enjoy her role. For the...

It amazes me that people still support the system of royalty and titles. Andrew and Fergie aren't an aberration, they're the natural manifestation of power and money beyond consequence. May the whole thing finally fall soon.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I'll love those aerial roots forever

A street shining amber under streetlights buried in trees after a drizzling rain, Kolkata.

After brief rain, midnight, Kolkata.

😍

dare I ask what's in the others

only one slice of cheese 😢

Europe's only regular Ring-billed Gull flock shows signs of recovery After years of decline, numbers have increased considerably on Terceira, Azores, this winter.

After almost two decades of decline, Europe's only regular wintering flock of Ring-billed Gull has shown a welcome recovery in numbers this winter: 

I was there during Nowruz

I was in Tehran this time last year. I want you to see how beautiful my city is. I want you to see the city the US/Israel is trying to wipe off the face of the earth

I'm so sorry for your loss

congrats!!

beautiful park friends

“The way that these remains are stored and displayed shows a complete lack of respect. They’re denied dignity, even in death. This is a great shame for our nation.”

the UK got a few days of full, beautiful sunshine for the first time in MONTHS during the one precise week my parents went overseas. next week's forecast is currently: clouds and rain.

Sir Gawain Fucks the Green Knight Here’s a tale ripe for telling. Can’t say where I heard it first—in pretty French or Dutch. Perhaps as a young lady walking ‘longside the Rijn. I’ll spin it for you in an English tongue, fine as frost on lace, sweet as malmsey wine. So it goes that young Gawain, strength kissed into his limbs, fresh as the bright dawn, comes trembling down to the Green Chapel. You’ve heard this tale, I know. His breath makes peach fuzz in the air, fear into him like worm to apple. Christmas Morn is too soon, time is short. You have your own life to save, he says, picking through thorn and bough to an ivy-clad cave. The creature is the Jack O’ the Glen / forest prince / the wood’s own laughter. Beard of lichen and eyes like dark elder. I need not repeat their exchange—my boy’s flinching heart—a songbird in a rattled cage. It is after the blows are dealt, he asks, what god is worshipped in these green trees? Boy, the Knight replies, boy, were you not just down on your knees? The Knight is the tang of sap / bark rough and petal soft / everywhere leaves scatter / easily crushed / Gawain clings / hardly knows what he clings to / he is the forest and the flower / a turmoil of roots / where god and tree meet and melt / the birch the oak the fern the deer / mushroom maggot crow / here Gawain is branch and bud / blow returned for blow

This is a sheer indulgence on my part, but it turns out I never actually shared the poem here, so:

🍃

Last four films watched! I loved Iphigenia (1977). #LetterboxdFriday 📽️