David Hewson

Who’d have predicted something like this even five years ago? Italy seemed to serve as the joke side in the Six Nations for so long.
Not any more 🤗

Bloody hell 🇮🇹 Well done!

Can’t be arsed

But this is east Kent where we are Men of Kent not Kentish men. Some people are a bit touchy about these things still here!

A host of Kent daffodils.

A host of Kent daffodils.

Coming soon to Rome: A new bicycle lane beside the Colosseum

While Trump monetises war, Iran women’s team deliver great act of sporting heroism | Barney Ronay In refusing to sing the national anthem these athletes have placed themselves in grave danger while Gianni Infantio sides with the American war machine

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Iranian schools, hospital and landmarks among civilian sites hit during US-Israeli strikes A local in Tehran tell BBC Verify that the city has been turned into a

BBC Verify has analysed verified videos and satellite imagery that show severe damage to a hospital, sporting centres, a UNESCO world heritage site and two schools since US and Israeli strikes on Iran began on Saturday, as the number of civilian casualties grows.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Billboard - NO MATTER HOW MANY COUNTRIES YOU INVADE, YOU'LL STILL BE A NONCE

London, UK

Labour's Julie Griffiths wins Murton by-election Julie Griffiths is elected after previously representing the Murton ward until 2025.

Interesting. If Labour got their act together and started looking like a real Labour Party they could maybe turn this around.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thanks. There’s a new Arnold coming in May. This is next year’s book.

Spellin is woke innit

Oooo…. You’re hard.

Something different

Closing down this week's writing on 85,460 words. Two chapters to come and I know roughly what they entail. Initial draft in two to three weeks I reckon. First scene written on October 15. So the usual six months or so.

Revealed: The Staggering Amount of Time Nigel Farage has Spent on ‘Second’ Jobs Since Becoming an MP The Reform UK leader has logged more than 1,100 hours for 14 outside employers since his election in July 2024

Revealed: The Staggering Amount of Time Nigel Farage has Spent on ‘Second’ Jobs Since Becoming an MP

FRESCO OF S. ABBACIRO, 757-767 CE. ATRIUM OF S. MARIA ANTIQUA This open-air space was covered with frescoes by the C7, when a hall and rooms behind it, probably a guardhouse protecting the entrance to the Domitianic ramp that gave access to the imperial palace of the Domus Tiberiana, was converted into a church in the mid C6. This monastic saint, Abbot Cyrus or Abbaciro, under the rule of pope Paul I in the mid C8, was painted in the linear, hieratic style of Byzantine art. Paul I welcomed many refugees from the East who were fleeing the iconoclastic persecution then underway. We see the elderly, bearded saint, his brow furrowed, looking out at us frontally. In one of his hands he holds a small case with a surgeon's instruments in it. Inside the church was a chapel dedicated to the doctor saints, like Abbaciro, Cosmas, and Damian. The ill faithful could sleep overnight in the chapel, hoping to get a healing dream from these "anargyroi", "those who cure without payment".

A warm orange halo illuminates this #fresco from the atrium of #SantaMariaAntiqua in the #Forum in #Rome. The series of #Domitian's halls at the base of the #DomusTiberiana were converted into a church in the C6. For #FrescoFriday we're looking at this doctor saint from 757-767. #AncientBluesky 🏺

I can't listen to any of them

You’d hope so. But Trump cares nothing for copyright any more than he cares for life.

I couldn’t believe the White House would really put out an infantile celebration of death and violence.
But I was wrong. This is genuine.
America is lost.

Has anybody told Farage, Badenoch and all those media commentators that most people in the UK loathe Trump and think his war on Iran is madness? I know they can never resist a pop at Starmer but...

🎂 Celebrate the fiftieth birthday of the beloved cloth cat Bagpuss, and share Sandra Kerr’s vivid memories of the 1960s folk revival in this classic episode from 2024.

🎧 Listen here: pod.fo/e/39467e

Ah diddums

Dubai influencers share near-identical videos with footage of Dubai crown prince | LBC Videos featuring the caption ‘I know who protects us’ have been circulating on social media

I had no idea until this all started that the UAE licences and pays many influencers to live there and write positively about the regime.

That puts a whole new spin on things.

Propagandists in pocket of regime.

It's why all the messaging is the same.

www.lbc.co.uk/article/duba...

Six years ago today we took this photo of a dejected looking security guard outside a deserted Capitoline Museums in Rome. Three days later Italy shut down every museum in the country due to the covid pandemic.

Ostia Antica May 2007

Only for the rest of us. It will make Trump and his chums richer than ever.

Blackout in Cuba leaves millions without power amid US oil chokehold Latest outage darkens island facing dwindling oil reserves and increasing pressure from Washington A blackout has hit the western half of Cuba, leaving millions of people in Havana and beyond without power in the latest outage to affect an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves and facing increasing pressure from Washington. Cuba has experienced a series of major blackouts in recent years, even before the US cut off oil shipments to the Caribbean’s largest island. Cuba’s government has attributed its economic crisis to decades of economic sanctions from the US. Continue reading...

Blackout in Cuba leaves millions without power amid US oil chokehold

He seems to be in a race to be worse than Putin.