Something I think the casting of the LotR films really obscures is how much older Frodo is, and the extent to which Merry and (especially) Pippin's parallel Gondor–Rohan squire progressions are coming-of-age, boys-to-men stories while the more adult Frodo undertakes an adult quest
In the Middle Ages, before the printing press was invented, scribes rewrote hundreds of books, so of course, errors were made. Scribes attributed their mistakes to a demon called Titivillus, who caused errors so he could collect them in a sack to show the Devil. #WyrdWednesday
A bright red ladybird (or ladybug, for my American friends) amid the petals of a bright yellow daffodil. More daffodils and a parcel of blue sky can be seen in the background
In cometh the spring!
“The writer has felt and experienced the wonder of things—the beauty of the sun and the hieroglyphic mystery of the figures that the birds make in the air—and he feels, quite rightly, that to describe wonders one must suggest wonder by words.”
(A. Machen “Hieroglyphics”)
🎨 Oorchach
#wyrdwednesday
Kid in Lidl this morning was calling "muuummmyy! muuuuuummmyyyyy! mummy!" with the exact intonation of the gas-masked boy in The Empty Child, and I was having flashbacks to being a Moffat-traumatised six-year-old
Old Oak & Misty Moon
Upper Bavaria, Germany
#moon #fullmoon #vollmond
This is one of the most beautiful toponymic etymologies I have ever encountered
Greg Davies: Great task, well done. Didn‘t eat a thing.
Persephone: Thank you.
Alex Horne: Ah. Well. Let’s take another look at that pomegranate.
Err yeah hi there, I was calling to ask if you do any kind of Butlerian Jihad / Quash the Rise of 21st-Century Nazism combo deal? Like if you'd consider putting a discount on my order if I'm looking to get both?
Mikhail Belomlinsky- Bard vs. Smaug (The Hobbit) 1976
🌕
A regal bird for a wee personal project I'm working on.
#birdart #linocut #linoart #handcarved #birdprint #birdlove #inky #inkyart #makeartnotwar
Eve: Should I eat this fruit even though God told us not to
Serpent: It isn't just a fruit — it's a future. You're determining your own path. You've got this!
Eve: God's really mad, I shouldn't have eaten it
Serpent: You're right! That one's on me. I'm only an AI model and can make mistakes,
I know you want to give up sometimes, but wouldn't it be fun if you achieved your dreams out of pure spite?
[guy holding a guitar, naming intermolecular forces] anyway, here's Van der Waals
Landscape, hill, trees and hedgerow in foreground, banked with snowdrops, snow on hill, sunshine, painting.
Snow and Snowdrops, Ann Arnold.
Newton: we stand on the shoulders of giants
AI bro, several giants up: **stepping onto a wobbly chair that is still clearly supported by all the giants** err actually, loser, we've REPLACED giants now **does a fist pump and somehow punches through his own frontal lobe**
Oh, stunning!
An incredibly lifelike illustration of Paddington Bear, official psychopomp to the British royal family, gently escorting a man in top hat and tails (carrying a Puzza Express takeout) to Belmarsh
Ok I have far too much to do today to spend more than 2 minutes on this but here’s my political cartoon of the day, please enjoy
The glee with which genAI weirdos speak about replacing creativity is vile. The prospect of millennia-old traditions of art and storytelling being eroded and endangered in favour of the output of a statistical model (trained on those very traditions!) seems to genuinely delight them. It's repulsive.
A tiny golden frame with an oval opening. Inside the frame is a little owl with a new moon behind it. To the right of the picture is a pencil to give scale.
Today’s moment of calm is a tiny owl in an antique pinchbeck frame
Hearing the really beautiful hoots of a male tawny owl out on the lane right now
Primroses are starting to flower in the woods - Spring’s just around the corner! #WildFlowerHour
Barack O'Starmer: uhh let me be Keir
The Wild Bargain Hunt
Tablet addiction is nothing new...
Discovered #OnThisDay - 16 February - in 1740 and associated with the Theatre at Herculeaneum. A woman dressed in white holds both writing tablet and stylus, seemingly deep in thought. #Archaeology #Art 🏺
Image: National Archaeological Museum, Naples (9074).
Not joking at all when I say an important magical object matching this description (antlers and all) was featured in a fantasy novel I read last month. A fantasy novel set in England in the 70s ... in the home counties
A vaguely Olympics-related fun fact is that in Czech you can say something expensive 'stojí majlant' ('costs a fortune').
This unusual word "majlant" comes from German Mailand – the city of Milan! It seems to have come via Czechs fighting in 19th-century Italy, clearly impressed by the rich city.
Sorry, you're getting decommissioned and Tiന്ന Henke is taking over
