street where the riches of ages are stowed (12. 418)

Via our peripatetic companion, Messy Nessy Chic, we learn that the iconic anchor antique shop, Alice’s, of the famous fleamarket mile of London’s Portobello Road—the scene sadly a bit diminished in recent years with gentrification—is on the market. The business had been in the same family for three generations and was featured in the original Italian Job movie as well as in the Paddington Bear stories. The property consists not only of the retail space but the maisonette also has a spacious living quarters above. Much more at the links above—anything and everything a chap can unload is sold off the barrow in Portobello Road.

a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (12. 413)

With today being International Crab Day, around since Jurassic times and with one of the most complex and contentious cladograms in Nature, we show some extra respect to a museum in Margate dedicated to the marine crustacean for championing transgender rights after the UK Supreme Court, sadly taking a cue from the US culture wars, ruled that women are defined by “biological sex” to the exclusion of transgender accommodations, and whilst not eliminating rights and protections completely nor declaring that there are only two sexes as in America, it is consequential insofar as single-sex services including restrooms, changing rooms, hospitals, prisons, sports clubs and shelters. The judgment however specifically stated that the biological characteristics delineating men from women are assumed to be self-evident and requiring no further explanation or nuance, according to the court’s interpretation of the Equality Act of 2010—to which drawing on its expertise in evolutionary history and biology the museum countered that there are no binaries in Nature and it was an abuse of science to suggest sex and gender was not on a spectrum. Other institutions have spoken up in solidarity, expressing rigorous opposition to changes in intimate spaces.

kitchen sink realism (12. 390

The production team behind the difficult Netflix series Adolescence about incel culture has announced it will reboot the incredibly bleak Cold War mini-series Threads (see previously, see also), aired in 1984 that depicted Sheffield harrowed by a nearby nuclear strike. BBC documentary filmmaker Mick Jackson, behind the original screening will participate in crafting episodic drama which the network feels whose time has sadly returned four decades on.

i love king charles—sounds like a great idea (12. 327)

In between issuing two new executive orders designed to further undermine recent judicial decisions against the assault on the administrative state to void rulings that the OPM could not order another agency to terminate employees and affirm loyalty oaths and that DOGE could not be refused access to “siloed” data, Trump, on his social media website, linked to an article from a UK tabloid suggesting that during his upcoming, second state visit, Charles will make a “secret offer” for the United States to join the Commonwealth as its fifty-seventh associate member, connected as former territories through historic and cultural ties, in order to dampen tension over pulling in Canada as the fifty-first state and escalating trade disputes and might be received as an alternative to the tenuous relationship to NATO and the EU. While floated and endorsed by the Queen, reportedly, during Trump’s first term, claims that it is being entertained at the highest levels challenge veracity. Charles III as the titular head of state with the wanna be king in fealty sounds preferable however symbolic and outside the realm of possibility and would possibly deflate tariffs by placating his ego. PfRC has reached out to the Commonwealth for comment.

♀ (12. 293)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, we learn that on this day in 1914 suffragette and activist Mary Raleigh Richardson walked into the National Gallery and attacked The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez with a meat cleaver in protest of the arrest and incarceration of movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst the day prior. After slashing the canvas, apprehended and sentenced to the maximum allowable for vandalising a work of art of six-months, Richardson issued a statement to the press: “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history,” her actions further embellished in the papers in violent terms and framed as a callous murder of a actual person—an enduring problem when most female eponyms bestowed on places are not for actual figures but rather goddesses and deifications and more defamed by the omission, see also here and here. Velázquez’ 1651 work, successfully restored after the attack but again vandalised in 2023 by Just Stop Oil activists, was rather singular as one of the few nudes to come out of Spain during the Inquisition (Richardson also objected to the way gentleman gallery-goers leered at the image) and the motif, often copied, gave rise to the psychological, depictive departure known as the Venus Effect (cf, titular planetary symbol) with the goddess contemplating her reflection with back turned to the audience, seeing her face though not directly behind her, the intuitive framing often used in cinema to better frame an actor looking in the mirror.

star turn (12. 253)

Via the always engrossing Things Magazine, we are directed towards the vexing but useful author and astrologer of German extraction employed by MI5’s Special Operations Executive—an agency established by Churchill best known for sabotage and helping the resistance in occupied territories—Louis De Wohl (having changed it from Ludwig von Wohl when he fled Berlin) for psyops purposes during the darkest days of World War II. Despite his reputation as a vain and flamboyant “bumptious seeker after notoriety,” as one of his handlers described him and a real risk to compromising the security service’s mission through his indiscretion and high opinion of himself, officials were persuaded that his horoscopes might be an effective way to influence Hitler and his advisors. Dispatching De Wohl on a US lecture tour in 1941—already a figure of certain renown as a dozen of his early books were adapted as films from the late 1920s to the mid 1930s (mostly crime and romance novels, after his spy career, De Wohl continued writing but mostly hagiographies, following his conversion to Catholicism), Britain wagered that American audiences might be more receptive to and sympathetic for these fringe believes and might bolster public endorsement for joining the war effort. While there was certainly occult elements of the Nazi regime, Hitler’s confidence in and reliance for signs in the stars and cadre of astrologers was an elaborate fabrication, supported by the press to make De Wohl’s predictions seem accurate with supernatural corroboration on the part of the media, even reviving a German defunct horoscope newsletter (edited by De Wohl) and surreptitiously distributed in the country. Not foreseen though the propaganda campaign seemed to be paying off with American attitudes more accepting of such beliefs (see also here and here), the attack on Pearl Harbor rendered the efforts redundant, and recognising the potency of his charisma and power to influence the superstitious, De Wohl was quietly retired to write his stories about the lives of the saints, the extent of the operation not revealed until 2008 in a document release from the National Archives.

and we all shine on (12. 245)

Conceived, recorded and put out in the course of ten days at the end of January after returning to London from New Year’s in Denmark (see previously), the single Instant Karma! was released on this day in 1970 in the US (credited to the Plastic Ono Band for other markets expect in America, where the by-line went to John Ono Lennon) going on the be the first solo work from an ex-Beatles member to sell over a million copies. The song presupposes living with the immediate consequences of one’s decisions and action rather than borne out over lifetime—or the next. Heralded already for his pacifist activities, the couple pledged to donate all future royalties to the peace movement. Personnel included former bandmate George Harrison, Yoko Ono and Billy Preston on instruments and backing vocals. On the B-side was Ono’s gentle acoustic ballad “Who Has Seen the Wind?,” taken from a nineteenth century Christina Rossetti poem.

*     *    *     *    *

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth revisiting (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: Mister Roger’s Neighbourhood (1968) plus modular cardboard feline furniture

eight years ago: Stars Wars anniversary edition action figures plus more links to enjoy

nine years ago: death taxes, gravitational waves and the Underworld, charting radio-ownership plus the imprisoned paint portraits of the biggest criminals

ten years ago: even more links, urban beekeeping plus an appreciation of sci-fi authors

cnd (12. 240)

Joined by a crowd of some five thousand others, organised and led by philosopher and activist Bertrand Russell (previously), the anti-war group with a hundred public signatories as an expansion of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (see also below) held its first act of peaceful civil disobedience on this day in 1961 with a sit-in demonstration at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall to protest the arrival of the USS Proteus on a resupply mission from American to replenish ballistic missile stocks. Surprisingly, no arrests were made. This anniversary juxtaposes with current headlines, with the the US and Russia meeting to arrange a negotiated peace in Ukraine with the invaded nation and Europe excluded from talks (Trump and Putin graciously agree to “address irritants” for the bilateral negotiation), and America instead of foisting its defences on allies against their will is signalling it will abandon the posture of trans-atlanticism that has held since the end of World War II, leaving the continent to fend for itself and normalising relations with an international pariah.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the Euromaidan protests (with synchronoptica), Ballerina on the Boat, bad album cover art plus an underground newspaper

seven years ago: underwater photography, the epithets of drinking culture, the power of propaganda plus Pastafarianism

eight years ago: more underwater photography, ancient embedded sounds, more on the origin of the Peace symbol plus governance per tweet

ten years ago: an early meme, the road to Canossa plus bird poses

eleven years ago: traffic cameras in Germany

paydirt (12. 236)

The foundations of the first Roman basilica in London (Londinium) have been unearthed beneath the basement level of an office building scheduled for demolition and redevelopment on Gracechurch street. Much expanded as the conquest of Britain continued through the first century AD, this structure before an open public courtyard would have been the civic centre of the settlement and seat of the administration and judicial and commerce, the public-facing edifice for festivals and announcements. After a series of exploratory excavations, a plan has been developed to create a sublevel access for the archaeological site (see previously), preserving the remains under the high street.

10x10 (12. 183)

compliments of the season: Poseidon’s Underworld reviews 1973 British anthology series Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries 

hagiography: breathtaking hidden murals in the Cathedral of Angers depicting the life of local saint called Maurille, who fled due to embarrassment for failure to perform a miracle, unveiled for the first time 

wmw: a list of endangered historic and cultural sites for 2025, around the world and beyond 

infinite nonsense honeypot: a lure for AI scrapers  

there is a plot—what would be the point of just a bunch of things: legendary director David Lynch dies, aged 78—see previously

run the bricks: a mother in New Zealand completes a hundred metre sprint barefoot over a track of Legos—setting a Guinness Record—via Metafilter 

but is it like the old playboy magazine—do you have essays there by the modern day equivalent of gore vidal and william f buckley jr: US supreme court justice Samuel Alito asks if people visit PornHub (previously) for the articles—via Super Punch 

cozy rewatch recommendation: the 2003 New Wave film The Dreamers (Innocents) that follows the exploits and adventures of an American university student in Paris during the 1968 riots—via Messy Nessy Chic  

𒀸𒋩𒆕𒀀: a paranoid ruler’s illiteracy and a torched library behind a glimpse of everyday life in the Assyrian Empire 

celebrity is a broad church: BBC1’s 1985 entertainment magazine Friday People

synchronoptica

one year ago: artist Monica Sjöö (with synchronoptica), generational perceptions, an ethnographic study of bathroom graffiti, another banger from ABBA plus words for lighthouse

seven years ago: laser-cut note pads, Madrid reinstates direct rule on Catalonia plus free-floating exoplanets

eight years ago: theatres protest the inauguration of Trump 

nine years ago: a slipper-shaped wedding chapel

ten years ago: misattributed quotations plus McDonald’s new slogan

torchwood (12. 162)

The always interesting Kottke turns our attention to a curated collection of all the Doctor Who intertitle or title cards used over the course of the long-running sci-fi series that addresses the change in typefaces, establishing shots, fades and introductions over the years. In the early years each serial was given its own title whether a stand alone bottle episode or part of a larger story arc. The classic era ones are the most visually engaging and all can be found at the show’s dedicated wiki.

synchronoptica

one year ago: where’s the beef (with synchronoptica) plus more blogging from the South Pole

seven years ago: the dossier on Trump’s Russian ties,  cosmopolitan chocolate bars plus stationers and stationary

eight years ago: a Manchurian candidacy

nine years ago: assorted links to revisit plus packing up Christmas for next year

ten years ago: Goethe plus the mythos of oaks

hearth and home (12. 148)

We’ve received a happy status update regarding this rather spectacular temple to outsider art, Ron’s Place in Birkenhead outside of Liverpool, a flat hidden within an unassuming brick residence holding a scarcely seen gallery of hearths, altars and murals created by renter Ron Gittin, now catalogued and conserved. The landlord a permissive sufferer of such flourishes was however mostly ignorant of the extent of the artist’s embellishments (as well as his friends and family upon his unexpected death in 2019) that celebrated the multi-hyphenate’s interest in Antiquity and repository of his other creative pursuits. Let’s wish all property owners could be so tolerant of their tenants’ eccentricities and had faith for the next occupant’s inheritance. Much more at the links above.

dk’tronics (12. 137)

Although the only promotional tie-in video game that I can recall playing was Kool-Aid Man for Intellivision—a strange concept indeed where two waifish children search a haunted house to make a batch of Kool-Aid to summon the exorcist and stop the thirsty ghosts, “Oh yeah!”—we really enjoyed this review of early 8-bit licensed games based on British television programmes. Most of these ventures were slapdash, modular affairs that bore little resemblance to the actual show and game play was probably confusing—though through emulators, one can give all these and more a try without waiting for them to load—like this screen-grab for one based on the sitcom about four very different college students rooming together. The game-makers were not able to secure right to the series’ theme (see also) but composed a nice chip-tune alternate. Much more from Curious British Telly at the link up top.

pray, observe the magnanimity (12. 126)

Following a soft-opening on this day in 1879 at the in hopes to forestall another episode of “copyright piracy,” Gilbert and Sullivan held the official premiere of their comic opera on New Year’s Eve at Fifth Avenue Theatre of New York City. The perfunctory but well attended and critically acclaimed performance was staged by a touring company in order to secure a British copyright in Paignton near Torquay, and with American law at the time respecting no foreign intellectual property rights, the collaborators with a US premiere hoped to avoid an encore of the previous year’s debut of HMS Pinafore, successful in London but rapidly taken up by American acting troupes with some one hundred and fifty unauthorised productions that took license with the libretto and netted no royalties for the authors. Publication of the score was also delayed until their reputation and credentials could be cemented, the show opening in London the following April. Both transatlantic runs were very well received and the narrative of an apprentice being released from his indenturehood with a sort of rumspringa from the impressment he was accustomed to (pirate tropes were quite in fashion at the time) and the piece endures as the duo’s most performed and referenced works.

banco de portugal plot (12. 055)

Presenting a letter of introduction, credentialed and endorsed by the Royal Joh. Enschedé of the Netherlands, chartered maker of banknotes and other security documents, on this day in 1924 Artur Virgílio Aves Reis instigated one of the biggest financial frauds in history when he entered the offices of Waterlow and Sons Ltd, another respected and venerable printer of stock certificates, currency and postage stamps, and claiming to be on a secret mission on behalf of the governors of his native Portugal’s central bank, sought to fill a commission of two-hundred thousand, five hundred escudo notes (the cifrão $, from the Arabic for zero is a double-bar dollar sign, is the currency symbol and is used as the thousands and decimal point separator) for circulation and fund an infrastructure project in colonial Angola. Conceived during a short prison stint for illegal arms trade where he encountered his future associates and amid an absolute printing frenzy in Germany to counter hyperinflation, Aves Reis correctly wagered he could pull off a grand counterfeiting scheme, approaching both printers to produce the high denomination notes with identical serial numbers, then hiring an army of drones (zangões) back in Porto to launder the illicit millions, eventually establishing his own bank to expedite the process and avoid suspicion. The massive infusion of forged money, after having purchased a controlling share of stock in the central bank and nearly taking it over, was uncovered exactly one year and one day later with grave repercussions for the country’s economy and the ensuing financial crisis promulgating a collapse of the fragile first republic for a series of dictatorships.

30 top chart hits (12. 039)

Conceived by Virgin Records in London and taking its name from a 1920s advertisement for Danish brand bacon (the pig would become the mascot for most of the series, Richard Branson had purchased the poster from a nearby antiques shop), the first compilation album was released in the UK on this day in 1983, with hit tracks including Phil Collins’ You Can’t Hurry Love, Boy George’s Karma Chameleon and Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, the biggest hits from artists under their own label. An immediate commercial success, anthologies were put out three times per year—with the best-selling edition (seven times platinium) from 1999, NOW! 42 featuring Britney Spears, Shania Twain, Lou Bega, Backstreet Boys, Robbie Williams and Phil Collins’ with You’ll be in my Heart. There have been many spinoffs (and imitations) of the concept including music television channels, Now Dance, Now That’s What I Call X-Mas and NOW! 62 released in 2005 as a digital download.

cp 1919 (12. 037)

Discovered by post-graduate astrophysics student Jocelyn Bell Burnell using the Interplanetary Scintillation Array of Cambridge Observatory on this day in 1967 whilst searching for radio signals in space, because of its precise regularity, it was dismissed by colleagues as terrestrial interference initially,but combing through reams of data, Bell Burnell correctly pinpointed its origins to celestial coordinates of nineteen′ nineteen′′ right ascension, twenty-one° declination, coming from the constellation Vulpecula—for which it was given the designation LGM-1, little green men, supposing it might be an alien beacon of some kind. The discoverer, however, correctly posited that the source was a rapidly rotating neutron star. Fellow researchers received a Nobel prize in 1974 for their work in radioastronomy but Bell Burnell’s contributions were overlooked (for her part, she maintained that she did not believe that the committee should be in the business of honouring research assistants), and the novel class of star is now recognised as a pulsar, emitting beams of radiation from its poles and have proven to be an indispensable lighthouse in the cosmos for detection and triangulation, a throughline for detecting the first exoplanents and the phenomena of gravitational waves among others. In 1979, for their debut studio album, Unknown Pleasures, Joy Division adapted a ridgeline plot of the stars’s radio emissions’ pulses for the cover art.

i am an authorised representative of the intergalactic mission (12. 030)

Courtesy of our faithful chronicler, a decade ahead of the more infamous Max Headroom Signal hijacking (caution, flashing images), we learn that on this day in 1977 viewers in southern England watching the ITN 5:10 pm news summary got quite a shock when the audio was commandeered by a deep buzzing and a electronically garbled voice addressing the world for some six minutes before returning to regular programming. Claiming to Asteron of the Vrillon race of extraterrestrials, the speaker delivered a message on behalf of the Ashtar Galactic Command (after the name of beings, ascended masters several contactees since the early 1950s claimed to have channelled as mediums):

For many years you have seen us as lights in the skies. We speak to you now in peace and wisdom as we have done to your brothers and sisters all over this, your planet Earth. We come to warn you of the destiny of your race and your world so that you may communicate to your fellow beings the course you must take to avoid the disaster which threatens your world, and the beings on our worlds around you.

This is in order that you may share in the great awakening, as the planet passes into the New Age of Aquarius. The New Age can be a time of great peace and evolution for your race, but only if your rulers are made aware of the evil forces that can overshadow their judgments.

Be still now and listen, for your chance may not come again. All your weapons of evil must be removed. The time for conflict is now past and the race of which you are a part may proceed to the higher stages of its evolution if you show yourselves worthy to do this. You have but a short time to learn to live together in peace and goodwill.  Small groups all over the planet are learning this, and exist to pass on the light of the dawning New Age to you all.

You are free to accept or reject their teachings, but only those who learn to live in peace will pass to the higher realms of spiritual evolution. Hear now the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you. Be aware also that there are many false prophets and guides at present operating on your world. They will suck your energy from you—the energy you call money and will put it to evil ends and give you worthless dross in return.

Your inner divine self will protect you from this. You must learn to be sensitive to the voice within that can tell you what is truth, and what is confusion, chaos and untruth. Learn to listen to the voice of truth which is within you and you will lead yourselves onto the path of evolution. This is our message to our dear friends. We have watched you growing for many years as you too have watched our lights in your skies.

You know now that we are here, and that there are more beings on and around your Earth than your scientists admit. We are deeply concerned about you and your path towards the light and will do all we can to help you. Have no fear, seek only to know yourselves, and live in harmony with the ways of your planet Earth. We here at the Ashtar Galactic Command thank you for your attention. We are now leaving the planes of your existence. May you be blessed by the supreme love and truth of the cosmos.

The transcript varies slightly according to the recollection of witnesses, and the station afterwards apologised for what was described as a “breakthrough in sound,” the network technically explaining how such a hoax could have occurred though the prank would have demanded not only considerable coordination and expertise to pull off. No one ever came forward and the author of the missive is unknown and is accepted as gospel by some in the ufology community—and in any case not a bad message for humankind. 

peoples’ choice (12. 003)

Polls open now through 28.November, the OED presents its shortlist of nominees for the Word of the Year for 2024, with only one actual neologism in romantasy (see previously, albeit the portmanteau for the literary genre dates back to 2008 when the German arm of publisher Random House tried to categorise its translations of English romance romances with an element of fantasy). Other contenders include brainrot, a term first used by Henry David Thoreau in his 1842 Walden; or, Life in the Woods, and dynamic pricing, a calque of the Swedish coinage of economist Gunnar Myrdal in 1927 as dynamiska prisbildning which has also seen a revival this past year with heightened public awareness of surges, gouging and exploitation in retail spaces and for gig-workers. More older words with new meanings are lore, slop and demure. Which one is your pick?

curtain call (11. 986)

Whilst familiar with some of these traditions and prohibitions, like the ghost lights that even burned in theatres when everything was shut down during COVID, we didn’t know the possible origins of the taboos, like not mentioning the Scottish play, and enjoyed reading this overview of backstage customs and lore.

Although sounding superstitious, whistling in a theatre was discouraged as sailors were often employed as stage crew for their skill with ropes and knots and brought with them their jargon of command whistles and an actor would not want to countermand or confuse an order, lest a prop be dropped on their head. First performed during a time when most theatrical companies had a set repertoire, rather than courting bad luck, the suggestion of Macbeth was an admission that perhaps a season’s run with flagging audiences could be turned around with the staging of a really popular piece. Wishing one to “break a leg” has a myriad of possible roots, from understudies politely wishing an accident would befall their respective principals so that they could assume the role, to cross a threshold—“the leg line” of a concealing stage curtain and take a bow before the audience to the most likely etymological source, both Wanderwörte and retronym and a bit of mishearing, with the entertainment industry directly borrowing from the idiomatic wish amongst Luftwaffe pilots during the first and second World War Hals- und Beinbruch, “may you break your neck and leg,” as a corruption of the Yiddish phrase: הצלחה און ברכה—that is hatsloke un brokhe, “success and blessings.” Professional dancers, on the other hand, exclaim “Merde!” to one another, harking back to times when horse-drawn carriages would bring spectators and a lot of dung in the streets of a venue would mean a solid box-office.