enter prince andrew (12. 738)

One cannot presume to speak for the strategy that may be behind the decision of the royal family and the prime minister to go ahead with hosting this appeasement tour, placating Trump’s ego with an unprecedented state visit. Both the Queen, under advisement of her Household, and Starmer had the sense of propriety and decency to dismiss respectively the younger brother of the then heir-apparent and in the latter case the up until very recently the ambassador to the United States as associates of Jeffrey Epstein, who as ombudsman delivered the personal invitation of the King Charles III, so their overall tactic may yet be warranted. Both former friends were denied a place at the banquet table for their relationship with the infamous sex-trafficker and financial fixer, however—rightly so, but it does not seem right that the court might afford Epstein’s best buddy a seat. It’s definitely a risk and a humiliation regardless of the aims, rolling out the red carpet for a charlatan and sex-pest whose empty threats have become merely wearying and something to endure and outlast. Nice that the pageantry is marred at every turn by protests keeping the hosts in line. Exeunt omnes.

 

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit (with synchronopticæ)

thirteen years ago: Suzanne Vega and the .mp3 plus limits on freedom of expression in Germany

fifteen years ago: side-quests and gamification plus immigration and othering

hedgehog highways (12. 733)

Via Metafilter, we learn that a cross-bench committee of peers of the House of Lords are debating amendments to the planning and infrastructure bill before parliament that’s been deemed woefully inadequate by conservation groups for allowing offsets for developers to pay into rather than building in a minimal, sustainable and cohabiting manner on new properties. Mandates for new construction include the above corridors for small mammals to increase their range across neighbourhood gardens, special glass to reduce bird-strikes, nesting boxes, so called “swift bricks,” as refuges for avian friends, bats, insects and others. More from The Guardian at the link above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a versatile French pronoun (with synchronopticæ) 

film als magisches ritual (12. 718)

Having been previously exposed to a select body of work from the underground filmmaker whose short pieces experiment of themes of the surreal, the occult and homoeroticism, we appreciated this rare glimpse of Kenneth Anger at work through this 1970 documentary from Reinold E Theil for the German network Westdeutsche Rundfunk, featuring segments of his Magick Lantern series and the filming of cut scenes for Lucifer Rising on location at the Avebury Stones. Although seemingly a recalcitrant and reluctant interviewee, Anger was grateful to WDR and the British Film Institute for grants that made the project possible. Much more from { feuilleton }—including an index of previous posts on the topic—at the link above.

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synchronoptica

one year ago: search engine optimisation (with synchronopticæ), transcribing presidential debates plus tales of Chemical Romance

twelve years ago: a visit to the Sonnenburg 

fourteen years ago: design for houseplants

9x9 (12. 704)

the free encyclopaedia: why Wikipedia works—see more 

steeple with tyneham: 1970 reportage on the ghost village taken over by the Ministry of Defence in 1943 as a firing range  

john deere: venerable American agricultural equipment manufacturer struggling with tariff chaos, decreased demand for US crops  

primary residence: investigators find several Trump cabinet officials guilty of the same mortgage fraud leveraged against his enemies—see previously   

the fyurry byerds of the night: Ze Frank (previously) on bats  

fifty basis points: the US Fed signals it will cut interest rates due to successive poor jobs reports 

homeland security: Seoul sends diplomats to a Hyundai, LG factory in Georgia after immigration raids which saw the arrest of nearly five hundred workers, ICE dismissing claims that such actions deter foreign investments   

città dei balocchi: the abandoned Las Vegas of Italy  

gptzero: Wikipedia style guide that outs AI agents

synchronoptica

one year ago: a electromechanical rotor cipher (with synchronopticæ), the ugly, car-centric focus of American urban planning plus assorted links worth revisiting

twelve years ago: mapping US/Soviet bases in divided Germany, proposals for a permanent venue for the Olympics plus an act of bioterrorism by sabotaging harvests

thirteen years ago: some castles of Berlin-Brandenburg, visions of the Apocalypse plus honest book covers

fourteen years ago: the EU economy and the single currency plus facial-recognition and dragnet surveillance 

goodbye england’s rose (12. 702)

With two thousand invited guests in attendance in Westminster Abbey, the route through London lined with over a million and two-and-a-half-billion viewers worldwide, the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (previously), took place on this day in 1997—although not an official funeral but rather a royal ceremony, organisers relied on the plans, rehearsed for the previous two decades, codenamed Operation Tay Bridge (see also) for the Queen Mother, and was accorded the pageantry and liturgy usually reserved for the royal family. The dean of the cathedral had personally appealed to senior palace aides to secure Elton John’s performance at the service—to include something modern. Diana and John were last together only a few weeks prior, attending the funeral of mutual friend Gianni Versace in Milan, and immediately upon learning of the princess’ death, John reached out to lyricist Bernie Taupin to rework his 1973 tribute to Marilyn Monroe to honour Diana. A quarter of a century later to the day in 2022, Queen Elizabeth the second held an audience with outgoing and incoming prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss respectively, at her residence in Balmoral as her last official acts before her death.

mister bean and the smear campaign (12. 686)

Via Nag on the Lake and Memo of the Air—although we could not really really find any affinity—nor notes for—this catalogue of the weirdest and worst novelty songs, to have been graced with music videos, we did appreciate the presentation from Vole Television with clever interstitials like classic bumpers from MTV. The title track—“(I want to be) Elected”—was produced by Bruce Dickinson (not a single-issue voter and well before Rowan Atkinson became one) for the Red Nose comic relief charity and was included in the closing coverage before purdah by BBC Parliament in 1992. Going through more of the playlist, we do find that there are VH-1 pop-up video style commentary and factoids and also features Lieutenant Pigeon, so maybe some measure of kindredness.  Tag your favourites.

synchronoptica

one year ago: the dissolution of East Germany (with synchronopticæ) plus a banger from George Harrison

yangjing bang (12. 680)

Although pidgin dialects (widely believed to be a distortion of the English word for business rather than the folk etymology from a messenger pigeon) conveys connotations of broken speech oftentimes rather than bridging a communications barrier in necessary and creative ways, the local contact language of Shanghai has a rich history and legacy deserving of celebration and study. The title term for Mandarin, Wu pidgin arising in the 1830s derived from the name of a small creek, a tributary of the Huangpu river that marked the boundary between the British and French concessions (洋涇浜英語, Yáng jīng bāng yīngyǔ)—which was eventually paved over for Edward VII Avenue (modern East Yan’an Road) following the Opium Wars (see also here and here) and influx of foreign merchants with coerced trading arrangements. While the educational system and the language of business has become has become more formalised, linguistic fossils of Shanghainese creole have remained and spread into common-parlance beyond. The simplification endures with unfortunate stereotypical constructions and the order to hasten things along in chop-chop or no tickee, no shirtee—a backronym applied to Chinese launderers—but also in expressions like “long time, no see,” “look-see,” “one piece” (to engage with, to make a deal) “chow-down” and “can do” with “no can do” from keyi and bu keyi also understood as OK and no way.

6x6 (12. 540)

elbows up: on his way to attend the G7 in Canada, Macron visits Greenland, criticising Trump’s repeated overtures to annex the island—see previously  

ethanol orthodoxy: bio-fuel policy has been a net negative for the environment  

ready for prime time: Google text to video service is rolled out despite sloppy results 

c: MI6 appoints its first female spy chief in its one hundred sixteen year history—Dame Judy Dench only played one in the movies  

sidebar: revised injunction restrictions in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that requires a bond, bribe to judges got even worst—see previously  

dudley do-right: G7 leaders gather in the Canadian Rockies for their economic summit 

synchronoptica

one year ago: a banger from Supertramp (with synchronoptica)

ten years ago: forbidden colours, assorted links to revisit plus cheap printing and chapbooks

twelve years ago: a visit to Wiesbaden-Schierstein plus Snowden’s formative time in Switzerland

fourteen years ago: revitalising a neglected church in Freibourg 

silent running (12. 521)

We appreciated the chance to revisit the works of graphic designer Edward Wadsworth, best known as a forerunner of the art movement known as Vorticism which saw a practical—though possibly not as effective as hoped—application in transferring dazzle camouflage designs for the Royal Navy fleet during World War I (see previously)—through the medium of his woodcuts. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s fourth studio album was inspired in concept and cover art by a 1983 gallery showing of Wadsworth’s works. Conscripted as a sub-lieutenant himself, Wadsworth’s monochromatic pieces reflect the same maritime and industrial themes and abstractions to decode and encode. Much more from John Coulthart’s Feuilleton at the link up top.

fly towards those dreams you’ve left so very, so very far behind (12. 516)

Released on this day in 1969, Empty Sky is Elton John’s debut studio album, and the harpsichord track (later remastered with piano and orchestra for Don’t Shoot Me—I’m Only the Piano Player) below, which became the most famous and enduring song from the record still occasionally performed at live shows and in 1990 for the funeral service of young HIV/AIDS victim Ryan White, has been described by the duo of John and Taupin as their first collaboration that they were genuinely excited about putting out. Although the premier work never topped the charts, critics roundly agreed that it deserved a deep listen and demonstrated John’s potential. The hymn’s lyrics give the account of a pigeon flying high and free after being released from its metal coop by a sympathetic hand.

underground press (12. 482)

The masthead logo of the counter-culture alternative newspaper in print from 1966 to 1973 featured the image of vampish 1920s silent film start Theda Bara—intending to use a picture of the It Girl Clara Bow of the same era but didn’t stop the presses over that mistake and left Bara through its thirteen year run, the International Times having been cowed into shortening its name into an initialism standing for nothing (like KFC, an orphaned acronym) after the threat of a lawsuit by the venerable newspaper the London Times. Featuring regular contributions from William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Germaine Greer along with kindred publications also based in London—Oz under the editorship of Felix Dennis, who later became a more mainstream publishing mogul of Maxim, Stuff and Blender, and Durham’s own Muther Grumble issues challenged the UK obscenity laws and were an outlet covering everything from the environment, emerging bands, sex, drugs, protesting the Vietnam War, feminism and social justice and the trio of newspapers were accused of corrupting the youth of the city, offices raided on multiple occasions which temporarily halted distribution—but as ever, a sign that you are doing something right. More at the archive links above and from Print Magazine’s Daily Heller.

neuspanien (12. 473)

Recalling how their leak of the covert Zimmermann telegram with the German Empire promising to award the lost territories of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico to Mexico if they invaded the United States and created a new front in the Great War in early 1917 pushed the US to engage in World War I, British intelligence forged (see also here and here) and publicised counterfeit attack plans allegedly by Nazi Germany for Central and South America—still very much considered within the US bailiwick as part of the Monroe doctrine—to motivate the administration of FDR to abandon its policy of neutrality in 1941 as Axis forces reached the French coast. The operation likely conceived by Canadian veteran flying ace and spymaster William Samuel Stephenson, responsible for British security on the continent who oversaw covert intelligence and propaganda efforts in South America, originally intended to leave a copy of the map in somewhere in Cuba in the hopes that American authorities would come across it of their own accord but it appears that Britain presented it to Roosevelt through intelligence channels directly, reportedly seized from a diplomatic courier in Buenos Aires. Presented to the American public as cautious not authentic bur rather secret (note the marking GEHEIM), it is unclear if the president was aware of its true nature.

8x8 (12. 460)

anachronymy: a shopping list of items, like pencil lead, that are technically misnomers but accepted by convention—see also  

there were tears brimming on her azure peepers, and tremulous grief twister her kisser: choice lines from pulp fiction detective story author Robert Leslie Bellem—see previously   

you’re all bilingual already even if you didn’t realise it before: polyglot professor addresses a high school assembly in studied Gen Alpha slang 

danglers: many hanging gerunds only do harm with a feat of imagination—see also  

breaking and entering: effraction is an antiquated synonym from the French 

it’s a breakthrough—one of them can speak: a human polyglot communicates with bonobos in their own language  

five corpulent porpoises: vintage pronunciation drills for prospective BBC anchors, including “Penelope Cholmondely rasied her azure eyes from the crabbed scenario” 

 linguistic relativity: studies of comparative conceptual specialities suggest that some cultures do have more words for snow and lava

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