best notify my next of kin—this wheel shall explode!

Begun on this day in 1970, the five-day Isle of Wight Festival staged at Afton Down was hailed afterwards as the largest musical spectaculars of its era, with an estimated audience approaching a quarter of a million. Performers included Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, Supertramp, the Doors, Melanie (who was the only original Woodstock act scheduled to appear at its fiftieth revival), the Moody Blue and many more. The organisers of this festival would go on to hold the first Glastonbury Fair the following year.

number 10

Via the always excellent Nag on the Lake, we discover a splendid backdrop for a selfie lies just around the corner from the actual residence of the Lord High Treasurer, by convention also the prime minister (the exchequer fulfils the role of what’s regarded as the treasury in modern parlance). 
For safety and security reasons the authentic and metonymical mansion is off-limits to posing in front of with a nearly identical stoop and door at Adam House, on the eponymous neighbouring street named for its Scottish architect, of both properties, and statesman Robert Adam, one-third of the neoclassical Adamesque style of architecture of the Brothers Adam known as Federalist in the US. Whilst the Adam Street address is likely to impress in passing, but there are significant differences in the door fronts: the slightly off-kilter zero cipher, the brass knocker and the conspicuous absence of a lock, since its always opened from the inside.

barrel, butt, punchon, pipe

We discover to our delight that much like the fanciful names for oversized wine bottles, a buttload is a formal and quantified Imperial unit of measurement—equal to just over a thousand litres (varying widely throughout history) or half a tun, the largest standard in casks and barrels. That’s a lot of wine. This speciality jargon is still used in wine making and the cooperage sectors and is ultimately derived from the Latin buttis for bottle and trade drove the harmonisation of tonnage and shipping containers.

6x6

a jay ward production: rediscover the classic cartoon Hoppity Hooper

distance learning is the art of applying the bride to the child: Dorothy Parker’s (previously) take on remote kindergarten

long in the tooth: a Greenland shark is recognised as world’s oldest veterbrate type specimen: explore the extensive Letter Form Archive—via Pasa Bon!

nimby, yimby: mapping applications that reveal percentage of golf course and parking lots in your town

casa azul: a virtual exploration of Frida Kahlo’s Blue House—via Messy Nessy Chic plus the edible sunflower and a tiny tug

owls to athens: a look at how our avian friends influenced language and limn thought (see also)

the stars align

On this day in 2012, the space probe Voyager I became the first manmade object to leave the Solar System and enter interstellar space. Twenty-three years earlier—to the day—its companion Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Neptune—then, because of Pluto’s eccentric, elongated orbit, the outer most planet.
On the same day in 1981, it had its closest brush with Saturn.  All these events coincided with the first demonstration of the telescope in Venice in 1609, pitched as a terrestrial telescope or spyglass, having later realised their potential for use in astronomy, publishing his initial observations in a brief called Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger) on 13 March of 1610, including an account of the Medicean or Cosmica’s Stars that appeared to orbit Jupiter.

maya hi

Re-sampling will always cast its nets far and wide but we had not beforehand appreciated what a tempting foraging grounds that Soviet pop proofed and proved for Western hip-hop. The juxtaposition is sometimes quite  jarring with the underground group Jedi Mind Tricks’ appropriation of People’s Artist of the USSR in 1988 of Edith Piekha’s catchy hit My Neighbour (Наш Сосед).

to live alone in the bee-loud glade

Via Kottke, these superlative entries in the macro category for International Garden Photographer of the Year commended us to one recent snapshot that brought to mind William Butler Yeats’ The Lake Isle of Innisfree. What pictures from your garden are you keen to share? Explore an expansive gallery of many more superb and patient, intimate snapshots at the links up top. 

the cogito ergo zoom

Via JWZ, mindful that the upcoming fall semester, however classes are held, will be a challenging one for academics, we appreciated this growing list of cocktails from author and historian Philipp Stelzel. Pictured is the Inaccessible Archive:

6cl gin, 2cl green Chartreuse, 3cl fresh orange juice.
Stir and serve with an orange zest.

The recipe notes that the high cost of Chartreuse is offset by not having to go into the physical archives. The titular drink calls for bourbon, tart cherry juice, bitters and simple syrup. I don’t think precise measurements matter—just maintain the proper ratio. Many more to be found at the links up top.