This pandemic means we dont live in a timeline any more. It's more of a timesoup | Life and style

 Posted on May 26, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  918 words  |  Kary Bruening

Life and style This article is more than 3 years oldThis pandemic means we don’t live in a timeline any more. It's more of a timesoupThis article is more than 3 years oldJosephine ToveyAs the hours, days, weeks and months become a blur, it’s no longer clear if time is passing too quickly, or too slowly “The days are bleeding together and I no longer know what the passage of time is,” a friend in Melbourne messages me. [Read More]

Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer review

 Posted on May 26, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1220 words  |  Kary Bruening

FictionReviewMichel Faber considers Jonathan Safran Foer's cut-up of Bruno SchulzJonathan Safran Foer's all-time favourite book is Bruno Schulz's Cinnamon Shops, retitled The Street Of Crocodiles when it was translated into English 47 years ago. "Some things you love passively," Foer told Vanity Fair, "some you love actively. In this case, I felt the compulsion to do something with it." How might this active love manifest itself? A foreword to a new edition of Schulz's masterwork? [Read More]

Trump is single most dangerous threat to the US, warns Republican Liz Cheney | Liz Cheney

 Posted on May 26, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  679 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Liz Cheney This article is more than 2 months oldTrump is ‘single most dangerous threat’ to the US, warns Republican Liz CheneyThis article is more than 2 months oldModerate, whose opposition to former president had cost her a congressional seat, considers a 2024 presidential run Donald Trump is “the single most dangerous threat” the US faces as he seeks a return to the Oval Office, according to Liz Cheney, the moderate Republican whose opposition to her party leader’s presidency cost her a congressional seat she held for six years. [Read More]

First cat in space: how a Parisian stray called Flicette was blasted far from Earth

 Posted on May 25, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1418 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

Félicette flew on a French rocket on a sub-orbital mission. She survived, but was later put down so scientists could study her body. Photograph: Matthew GuyFélicette flew on a French rocket on a sub-orbital mission. She survived, but was later put down so scientists could study her body. Photograph: Matthew GuyThe ObserverSpaceMonkeys and dogs were usually used to test whether humans could survive outside Earth’s atmosphere – but 60 years ago the French tried something a little different [Read More]

Green-flowered hellebores | Gardens | The Guardian

 Posted on May 25, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  832 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Gardening blogGardensGreen-flowered helleboresFor understated beauty and elegance, you can't beat green-flowered species hellebores. Robbie Blackhall-Miles shares his favourites from the UK and elsewhereGreen flowers, the ones that you have to get down on hands and knees to look at, have always attracted me. I don't know if it's their understated simplicity or the fact that I just like things as nature intended. Hence my interest in species hellebores. Helleborus foetidus is native to the UK. [Read More]

How Franz Schmidt became the composer that history forgot

 Posted on May 25, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1148 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

Classical musicThe radiant music of Austrian composer Franz Schmidt, once feted by the Nazis, is haunted by its past. Ahead of the Proms premiere of his Symphony No 2, Gavin Plumley explains why it is time to listen afresh Franz Schmidt was a smiling, genial man. He was born in 1874 in Pressburg (now Bratislava) and died in Vienna in 1939. At the BBC Proms, on 10 September, there is the rare opportunity to hear his radiant Second Symphony, completed and premiered in 1913. [Read More]

Im a Fan by Sheena Patel review fizzing debut thats hard to put down

 Posted on May 25, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  500 words  |  Aldo Pusey

‘Burning directness’: Sheena Patel. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer‘Burning directness’: Sheena Patel. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The ObserverThe ObserverFictionReviewPatel’s searing novel skitters through a world of toxic exes, mean girls and bad jobs – and it’s addictive I’m a Fan is a fast, fizzing cherry bomb of a debut by Sheena Patel, mining the darkest depths of coercion, seduction and abuser dynamics. It has the urgency of a diary, mixed with a certain hard and sharp clarity. [Read More]

Jimmy Kimmel to host Oscars for fourth time | Oscars

 Posted on May 25, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  337 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

Oscars This article is more than 2 months oldJimmy Kimmel to host Oscars for fourth timeThis article is more than 2 months old‘I always dreamed of hosting the Oscars exactly four times,’ said the late-night show, who hosted the Academy Awards in 2017, 2018 and 2023 Jimmy Kimmel is returning as host of the Academy Awards for the second straight year and fourth time overall, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday. [Read More]

Mick Gillies | Malaria | The Guardian

 Posted on May 25, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  698 words  |  Aldo Pusey

MalariaObituaryMick GilliesNemesis of malarial mosquitoesMick Gillies, who has died aged 79, devoted most of his life to research on African malaria mosquitoes, among them one described as "the most dangerous animal in the world". By transmitting the causative agent of malignant malaria, Anopheles gambiae is responsible for more than 1m deaths in Africa each year. At Winchester College, Gillies already had a fondness for natural history. He was taught fly fishing by his father, and at 15 took up his father's suggestion that he study mayflies, a part of the diet of fish. [Read More]

Tedious, pointless, cringe-inducing: why The Idol was a failure from start to finish

 Posted on May 25, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  1054 words  |  Valentine Belue

TelevisionEven as it aired, Sam Levinson’s disastrous erotic thriller felt like a pulpy box-office flop rescued from the archives. It was so nothingy it’s hard to even tell what its point was – if anything The Idol, the Weeknd and Sam Levinson’s embattled, controversial, woefully received erotic thriller, wrapped up after five weeks last night – not with a bang, nor a whimper, but a profound: huh? What was this show about, if anything? [Read More]