Big tick energy: how a tiny flea created a revolution in British art
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 9 minutes
| 1720 words
| Valentine Belue
ArtIn 1664, scientist Robert Hooke drew a flea and created the first great work of British art. Without it, perhaps, there would be no Stubbs, Constable and Hirst
On a January day in 1665 the diarist Samuel Pepys found time to flirt with a servant, go to bed mid-morning with his friend Betty Martin (noting ruefully that he spent “2 s. in wine and cake upon her”), have a massive lunch and finally make his way through filthy streets to a bookshop, where he saw the new work Micrographia by the scientist Robert Hooke.
[Read More]Chicago teen's beating death captured on camera | US news
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 3 minutes
| 552 words
| Chauncey Koziol
US news This article is more than 14 years oldChicago teen's beating death captured on cameraThis article is more than 14 years oldCity shocked by video showing 16-year-old Derrion Albert being struck by board during brawlTension between gangs of teenagers in Chicago's schools that last year saw the killing of a record 42 young people has reached a peak in the city following the beating to death of a 16-year-old that was captured on camera.
[Read More]Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke review compelling Texas noir
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 892 words
| Jenniffer Sheldon
Crime fictionReviewA black Texas Ranger questions his loyalties when he probes the disappearance of a white supremacist’s son
Heaven, My Home is the second instalment in Attica Locke’s Highway 59 series, hard-boiled crime novels in which the crime doubles as the mechanism by which the state of race relations in the US is laid bare. Texas Ranger Darren Matthews, who was introduced in 2018’s Bluebird, Bluebird, is in many ways a classic noir protagonist.
[Read More]Indian Summers finale recap farewell, Club Simla. We raise a glass to you | Television & radio
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 6 minutes
| 1213 words
| Kary Bruening
Alice contemplates a life without Aafrin. Photograph: Joe Alblas/Channel 4Alice contemplates a life without Aafrin. Photograph: Joe Alblas/Channel 4Indian Summers: episode-by-episodeTelevision & radioIndian Summers finale recap – farewell, Club Simla. We raise a glass to youAlice saves Aafrin, Cynthia cashes out … and we finally get to witness the downfall of evil Mr Charlie. It’s a classy farewell from the show that piled high the feelgood factor – but never really made sense at all Oh no!
[Read More]Inquest told of student catapult death | Higher education
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 4 minutes
| 677 words
| Kary Bruening
Higher educationInquest told of student catapult deathA student was killed in a bizarre stunt after he was hurled more than 30m through the air by a human catapult, an inquest today heard.
Oxford University student Kostydin Yankov, 19, suffered multiple injuries when he missed a safety net after being flung from a medieval-style trebuchet catapult.
Mr Yankov, a biochemistry undergraduate known as Dino, was part of the university extreme sports club - the Oxford Stunt Factory - who had visited the trebuchet site in Middlemoor Water Park near Bridgwater, Somerset, in November 2002.
[Read More]Nancy Fouts obituary | Art
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 879 words
| Kary Bruening
ArtObituaryNancy Fouts obituaryArtist widely acclaimed for her distinctive sculptural works
The artist Nancy Fouts, who has died aged 74, was best known for her distinctive sculptural works, which reconfigure commonplace objects and materials with a characteristically playful and provocative humour.
A “modern-day surrealist”, with a wild imagination and subversive humour, she produced work that brings together seemingly disconnected objects and ideas to revel in the inherent strangeness of the everyday.
[Read More]Redefine the skyline: how Ho Chi Minh City is erasing its heritage | Cities
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 10 minutes
| 2032 words
| Chauncey Koziol
An aerial view of Ho Chi Minh, with the Landmark 81 skyscraper to the left, the Saigon River, and the flat marshland of Thu Thiem. Photograph: Kittikorn Nimitpara/Getty ImagesThe next 15 megacities #7: More than a third of the Vietnamese city’s historic buildings have been destroyed over the past 20 years. Can it learn from mistakes made by other fast-growing Asian cities before it is too late?
Read the rest of our megacities series here
[Read More]Russell Brand: why I wrote the Pied Piper of Hamelin | Children's books
Posted on June 23, 2024
| 7 minutes
| 1355 words
| Aldo Pusey
Children's booksChildren's booksRussell Brand: why I wrote the Pied Piper of HamelinThe comedian Russell Brand aims to make young people think and ask questions when they read his first book for children – and hopefully grow up wanting a revolution! Plus win two tickets to see Russell Brand and friends’ Trickster Tale show for one night only at the Royal Albert Hall on 14 November 2014
Why have you written the first of your Trickster Tales series on the Pied Piper of Hamelin?
[Read More]Alcohol in moderation may lower stress-related risk of heart disease, study finds | Medical research
Posted on June 22, 2024
| 3 minutes
| 509 words
| Jenniffer Sheldon
Medical research This article is more than 7 months oldAlcohol in moderation may lower stress-related risk of heart disease, study findsThis article is more than 7 months oldUS researchers discover reduction of signalling in part of the brain could have significant impact on cardiovascular system
Light to moderate alcohol consumption may lower the risk of heart disease because it leads to long-term reductions in stress signalling in the brain, new research claims.
[Read More]And Away review how Bob Mortimer went from sidekick to standalone
Posted on June 22, 2024
| 4 minutes
| 828 words
| Chauncey Koziol
The ObserverAutobiography and memoirReviewAn often moving memoir examines the comedian’s unlikely journey from Big Nights Out to riverbank ruminations with Paul Whitehouse
No one was more surprised than Bob Mortimer at the unexpected success of Gone Fishing, his BBC two-hander with Paul Whitehouse, now on its fourth series, in which the old friends sit on a riverbank ruminating on life and generally arsing about while attempting to land a fish. “In many ways, the show is the culmination of my journey back from sidekick Bob to standalone Robert,” he reflects, towards the end of his first memoir, And Away…, adding: “I could never have got there without my heart nonsense.
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