Sacred Treasure
- One man mission – a fascinating story about reviving Welsh chapels – and fascinating it gets such a high profile on the BBC
- James Hannam has written one of my favourite books of history (God’s Philosophers: How the Mediaeval World Laid the Foundations for Modern Science) So he’s recently written a great intro to his general thesis.
- Did you know about Andy Warhol’s Religious Art? I had no idea
- Mildly frustrated by the triumphalist tone of this but it’s a point that needs making: Some key atheist thinkers fear the decline of religion.
- Sounds like a helpful analysis – defining ‘evangelical’ in the Trump era.
Berlin Wall Treasure
- 30 years ago! Hard to believe. I’ll never forget watching things happen on TV in the common room at uni. We had no idea of how the world would change…
- Would-be GDR escapees who got caught had to reenact their plans for Stasi photographers
- Vivid images from the nights the wall fell…
- What E. Berliners bought with their free W. German Marks after the wall fell
- 9 ‘smuggling machines’ that beat the wall!
- In anticipation of the infographic spree to come, here is a brilliant Die Zeit page showing the waves of people in and out of fmr East Germany.
- The wall in fabulous STREAMERS
Topical Treasure
- What is happening to Western politics? This is a helpful summary: The Great Alignment (from a UK General Election point of view)
- Memorials for those who gave their lives to save others: a hidden corner of London
- Very striking ‘pasting’ piece gives visibility to the 1000s in California prisons
- I love a good infographic – and this list of 2019 winners of the Information is Beautiful awards deserves investigating. In particular, check these out:
- Flowmap.blue – creates stunning visual representations of urban movement
- 3121 desperate journeys – the Guardian’s snapshot of US immigration under Trump.
- Another desperate situation represented, this time by Reuters: the Chinese clampdown on Uighur Muslims via the proliferation of incarceration camps
- Also from Reuters, the world is drowning in plastic
- While in India, Reuters reveals how the dams prevented disaster – I had no idea
- If night light formed mountains, how the world would look
Quirky Treasure
- The Joy of Peace – Amazing photos from VE Day in Trafalgar Square 1945
- Famous authors with surprising day jobs!
- London Underground is a marvel: 5 ways it’s changed and not changed over the years
- and while we’re at it… some old photos on the tube from the 60s onwards
- Stuck pets pretending everything is fine!
- This is quite old (from 2014) – but it allows some of us to feel very smug and intelligent… Musical preferences correlated with IQ…
- I LOVE this building: The winning proposal for a new visitor centre 100km north of the Norwegian Arctic Circle. It’s to be built by firm Dorte Mandrups to resemble a whale tale (when seen from the sea)
