Gulls of Ipswich, July 2021

This week’s Five Things…

1. “The secret to being good at anything is to approach it like a curious idiot, rather than a know-it-all genius.” — Mike Monteiro (via Austin Kleon)

2. Wise words

3. A bonus episode of More Or Less that coincides with the lifting of Covid restrictions in England. Well worth a listen

4. We’re two episodes into watching For All Mankind. Really good so far, love the premise of the show.

5. I’ve also been watching Clarkson’s Farm. Jeremy Clarkson is still very much Jeremy Clarkson but the show is great. Farming looks unbelievably tough and stressful.

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Sutton Hoo, May 2021

This week’s Five Things…

1. Brian Eno talks music with Rick Rubin on the Broken Record podcast.

2. And another podcast featuring Brian Eno but this time with the neuroscientist and author David Eagleman252. They cover a lot of ground but all centred around the plasticity and interconnectedness of our brains. A fascinating (or mind-blowing?) conversation.

3. Music writer Ted Gioia on parenting. Lots of great advice for those working with young people too.

4. Explore the deep sea right from your web browser.

5. “This morning I learned that spiders are able to produce parachutes with their silk threads that they use to sail up into the air and which allow them to travel high above the earth in the jet streams for more than 25 days.”

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Deal, June 2021

This week’s Five Things…

1. I sincerely hope this Giant 3D cat doesn’t cause someone to have a heart attack. Very cool display though!

2. A twitter thread of amazing football pitch locations. 1,2,5 and 9 are my favourites.

3. What a great idea: Portal: Lithuania and Poland build a window connecting two cities

4. Hay fever seems to be pretty bad this year. The Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast dives into the science behind why that might be the case.

5. If you’ve watched a post-match interview with a footballer you’ll probably enjoy this and this!

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Deal, June 2021

This week’s Five Things…

1. The ongoing saga of the Ever Given. An interesting long read on what happened to cause it to get stuck in the Suez Canal and what has happened since.

2. Franz Ferdinand’s song Take Me Out is about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I did not know that!

3. I find cities and architecture fascinating. So this piece, The 5 coolest trends in urbanism … in Europe, was right up my alley.

4. Where’s Wally but emoji style.

5. “In 1715, a significant chunk of Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch, including a 2-foot-wide swath from the left side of the painting, was lopped off in order to fit the painting in a smaller space.” Absolute madness! Fortunately, AI has come to the rescue so we can now see what it looks like without its side lopped off.

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Margate, June 2021

This week’s Five Things…

1. One for the musicians and music students. Ploop is a handy tool to help get your head around polyrhythms. It also has a very silly name!

2. The restoration of what looks like a very old watch. Very satisfying to watch!

3. Kurzgesagt’s minute by minute guide to the day the dinosaurs died.

4. I could happily watch this for a very long time!

5. A great twitter thread of random trivia. Twitter at its best.

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