Tessera

Waking up to heavy rain (or any rain) for the first time in close to 3 months.

Homme danse sous la pluie avec parapluie

ALT: Homme danse sous la pluie avec parapluie

static.klipy.com

I can cycle a mile faster than Josh Kerr‘s record - will that get a news story too?

Chinese robot runs 100m sprint quicker than Usain Bolt’s world record

Chinese ⁠smartphone maker Honor’s self-developed humanoid ⁠robot Lightning ⁠ran the 100m in 9.32 seconds, ⁠beating the human world ⁠record, China’s state broadcaster ‌reported

theguardian.com

Scorched quad, Founders Building, Royal Holloway.

A photo of the South Quad with the grass entirely brown.

So we're having a 'fifth heatwave' this week apparently. I wasn't aware that the last one had finished. It was 32 yesterday.

Billy, posing for both #Caturday and International Cat Day (which is celebrated daily round these parts).

A black and white cat standing on the branches of a tree.

Important commentary on a sad case. Leaving aside the allegations, the rapidity of Arday's career progression (PhD to a Chair at Cambridge in just 8 years, off a modest track record) was highly anomalous, and put the man, institution and even the discipline in a vulnerable position.

The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right, and must be a wake-up call for the left | Jason Okundaye

The Cambridge academic has rightly now resigned. But that won’t end the targeting of senior black figures or the lazy way institutions promote faux equality, says Guardian columnist Jason Okundaye

theguardian.com

This feels on point from Rebecca Solnit. Remember when summer was generally a pleasant time? Those days are gone.

We launched a war on nature. Now we are in a climate warzone | Rebecca Solnit

Summer is not what it once was. We have been robbed of one of life’s great joys

theguardian.com

RIP Keven Keegan - what a legend he was. And a rare example, long before Kane, of a British footballer who was a cult in Germany. His German wasn't bad! Here he is discussing and performing 'Head over Heels in Love' on Aktuelles Sportstudio in 1979. Has to be seen to be believed!

Kevin Keegan - Aktuelles Sportstudio 1979

YouTube video by Hummel1974

youtube.com

Just read that Sepp Blatter, that well known paragon of integrity, has voiced concerns about FIFA corruption under Infantino. We have officially reached peak absurdity in an already farcical World Cup. The tournament is not worthy of the sport it is facilitating.

Lots to agree with here - and yes, it’s true that it’s ‘easier’ to get a place to study languages than other more competitive subjects, even at ‘elite’ universities. BUT the piece gives the impression that only Russell Group really counts - a myth that really needs to be challenged.

Cutting language courses puts social mobility at risk, say UK experts

Exclusive: University moves and falling exam entries fuel concerns about opportunities for working-class pupils

theguardian.com

So I’ve just discovered the E-bay app is now fully unusable because of ‘magic’ AI you can’t switch off. It refuses to let me list a pair of women’s trainers in the ‘women’ category because it can see they are mainly black. And because women obvs only wear pink. Enshittification par excellence.

I love the eccentric details in this story. 'The painting belonged to a Seville family [...] who were in the habit of taking it on holiday with them.' People take books to the beach so, hey, why not art too ;)

Valuable Spanish painting left on street salvaged by man who liked its frame

Andrés Hurtado found work by Joaquín Sorolla after its owners mislaid it, before responding to theft alert

theguardian.com

Good work BBC Verify here. This sort of thing needs to be more widely understood. ‘Infantino's travel is believed to have produced roughly the amount of CO2e in just over a fortnight as about 78 people might produce across a calendar year.’

World Cup 2026: How Fifa president Gianni Infantino is jetting around

Gianni Infantino has clocked up thousands of air miles across North America so far.

bbc.co.uk

I have a feeling it‘s too hot and humid for me to understand the physics here. Useful article though. www.newscientist.com/article/2531...

You should turn off fans when it's too hot – but how hot is too hot?

Fans can make you hotter rather than cooler, but the temperature at which you should turn them off depends on several factors, including your age and the humidity level

newscientist.com

Ffs, It’s 7am and around 24 outside, and rising. Suddenly clothes seem overrated, may not bother with them any more.

Homer Simpson Walking Nude in Kitchen

ALT: Homer Simpson Walking Nude in Kitchen

static.klipy.com

Summer style from Marlene at the Hotel du Cap, Antibes, in 1938. My own vibe in this weather is more like an outtake from 'Ice Cold in Alex'.

Marlene Dietrch reading a newspaper in a deckchair in a sunny, coastal spot.

So it will be a coronation. A shame, as I was intrigued by Streeting starting to position himself further to left. A contest might at least have given a chance to address the continued nonsense of Brexit. Burnham wont't do anything about it.

Wes Streeting will not stand for Labour leadership as Andy Burnham announces candidacy

Former Greater Manchester mayor will be overwhelming favourite to succeed Keir Starmer

theguardian.com

Have just enjoyed an incredibly rich and enjoyable first day of the Rethinking Weimar Cinema Conference in Oxford. Super papers and equally good discussion and chat. Even Tommy Robinson‘s shameful presence in Oxford (‘debating’ at the Union) couldn’t spoil it.

A colourful border in Worcester College Oxford.

A building at Worcester college surrounded by trees and grass.

Sara Hall presenting her keynote lecture.

The Kristallnacht playbook in the age of social media and AI. The key elements remain the same: a ‘trigger event’ followed by disinformation and co-ordinated racial violence masquerading as ‘protests’. And just imagine if Reform were actually in power.

How Belfast knife attack became the latest far-right ‘trigger event’

The rapid spread of footage shows how social media is pivotal in enabling far-right agitators to mobilise internationally

theguardian.com

Our recent episode of 'In Our Time' on Joseph Roth is now available globally wherever you normally get your podcasts - e.g. Apple podcasts, Spotify, as well as BBC Sounds. (And also kudos to the panel who did the episode in front of a live audience at the Hay Festival last week!)

Joseph Roth

Podcast Episode · In Our Time · 4 June · 55min

podcasts.apple.com

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The far right have been wanting a martyr figure, and clearly see this as a potential ‘Horst Wessel’ moment (compare how Nazi newspaper Der Angriff weaponized his death in 1930). Shame on the Telegraph but I expected no better.

The Telegraph's response to yesterday's antics: to platform Farage. Morning.

An interesting reflection on immigration and identity from Robin Lustig (I particularly like his speculative suggestion that asylum seekers might be invited to join the British armed forces, as happened to his father - can you imagine the reaction from Reform types).

My father, the German refugee who fought the Nazis as a ‘secret listener’

As the far right fulminates about who ‘belongs’ in Britain, let’s remember Fritz Lustig, who arrived here in 1939, just months before war broke out. Initially jailed as an ‘enemy alien’, he played a v...

theguardian.com

Suki guarding the emerging canna lily #caturday

A grey cat sitting in half-barrel next to a canna lily.