Tessera

Having done a lot of intensive choral singing for the last couple of months, I think I have managed to rewire my brain in an exciting new way. Now, when I look at sheet music that I know well, if I concentrate really hard, I can "hear" the notes at will in my head, like playing a piano.

Got my lovely cross stitches back from the framers (in the Covered Market, great service). I love them so much. The baubles will only be up there over winter (in the cosiest spot of the house) but I'll leave it up for a few days now just to enjoy it.

Cross stitch with LIVE LARP LOVE, in a mediaeval-style font, with green vines, jewels, gold coins, axe and larp-safe bow and arrows. Framed with a forest green mount and wooden frame with visible dark grain on it.

Cross stitch of brightly-coloured baubles in a box, hanging over a mantelpiece with lots of bits and pieces on it above a wood burner

Cross-stitch of brightly-coloured baubles in a box, framed with a cream mouth and warm wood frame

AlanFricker @alanfricker.bsky.social · 2w ago

Prepping some music for Sunday, and I really think Leighton is channelling "but isn't all religion basically a cult, when you get down to it?" vibes. (Communion Service in D, for anyone interested, of which there are NO full recordings.)

New CILIP website is a mess of AI slop images. Check out the images of senior professionals and try and imagine the prompt that generated them. All backed by walls of fake books that look like the ones sold by the yard to furnish pubs www.cilip.org.uk/learn-develo...

Chartered Fellowship - FCLIP

A mark of highest distinction and visionary leadership. You’ve shaped the profession. Now, join its most prestigious ranks. Fellowship (FCLIP) is the highest level of professional registration awarde...

cilip.org.uk

Last year, a sportsperson I liked as a teenager was arrested and charged with some terrible crimes against children. I think his trial will start next month. It's one of those strange, parasocial experiences, that I feel so deeply sad now, knowing what was going on back then in secret.

Starting a new project! This one is intimidatingly complicated and I'm a bit concerned that my fabric is nowhere near as blue as the picture - hopefully it will just look like a white hot summer day in Italy. I couldn't find bluer linen anywhere.

A piece of linen fabric with a few tiny cross stitches in brown on it, a box of cross stitch threads on bobbins, and a black and white paper pattern with a few lines highlighted in yellow.

Front page of a cross stitch pattern. A photo of the completed pattern, a tiny, intricate image of Florence, Italy, with a blue sky, in a wooden hoop frame. Text describes the pattern as Santa Maria Del Fiore and has information on number of stitches, size, and suggested fabric.

Close up of the photo of the completed cross stitch, in a wooden hoop. The skyline of Florence, Italy with the Duomo in the middle and an expanse of smaller buildings with red roofs and white walls. In the background are some green and dark blue hills and a white cloud on a blue sky.

"Network Rail has confirmed today that Botley Road in Oxford will remain closed beyond the end of August." I mean, no surprises there, but still infuriating. www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/network...

Network Rail provides update on status of Botley Road project

Network Rail has confirmed today that Botley Road in Oxford will remain closed beyond the end of August.

networkrailmediacentre.co.uk

Forgive my terrible photos, but my library has some lovely new prints and a noticeboard (where we will be putting things about our wellbeing space and events)!

A dark blue noticeboard on a cream wall, over a semi-circular table with a scrabble board.

A large print of the Bodleian Libraries' Tolkien exhibition, on a cream wall. a large potted plant is in the foreground.

A large print of a Bodleian Libraries exhibition, Marks of Genius, hanging over the library help desk.

LibSky, help me out with this extremely dull reference question, please! Harvard Cite them right referencing, and I have all these papers which are going to be Boucher et al. in the text. What order do they go in the reference list? By the list of authors, alphabetically, or by date?

List of references in Harvard style where all are written by a combination of E. L. Boucher and a load of co-authors, between 2023 and 2025.

So helpful that ticket-selling websites send you confirmation emails that don't mention the name of what you're going to see, so when you search your email for the ticket, you can't find it unless you remember the name of the production company or ticket site! 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Latest tapestry done! Hopefully it will one day become a cushion cover rather than languish in the finished project box indefinitely. They're still not my preference over cross stitch but they are quicker.

Finished tapestry in shades in blue and white of birds, branches and swirling patterns.

I've just started piano lessons and the teacher gave me exactly the sort of repetitive Victorian exercises and scales that I guess children are expected to find boring (don't know, I never practiced as a child) and it's actually incredibly meditative? A perfect balance of calm and concentration?

Page of sheet music entitled The Virtuoso-Pianist Part 1. The sheet music is a repetive 8 note pattern in both hands going up a white note each time for 2 octaves, then down again.

Urgh, I was already awake far too early because it's TOO HOT and TOO LIGHT, then my smoke alarm decided to go off because the battery was dying just to rub it in. Thanks, Universe.

Andrew Prescott @ajprescott.bsky.social · 4w ago

Sometimes the older parts of the internet really do deliver. I had a set of screenshots I wanted to turn into a PDF and after Googling, found a Reddit thread that told me you can select them, right-click, and print to PDF, no need for weird websites or proprietary software. Which was great, except..

Pleased that British Library has reinstated its Ethos thesis service, but disappointed that it does not include the 1000s of older PhD theses available in the earlier version. The effective destruction of this huge research archive is a tragedy: ethos.bl.uk

Hyku

ethos.bl.uk

James Elder @jameselder.bsky.social · 4w ago

Good news, but the fact that this is only happening now, nearly three years after the cyber attack shows 1) what a huge job BL staff have had rebuilding services, 2) that the BL is underfunded, and 3) the impact this has had on academic research, especially in the humanities.

Digital Scholarship @ British Library@bldigischol.bsky.social · 4w ago

EThOS platform restored! 'Following restoration work, all metadata records previously available on EThOS have now been restored, along with an additional 14,000 records added since the service was taken offline' - more to come https://www.bl.uk/stories/news/ethos-records-restored

Budd @n7eoj.bsky.social · 4w ago

It has been criminally underreported but Kelsey Pfendler has just rowed solo across the Pacific Ocean from the US coast to Hawaii in record time. A 2,400-mile unsupported journey in 43 days, 17 hours, and 55 minutes. Notably beating the Men’s record by 9 whole days.