dark events

Ana Maria Pacheco is a sculptor, painter and printmaker. She was born in Brazil in 1943. After obtaining degrees in both art and music and teaching for several years in Goias, she came to England in 1973 to study at the Slade and has lived and worked here ever since. She makes wonderful prints.

snow 3

Had more snow on Thursday afternoon and evening although it started to melt pretty quickly in the morning sun on Friday. It was the really soft, sticky stuff, ideal for snowballs. It's frozen again tonight though - so not a good time to be out and about.

puddle

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking,"This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"

This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to watch out for.

- Douglas Adams -

tree house

Sue has decided that we have to live in a tree house, especially if it's one like these. Designed and built by Baumraum in Germany they are quite stunning and look to be incredibly well built. More pics can be seen on the slide show here.

valentine 2

Henri Cartier Bresson: View from the Cathedrale Notre-Dame, 1952

For Sue too.

stuck up

A nice little ad from Spain.

valentine

1892 - Spooning by the sea at Yarmouth, England

Happy Valentine's day Sue.

robin hood tax

Nearly 50 organisations, including charities such as Oxfam, unions and green lobby groups, have joined forces to urge the government to push for what it calls a Robin Hood Tax. They argue that a tax of just 0.05 per cent on global transactions between financial institutions - five pence for every £1,000 traded - would be enough to raise hundreds of billions of pounds to help fight poverty, protect public services and tackle climate change.

Although it might leave 0.05 per cent less for bonus payments!

schools kill creativity

Have been meaning for some time to pass this short film on for more people to see. We currently seem to be more obsessed with league tables, exam results and getting more and more people to university than we we are with giving children an education. See what you think.

You can find out more about Ken Robinson here.

There's some great stuff on the TED site.