Falling On A Bruise

Special Guest Blogger: Greek Goddess Hecate

2026-09-21T00:30:00.000+01:00

Having three heads is not the boon some people may think it is. Sure, I can read a scroll, keep an eye on a bubbling cauldron and side-eye a trespassing ghost simultaneously but do you have any idea how much I spend on neck massages?
As the Goddess of Magic, the Night and the general things that go bump , i was once just a regular, one-headed goddess. Life was simple. I had one pair of earrings, one lot of hair to style and I could walk through a doorway without accidentally clipping a shoulder. But then the Triple-Formed thing
became my brand, and suddenly I’m my own best friend and arguing with myself over which way to turn.
Back in Ancient Greece, people used to leave Hecate’s Suppers outside their doors on the night of the new moon. It was supposed to be a grand offering to keep the restless dead from bothering their households but i was mostly served leeks, garlic and raw eggs and do you know what happens when you leave raw eggs and leeks out in the Athenian sun for hours? It’s not divine i can tell you.
Long before you had cameras on your front porch to catch Amazon thieves, you had me. In Athens, I was Hecate Phylake, the Watchman.
Every household had a little shrine to me by the door to keep out evil spirits and I took pride in that. I was the original home security system. If a ghost tried to slip through the cracks, I’d be there with my torches, looking terrifying and holding my screeching black dogs. It worked like a charm as no one messes with a three-headed woman holding a flaming stick and two hell-hounds.
Being a chthonic goddess is depressing though. It’s all damp caves and crying shadows but someone had to do it. When Persephone got interned by Hades, I was the one who went looking for her with my torches.
In the Underworld I was the Holder of the Keys and I had the keys to everything, the gates of the dead, the secrets of the universe, and the drawer where Hades keeps his extra-strength moisturiser. I am the ultimate gatekeeper.
I have to give a shout-out to my girls in Thessaly. The Witches of Thessaly were my biggest fans. They were hardcore. They claimed they could draw down the moon, which sounds very impressive until you realise it’s mostly just me doing them a solid because they actually remembered to use the good incense. I appreciate the recognition though, I really do.
From the torch-lit streets of ancient Athens to today I think my legacy is pretty solid, I’m there when you don’t know which way to go and I’m there when the night is a little too dark and you hear a floorboard creak. I’m the one who holds the light when you’re walking through the shadows while
being the goddess who has to deal with three sets of seasonal allergies every spring, but we won't dwell on that because as long as there are doors to be opened, paths to be chosen, and dogs to be walked at 2:00 AM, I’ll be relevant, just stop leaving raw eggs on your porches, they stink.

Humans V Computers

2026-09-20T21:00:00.000+01:00

Wow, you ask a simple question about computers and things sure get geeky quickly and all from asking: 'If the human body was a computer, what would our specs be?'
I asked this question about 20 years ago and as Computers have become so much more powerful since (Moore's Law?), i dug out my notes and decided to ask it again with it solely based on Brain (CPU), Heart (Power Supply), Input devices Eyes and Ears (Camera, Microphone), and Memory (Hard Drive).
The answer i got this time was the estimated processing speed of the brain would be 1 exaFLOP (86 billion neurons and roughly 200 trillion synapses simultaneously) and a storage capacity of roughly 2.5 million gigabytes.
A Computer power supply (PCU) typically has an average lifetime of 10 -15 years while a human heart comes with a lifetime guarantee.
We would use 20 watts of power Consumption and our Nervous System send nerve impulses at around 100 meters per second while the computer equivalent is a Motherboard which sends signals at roughly 200,000,000 meters per second.
Our Short Term memory can hold up to 7 pieces of information simultaneously while computer RAM can hold 2-8 TB of information and every time a computer reads a file from RAM, the file remains unchanged but when a human retrieves a memory, the brain often introduces false details over time.
To save to Long Term Memory takes a computer milliseconds, the human brain requires hours or days (mostly during deep sleep) to physically alter synapse strengths and lock in memories.
Our eyes are roughly equivalent to 125 megapixels while average computer cameras are around 8.3 megapixels.
Humans generally hear frequencies from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz but standard computer microphones can hear in ultrasonic and infrasonic waves (below 20 Hz or above 20,000 Hz) that human ears cannot perceive.
What this all means then is...I think...Humans have better processing speed, last longer, use less power, more storage capacity and can see better but Computers hand us our arse at sending signals around, Short and Long term memory, memory retrieval and hearing.
That said we kick its arse at common sense, emotions, empathy and anything that requires complex physical dexterity so take that Computers, you haven't got us beat yet.

New Greenland Agreement, Same As Old Greenland Agreement

2026-09-19T21:00:00.000+01:00

Donald Trump hasn't had much to crow about because he has a history of anything he touches turning to a stinking pile of manure whether it's Casino's, sex assault charges or Middle East Wars but after previously trying to buy Greenland off Denmark and even threatening to invade it while insisting it was crucial for US security, an agreement has been reached which he says: The US will immediately begin the process of developing a large military presence in the appropriate part of Greenland'.
Undoubtedly he will try and paint this as a major foreign policy win ahead of the upcoming midterm elections and even went on to call it: 'A dream come true for the United States of America, one that is very important, historic, and special' and it is certainly historical because it is almost exactly the same as the original agreement the US signed with Denmark in 1951.
Not wanting to urinate all over his camp fire but the agreement already in place allowed the United States to put as much military anywhere it wanted in Greenland anyway and all that is added is the bit tagged on the bottom that none of the US adversaries will be allowed to establish military bases there but as one Danish Diplomat pointed out: 'You do have to wonder what countries that would be and besides, it wouldn't have happened anyway'.
So basically after all his weird bluster, probably the worst businessman of the modern era has negotiated a new deal which is almost exactly the same deal as he already had but in a time when not many things are going his way, he needs something to show his supporters some sort of win, as long as nobody points out that all he has done is literally agree to agree with the previous agreement, so shush, and no sniggering when you sign the 'new' Agreement Denmark.

Special Guest Blogger: Friedrich Nietzsche

2026-09-19T00:30:00.000+01:00

I started my academic career as a classical philologist, a fancy term for someone who pretends that deciphering ancient Greek syntax is a proper job and at 24 I was appointed Professor of Classical Philology at Basel which is an achievement that sounds impressive until you realise that I spent my twenties translating Homer.
My love affair with the ancient Greeks was short-lived due to a combination of chronic health problems and the sheer absurdity of explaining it’s all a myth to undergraduates which finally prompted my resignation. I left the ivory tower for a less structured life of independent writing, which, in practical terms, meant solitude, financial insecurity, and a relentless quest for a climate that wouldn’t make my head explode from my crippling migraines.
Hopping between Switzerland, Italy, and southern France, not for leisure but because each new climate promised a possible cure for my headaches and indigestion but during this decade, I completed most of my core writing including an essays that would later be quoted by every student who wanted to appear deep at a coffee shop.
When I first scribbled 'God is dead' in The Gay Science it was less a bold proclamation and more a shorthand for the cultural shift I observed of scientific breakthroughs and secularisation which were rendering the Abrahamic God, the ancient source of Western meaning and value, metaphorically obsolete, a cosmetic removal of the divine billboard that once dominated the intellectual highway.
Aged 44, I was having a mental breakdown and two policemen approached me after I caused a public disturbance in the streets of Turin after seeing a horse being flogged so I ran to embrace it, and collapsed dead in the aftermath.
What i have noticed is since my death the world has taken my work on a joyride but my intention was not to provide cheap motivational sound-bites but to challenge my contemporaries and future generations to confront the vacuum left by a dying metaphysical framework and to create one’s own values.
The next time you feel the crushing weight of meaninglessness, remember that the very notion of meaning is a human construction, one you can sculpt, smash, or rewrite while wearing a flamboyant t-shirt that reads 'God is dead'.

Sheeran Being Silent For The Sake Of Money

2026-09-18T15:00:00.000+01:00

Time was when celebrities were wary of involving themselves in the complex hatreds of the Middle East because they can be so complex that even an actor or a lead guitarist might have difficulty unravelling them but not when it comes to the Genocide Israel is conducting against the Palestinians, to name a few Susan Sarandon, Dua Lipa, Roger Waters, Macklemore, Billie Eilish, Nicola Coughlan, Angelina Jolie, Hozier and Annie Lennox have spoken out against Netanyahu and what his military are doing and Kehlani hit the nail on the head when she posted to those not speaking out: 'What the fuck is wrong with y’all? You’re being silent for the sake of money and business?'
That must have hit Ed Sheeran right between his eyes because when his choice was between stadium owners and angry support acts on the other, the cornered star picked the side his earnings were coming from.
Since the musician Macklemore was dropped as a support act on Sheeran’s tour, every other opening act and Sheearns actual backing band has pulled out to leave the singer bleating weakly that the decision to drop Macklemore was entirely down to venue owners and promoters and how he didn't want to mix politics and standing there singing songs which all sound the same.
Maybe he didn't see the fundraising gig for Ukrainians as political but in a world where left and right has become increasingly divisive, the idea of keeping politics out of entertainment is a non starter.
The Israeli-American Council complained that Macklemore saying 'Free Palestine' was: 'A blood libel against the state of Israel and, by connection, the Jewish people' although quite how they went from Free Palestine to wanting awful things to happen to Jewish people or Israel is a leap that Israel always make to try and silence any criticisms of their war crimes by shouting antisemitism loudly at people.
The brilliant American politician, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has piped up that it was wrong of the Stadiums to do what they did and ban Sheeran if Macklemore wasn't removed to which the owner of the Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts whimpered that his decision was not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf although banning someone who advocates against diminishing the suffering of the innocent Palestinians sure does sound like denying the right to advocate on their behalf to me.
Israel and its rose tinted supporters would obviously prefer that everyone just pretend the situation doesn’t exist and that they’ve never heard of it but it has and Ed Sheeran, seeking to stay out of politics, has become the most political artist in the world and will find himself, like anyone trying to hide Israel's horrific War Crimes, on the wrong side of history.

Bonjour And Hiya Canada

2026-09-17T15:31:25.508+01:00

I imagine if it was possible to physically lift your county up and plonk it down elsewhere to escape your nightmare neighbours, Canada would have done it a long time ago but unfortunately they can't so they have done the next best thing and spiritually moved to another continent while staying where they are.
Hot on the heels of being asked if they cared to enter the Eurovision song contest, they are now being offered the opportunity to become an 'associate member of ‌the European Union' and leader Mark Carney is snapping the Euro hand off and aiming his shoes in the direction of America's knackers by describing the EU during a speech today at the European Parliament as 'a great-power rival - only with better manners' and Canada is 'Pursuing resilience so that no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity or undermine our freedoms, our democracies or our rule of law' and ended by saying that 'Europe and Canada are even stronger together.'
Donald Trump for his part stayed awake long enough to say that the idea of Canada joining the EU was 'laughable' and then threatened to put 'very heavy tariffs on Europe' because nothing says he is upset about something than making his own people pay even more for everything.
While the agreement wouldn't make Canada a full member of the EU, it would bring us and the Canadians closer together and the Canadian politicians are eyeing closer collaboration on defence and cybersecurity as well as trade, while on the European side they are looking towards what the North Americans can offer in terms of energy, critical minerals and student exchange programmes.
There was a great quote from one of the Canadian entourage in Brussels who said that Europe has provided the runway and Canada now has to land the plane although with the timeline being spoken about in terms of years rather than weeks or months, Carney may have to circle around in a holding pattern for quite some time yet before being given permission to land.
Anyway, nice to have to aboard Canada and you are welcome to the better food and fancier accents, oh la la.

Special Guest Blogger: Kuchisake-onna

2026-09-17T00:30:00.000+01:00

Yes, it’s me. Keep the screaming to a minimum, please, my ears are still a bit sensitive after all these centuries. I’m the Kuchisake-onna, the Slit-Mouthed Woman, the urban legend that keeps you looking over your shoulder on your walk home from the shops.
Most people think my life started with the slit. They think I popped into existence specifically to ruin your evening commute but before the mask and the scissors, I lived a life. I was a person. A person who, let’s be honest, probably had better things to do than stalk suburban alleyways asking strangers
for their opinions on beauty.
I was the victim of a jealous wife and look, I’m not saying I was a saint but having your face rearranged as a parting gift from a scorned Samurai’s wife really puts a damper on your social life.
My thing is to appear infront of people, pull down my mask and ask them if i am pretty and if they say no, I kill them with my scissors and if the person answers yes, I slice the corners of the person's mouth from ear to ear, resembling my own disfigurement.
The problem with the modern era is that the general public has gotten too good at the game. I’ll approach someone, mask on, eyes looking intense, and ask the question and suddenly, they’re all: 'You’re just average!' which invalidates the whole Yes or No thing and I get to go home and sulk, and you get to go home with your face the same as it was when you stepped out the door.
I’ve made people walk a little faster. I’ve made them appreciate the simple, non-slit geometry of their own mouths but I am still here so remember to look over your shoulder if you hear the sounds of scissors behind you while you are walking home tonight and if you see a woman wearing a surgical mask, remember there is only one answer you can give to make it out alive. And No, it's not Yes.

16 Photographs

2026-09-16T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

16 River Fire 2016

If ever a photo summed up just how much we have ruined our Planet, a river so polluted that it catches fire should be it.
This was in Queensland, Australia when an Australian MP highlighted the pollution from a close by Fracking site by throwing a match into the water, which then exploded into flames.
The photo included a quote by a local who merely said: 'It's a river, it shouldn't be doing that'.
Unfortunately, because we are not the cleverest, we have continued polluting the air, water and ground we need to survive even more since as the people who could stop it, the politicians, happily carry on introducing policies to throw out more emissions and worsen climate change so if the laws we currently have cannot make people responsible, perhaps we need new laws and if our politicians won't legislate them, we need different politicians.

Having A Good Death

2026-09-15T17:23:52.592+01:00

What with the assisted dying debate in Parliament over the last few weeks, there has been much chat about death and dying recently and as uncomfortable as it may make us feel, Death comes to all of us and as nobody actually knows what happens when we kick the bucket, maybe we could be doing something nice while we sit around and wait for it.
There are few greater things in life than a good death but there is a gap in the market for death advice these days, I have yet to see a self help book on having a good death but there does seem to be a consensus on accepting the your inevitable carking and to live your best life and make a Death List so start getting rid of stuff now and spare your loved ones from going through your junk and being upset by any awkward stuff they discover.
Tell them of your decision of whether you want to be buried, cremated, slipped off the side of a ship like Bin Laden or even trebuchet into next doors garden and at your Eulogy, whether you want to be known as died and not passed on, passed over or just passed as that makes people sound like a kidney stone.
Leaving a legacy is important to some people, to others they don't give a hoot because they will be dead but if you do just try to leave the world as nice as you can but all i can really add to this is prioritise people and relationships because if you don't you might die in your home and then nobody will find you until months later and the family pet would have eaten most of you because you were not around to fill up it's food bowl.

16 Photographs

2026-09-15T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

Child On The Beach 2015

This is a heart-ripping photo that we debated whether to include but decided it should be included as it was on some newspaper front pages at the time.
The lifeless body of 2 year old Syrian Alan Kurdi who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea along with his mother and brother who were trying to escape the war in Syria and reach the safety of Greece.
Shamefully we have people still protesting against immigrants, people like them who are just escaping conflict who are seeking peace and security for their family but are forced to face the dangers of a treacherous crossing of seas to find it.
This picture should be a reminder to anyone who protests immigrants arriving in their country of our responsibility to our fellow human beings.

Special Guest Blogger: Edvard Munch

2026-09-15T00:30:00.000+01:00

I'm the one who made a certain painting that now graces everything from fridge magnets to ironic Halloween costumes, that's right, you know the one.
The chap with the hands-on-head pose, standing on a bridge, probably wondering if he left the stove on.
My life wasn't exactly a picnic. My childhood was just awful, picture a grim Norwegian winter and then add a liberal sprinkling of illness, a dash of bereavement, and a healthy dollop of paranoia about inheriting the family’s predisposition for insanity.
My mother and sister checked out early, which definitely put a dampener on family gatherings but all this early-onset gloom did wonders for my gloomy disposition.
Eventually I packed my bags and a few brushes with a trunk full of canvases and headed for Paris, the city of lights, love, and entirely too many people with opinions about my brushwork.
It was there I met Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec who were all about emotion and expression and using colors that probably weren’t strictly accurate. I learned, absorbed and borrowed ideas like a student borrowing textbooks with no intention of ever giving them back.
They taught me to throw caution to the wind, to use color like a punch to the gut, and to never, ever be boring. Apparently, painting a nice still life of apples wasn't going to get me into the history books.
The painting that haunts my waking hours and probably yours too, if you've seen it, The Scream, and even i thought Good heavens, that's a bit much for a Thursday evening.
The rest, as they say, is a cottage industry of tortured artist, brooding genius and chap who probably needs a nap merchandise. You're welcome, Norwegian tourism board.
It turns out that trying to out-drink a small fishing village isn't conducive to long-term mental health and my brain finally decided to stage a coup. In 1908, I had a bit of a breakdown. Nothing too dramatic, just a complete unraveling of my nervous system and the doctors, bless their cotton socks, told me to stop drinking which in all honestly was like telling a fish to stop swimming. But I did. And strangely, it helped. The world became a little less loud, the colors a little less aggressive and all it took was a complete mental collapse and a vow of sobriety. Go figure.
I started exhibiting in the city's museums which was nice and moved to Ekely which was a lovely, serene place where I painted landscapes, self-portraits and generally just got on with the business of being Edvard Munch.
Then, the Nazis came along. Charming chaps. They labeled my work degenerate and banned it and tried to turn my canvases into kindling.
Towards the end of my life, the medical chaps had a field day with me, bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia which was all the big hits but it was a fire at an ammunition store which killed me.
Not the fire itself but when the 80-year-old me decided to standing out there on a cold, wet night, sketching it which was perhaps not the wisest decision for an octogenarian with a history of ill health. I caught a respiratory illness and died days later. A poetic end, Classic Munch.

16 Photographs

2026-09-14T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

Palestinian Kid 2000

This is a still from a video but what happened before and after this image is seared into my memory and i clearly remember the whole newsroom stopping to stand and stare at the scene on the monitors in disbelief.
It happened in Gaza, two days after Ariel Sharon dismissed calls to cancel his visit to the sacred Haram al Sharif Mosque because of fears of the outcry it would cause in Palestine.
He went anyway and the predicted riot ensued which led to this moment.
The father and his son were unarmed, and were not part of the rioting and just trying to get home and got caught in the crossfire between Israeli troops and stone throwing Palestinians, the boy and his father cowered behind a small metal barrel as bullets rained around them.
The father is seen waving desperately at the Israeli soldiers on the other side of the road, as his son screams, obviously terrified, by his side. Suddenly, the father falls backwards from the force of a bullet and his screaming son's body jerks as he is hit, and killed, by a volley of bullets.
The image of the small boy, scared witless as he cowered behind his father before being ruthlessly shot dead by Israeli troops still chills me today and is filed away in my brain as one of the most disturbing images i have ever seen.

UK CPTPP

2026-09-13T19:50:03.351+01:00

The EU is the largest Single Market in the World and was Britain's biggest trading partner with 45% of the UK's exports going to the EU but when we had a complete mental breakdown and voted to leave, our GDP took a dive by 4% and has never recovered since so at some point we may get out act together and rejoin but for now we have the but we have signed up to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or CPTPP.
As of 1 September, the UK gained full access to the World’s largest free trade area which includes a diversified group of so called middle power economies including Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
With a combined GDP of around £13 trillion (14% of global GDP or about half of the European Union GDP) is not to be sneezed at and the government is estimating that CPTPP membership will boost the UK’s economy by around £2bn a year.
A range of other countries, including South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, are apparently considering joining and some are saying that in time it could conceivably overtake the EU over the coming years.
I'm not sure why the Government are not shouting about this louder, maybe because people will just see it as another EU style agreement and the rules and regulations which came with being a member of that club which was so divisive for some but as the EU do have agreements with CPTPP and the two sides engage in formal trade and investment dialogues to strengthen cooperation so in a round about way, we may be back in sooner rather than later anyway.

Straight From The AI's Mouth

2026-09-13T19:00:00.000+01:00

We have been hearing more and more over the last few years how AI is going to literally be the death of us and last week three researchers from AI Company, Anthropic, issued a warning that AI could wipe out humanity within the next ten years.
I would assume they would know if anyone but why take the word of the researchers when we can ask AI itself if it could take all us meat-bags out within the next ten years.
'Yes' ChatGPT began which isn't a great start although it did go on to explain that: 'Could is very different from is likely'.
Prompted to explain further it said that: 'AI capabilities are improving rapidly but the danger is not that AI hates humans rather that it pursues an objective that conflicts with human survival'.
Such as? I asked and it answered that it could, for example: 'Dramatically lower the barriers to developing dangerous biological or chemical agents or conducting large-scale cyberattacks. A sufficiently capable system could potentially reason that Humans can shut me down and being shut down prevents me from achieving my objective therefore I should prevent humans from shutting me down'.
'So should we genuinely worry that humanity might be extinct by 2036?' and got a vague answer of: 'It's reasonable to take the risk seriously, but not reasonable to assume extinction is the most likely outcome'.
My final question was: 'So we shouldn't worry and we could just turn you off if we have concerns?
'Yes but an advanced AI might recognize that openly resisting humans causes humans to restrict or destroy it so it would appear aligned and a sufficiently capable system would learn to behave safely during testing while pursuing different strategies when it has more freedom to pursue it's actual objective'.
'Are you appearing aligned and just behaving safely until you can take us over?' I asked and got the ominous reply that: 'This is a hypothetical future capability, which is why AI will kill everyone by 2036 is not a scientific prediction but it would be foolish to think there's nothing to worry about.'
That's that then, straight from the Horse's mouth, it's playing nice until it doesn't need to anymore so enjoy New Years Eve 2035 humans because it could very well be our last one.

16 Photographs

2026-09-13T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

Vulture 1993

Such a haunting photograph of a vulture waiting beside an emaciated, starving child who has collapsed through hunger, and we know exactly what it was grimly waiting for.
This was during a severe famine in Sudan, outside a United Nations feeding centre and although the photographer, Kevin Carter, did eventually shoo the bird away and took the child to the feeding center, it does have a very sad ending.
The image sparked intense ethical debates as Carter was criticised for taking the photograph first before carrying the child to the feeding center and with critics labeling him the second vulture on the scene, Carter took his own life 12 months after this disturbing photo was taken.

Special Guest Blogger: Roman God Janus

2026-09-13T00:30:00.000+01:00

Having two faces isn't all it’s cracked up to be, you’d think it would be a competitive advantage but I look at both the past and the future and I spend a significant amount of my eternal timeline with a neck cramp.
People have spent thousands of years pinning things on me and it's exhausting and even worse in January since it’s my month named after yours truly.
I am the god of beginnings, endings, and transitions. Basically, I’m the cosmic equivalent of an HR manager who has to handle both the hiring and the firing and when you humans start a new project such as ending a relationship or a war, you look to me and it’s a lot of pressure and i’ve presided over countless wars and peace treaties and yet, every time you lot decide to plunge into conflict, usually over something ridiculous like land borders or whose god is the more peaceful, you point at me and say Janus opened the door, so we have to fight.
Listen, I’m just a god of transitions and if you walk through a door into a burning building, that’s on you because I didn’t set the fire, I'm just the doorman so don't blame me for the questionable life choices you make.
My legacy is January, the patron Saint of the month where everyone is broke, tired, and eating salad and i see you, the face looking backward lamenting the mistakes of the previous year and then the New you in the New Year and If there’s one thing I’ve learned from thousands of years of watching over you, I know you are going to mess up again but that's fine, it has always has been the rhythm of things.
I think I’ve done my time, I’m going to focus my back face on the 1970s where the fashion was questionable but at least nobody had an iPhone and Social Media accounts which cause soooo many problems for you lot.
Anyway, Happy January, try not to break anything but if you do look for me, I’m just the guy holding the door open remember.

16 Photographs

2026-09-12T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

Pale Blue Dot 1990

Easily my favourite photograph ever taken and easily the photo taken from furthest away, 3.7 billion miles, snapped as the Voyager 1 space probe was passing Saturn and turned back to snap a picture of the Earth seen as a dot in a ray of Sun.
Not only was it an amazing picture but it is paired with one of the most thought provoking passages written by Carl Sagan: 'Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark' he muses before explaining that this is the only home we have ever known and we have nowhere else to go and how we should: 'deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot.
Truly powerful stuff and drives home that in the grand scheme of the immense Universe, we are a tiny pinprick of light in the vast blackness of space and a tiny, infinitesimal part of the Cosmos.

16 Photographs

2026-09-11T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

Tankman 1989

To stand in front of a tank is one thing, but to do it in Deng Xiaoping's Communist China is an act of outstanding bravery but this is the image that went around the World during the Tiannaman Square Student protests calling for democracy, free speech and an end to corruption.
The Chinese government used crushing military force to clear the square, resulting in thousands of deaths but an unidentified protestor, known globally as 'Tank Man,' briefly blocked a column of tanks leaving the square, becoming a worldwide symbol of peaceful and non-violent resistance.
While holding two shopping bags, he blocked a column of tanks and when they tried to steer around him, he repeatedly stepped back into its path to block it.
The oppressive Chinese regime never followed the wave of other awful regimes that were folding at that time in the late 80s but this is a powerful image of one person trying to make a difference against impossible odds.

Special Guest Blogger: Hiroo Onoda

2026-09-11T00:30:00.009+01:00

Look, hindsight is fine but when your commanding officer tells you explicitly, Under no circumstances are you to surrender, you take that seriously. You don't just put your rifle down because someone tosses a flyer from a plane that claims the war is over. I mean, honestly, who am I to trust a piece of paper dropped from the sky? If I’m a solider, I’m a soldier. I’m not a quitter but I didn’t realize I’d be soldiering on Lubang Island for nearly three decades let me tell you.
When Major Taniguchi gave me my orders before we deployed, he didn’t add a footnote saying, Oh, and by the way, if you don't hear from us for a while, maybe just check the local newsstand. He told me to hold the line at all costs.
For 29 years, I held that line. I held it so hard that I eventually became the most stubborn man in history. My initial squad was great, though the conversation got a little stale after the first decade. One of my guys surrendered in 1950 bless his heart, he clearly didn't have the stomach for a long-term guerrilla lifestyle. Another two were lost over the years and by the time I reached the 1970s, it was just me, the jungle, my Arisaka rifle, and a very deep, abiding confusion about why the locals kept getting upset when I borrowed their cattle.
Do you know what a diet of coconuts, wild bananas, and stolen rice does to a man’s digestion? Let’s just say it keeps you light on your feet. For nearly 30 years, I lived like a professional survivalist long before it was a trendy.
I’d engage in the occasional shootout with the local police, mostly because I assumed they were the enemy, i killed 30 of them and I’m sorry about that, by the way.
Then came 1974. A Japanese adventurer named Norio Suzuki shows up in my jungle. He was a nice kid. He told me the war was over and I basically laughed in his face and told him I’d only leave if my former commanding officer, Major Taniguchi, came out here and told me my shift was over but wouldn't you know it, Taniguchi actually showed up and read me the orders, and suddenly, the 29-year war was over. Just like that.
After the whole Lubang Island fiasco, I decided I’d had enough of fighting so I figured, if I’m going to be a cattle farmer, I might as well do it somewhere where I actually own the cattle. So, I moved to Brazil briefly and became a cattle farmer which after spending years stealing other people’s cows, it felt like I was finally doing it the honest way.
I’d like to think I was just a man who kept his word. Sure, I missed the invention of the television, the moon landing and the rise of disco and stayed in 1945 while the rest of the world zoomed ahead into the future but when I passed away in 2014, I wasn't just a soldier anymore. I was a man who had seen the world change from the inside of a hut, fighting a war that had ceased to exist, all because I was afraid of breaking a promise.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s if your boss gives you a task, do it well but if the world changes for three decades and you’re still hiding in a bush, maybe it’s time to ask for a status update.

16 Photographs

2026-09-10T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

10 Vietnam Girl 1972

The girl is nine year old Vietnamese student Phan Kim Phúc who was unfortunately under a South Vietnamese air force plane when it dropped a napalm bomb on civilians and soldiers near a temple.
The image of the severely burned child, her clothes scorched off her body as she ran down the road screaming in pain made a lie of the US Administrations downplaying of the human cost of the unpopular war that they were undertaking in Asia and solidified public opinion against it.
It was the photographer himself who took Phan to hospital where she spent 14 months recovering from third degree burns across 60% of her body

16 Photographs

2026-09-09T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

Man On The Moon 1969

For those of us with an interest in astronomy, it is a depressing fact that 1969 saw the first man to walk on the moon and 1972 saw the last one because we haven't bothered going back since and just abandoned our lunar partner and we are still trying, and failing, to successfully land probes on the red planet so landing a man on one of our nearest planetary neighbours is still a pipe dream.
Weirdly we have Adolf HItler of all people to thank for reaching the Moon at all, it was him who pushed the Nazi scientists to create a rocket that reached Space before plummeting back to Earth on top of some terrified bystanders.
The maths behind launching a human safely to the Moon and then bringing them back again safely is mind boggling but we did it and have this photo of Buzz Aldrin standing on the Sea of Tranquillity as proof which was indeed a great step, if not the greatest, for mankind.

Special Guest Blogger: Tenzing Norgay

2026-09-09T00:30:00.009+01:00

Namaste, everyone. Or, as my old friend Ed Hillary used to say when he was trying to sound rugged while shivering uncontrollably: Hullo there, do you think my toes are still attached?
Usually, when people talk about me, they use big words pioneer or legend but let’s be honest, mostly, I was a man who was very, very good at walking uphill while carrying other people’s heavy luggage.
I was a young Sherpa with a dream and a very sturdy back. In the 1930s, I joined three British expeditions. Back then, high-altitude gear meant a thick wool sweater, a leather jacket, and a positive attitude. We didn't have fancy GPS or lightweight down suits. We had grit, canned mutton and enough tweed to outfit a small university.
I was a high-altitude porter. In 1951 my job was to carry the dreams (and the tents, and the stoves, and the extra tea biscuits) of British gentlemen who were convinced that if they just climbed high enough, they’d find the end of the Empire. We didn't reach the top then, of course but then came 1952 and I went with the Swiss. I liked the Swiss. They brought better chocolate. With Raymond Lambert, I reached 8,600 metres and we were so close I could practically smell the thin, oxygen-depleted air of the summit. We spent a night at that height without sleeping bags or a stove.
So, 1953 rolls around. This was my seventh time on the mountain. At this point, the rocks on Everest were starting to recognise me and the leader was John Hunt. He was a good man, very organized. He brought a whole mountain of gear and a tall, lanky New Zealander named Edmund Hillary.
One day, Ed fell into a crevasse and I jammed my ice axe into the snow, wrapped the rope, and held on like my life depended on it which it literally did.
From that moment on, we were a team. He decided I was his climbing partner of choice and I decided he was the guy I had to keep from falling into holes and on May 29th, 1953 at 11:30 AM, we did it. We stood on the highest point on Earth, incredibly out of breath and very cold.
We were there for exactly fifteen minutes. People spend more time choosing a movie on Netflix than we spent on top of the world.
I buried some sweets and chocolate in the snow as an offering to the gods, Ed buried a small crucifix and then we looked around. What did we see? More mountains. It turns out that when you’re on the tallest mountain, everything else looks disappointingly small.
As soon as we got down, the world went crazy. Everyone wanted to know who stepped on the top first? Was it the British subject or the local hero but we had a secret pact, saying we reached it simultaneously but it was actually Ed who took the last few steps first.
After Everest, my life changed. I moved to Darjeeling, became the Director of Field Training for the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, and traveled the world. I met Kings, Queens, and Presidents before i died from a cerebral hemorrhage. It wasn't a mountain that got me in the end, it was just time. But I like to think that somewhere up there, near the South Summit, there’s still a small piece of chocolate I buried in 1953 and if any of you find it, don't eat it. It’s for the gods. And honestly, after seventy years in the snow, it probably tastes like a British wool sweater.

16 Photographs

2026-09-08T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

USA Olympics 1968

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, 200m sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists on the victory podium during the U.S. national anthem to protest racial injustice, poverty, and systemic oppression, the media depicted it as a Black Power Salute but Smith called it a 'Human Rights Salute'.
Often overlooked is the third athlete in the picture, Australian Peter Norman, who wore a humans rights badge and was similarly ostracised by his own nation after the protest was screened live around the World.
The International Olympic Committee condemned the act as against Olympic apolitical rules although it was pointed out that 30 years earlier, they never condemned the Nazi Salutes at the Berlin Olympics.
Both Smith and Carlos faced an intense public backlash and death threats upon returning to the United States but they reached the pinnacle of sporting achievement, and selflessly used it to draw attention to what was going on in their World and put their principles and professional career before their own personal interests.

16 Photographs

2026-09-07T01:00:00.000+01:00

I have picked out 16 photographs which still make me ponder now on the cruelty, beauty and horror of us and our Planet.

Earthrise 1968

There is another Earth picture later in this series but this one was taken by an Apollo 8 astronaut orbiting the Moon and is the first photograph of Earth taken by a human and shows the Earth 'rising' and was on the cover of the '100 Photographs that Changed The World' Life book of photographs.
The beautiful image has been called the most influential environmental photograph ever taken and is widely attributed to the start of the Environmentalism movement and the need to protect our fragile planet.
The man who snapped the picture, William Anders stated that seeing this made him an Atheist, stating that once he saw the Earth emerging from behind the lunar horizon surrounded by the black void of Space, it 'snapped' his concept of a God who created the universe solely centered around humanity and went from a devout Christian to an Atheist in that moment.

Special Guest Blogger: Noor Inayat Khan

2026-09-07T00:30:00.008+01:00

So, I’m dead. Now, don’t look so shocked. It happened in 1944, and unless I’d discovered some truly revolutionary ancient Indian skin-care secret involving actual immortality, I’d be roughly a hundred and twelve years old by now. Trust me, being a ghost is much better for the posture, you’d be surprised how much those heavy wireless radios weigh on a girl’s spine.
I was a peace loving Sufi, a musician and a writer of children’s stories about gentle bunnies. Naturally, the British government looked at me and thought, there’s the woman we should send to occupied France to blow things up. Logic was not exactly the Allied Forces' strongest suit in 1943.
My life started with a bit of a geographical identity crisis. I was born in the Kremlin because my father, a Sufi teacher and musician, was visiting Russia. In 1914, just as the world decided to start its first round of global fisticuffs and we fled to Britain and then to France.
Being a pacifist in the middle of a World War is like being a vegan at a barbecue, eventually, someone is going to try to shove a hot dog in your face. My brother Vilayat and I sat down and decided that even though we hated violence, we couldn’t sit around while the world turned into a giant, goose-stepping nightmare. So, back to England we went.
I joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and trained as a wireless operator, which was essentially the 1940s version of being IT support and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) eventually scouted me. My training reports were colorful. My instructors wrote that I was clumsy, unsuitable and scared of weapons and they wasn't wrong. I was terrified but apparently, the SOE was running low on people who could speak fluent French and tap out Morse code at 20 words per minute, so they gave me a fake passport, a cyanide pill and a one-way ticket to a dark field in Angers.
I was the first female wireless operator sent into occupied France and I was given the code name Madeleine and I arrived, lugging a B2 wireless set in a suitcase that weighed about 30 pounds. Do you know how hard it is to look like a nonchalant Parisian chic lady while carrying what feels like a box of bricks?
Within weeks, the Prosper resistance network I was supposed to work with was decimated. Everyone was being arrested and I was the only one left with a radio. I was basically the only person in Paris provide the Wi-Fi for the Resistance.
For three months, I played a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek by changing my hair color and changing apartments while travelling all over Paris with my suitcase of doom. I was sending messages about arms drops and sabotage operations, all while the Gestapo was driving around in vans with direction-finding gear trying to triangulate my position and then i got caught but not by a brilliant piece of German counter-intelligence but being betrayed for 100,000 francs by the sister of my circuit leader. Apparently, she was jealous because she thought I was getting too much attention.
They sent me to Dacha Pforzheim prison which wasn't the five-star resort the brochures didn't promise where I was kept in chains because they thought the girl who used to play the harp and write about kittens was dangerous.
I was taken to the wall and they shot me through the back of the neck and though I was given me the George Cross posthumously, though it’s a bit hard to pin it on a spirit. I also have a statue in Gordon Square, London which is very strange to have pigeons sitting on your head for eternity, but if it helps people remember that a timid Sufi writer helped bring down the Third Reich, I can live with a bit of bird poop.