Kuriositas

Toomorrow (1970): The Lost Olivia Newton-John Sci-Fi Musical That Was Meant to Launch a Trilogy

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:06:27 +0000

When I first started to watch this clip from Toomorrow, I initially thought that it was a very cleverly rendered pastiche of late 1960s pop music. The colours were spot on, the costumes were groovy and the music very much of its time. Then I had a wait a second moment because the girl singer in the clip looked remarkably like a young, pre-Grease Olivia Netwon-John (or Neutron-Bomb as we would sometimes call her). Sure enough, a little research (OK, reading the video's information) told me that it was indeed ONJ, from a 1970 science-fiction musical (the first?). It was about a band kidnapped by aliens (a couple pictured below) to save their species… with music. I’m not alone in thinking this was a modern-day, very clever take on the late Sixties. Many people have commented on this on YouTube, with one saying: was going to comment that this is the most period-accurate sendup I've ever seen... then realized why it's so "accurate".

If anything, that made me scratch my head even more, because being a bit of a science-fiction buff, I might not have been old enough to watch this movie on its first release, but I would almost certainly have caught it later on TV (and it looks harmless enough to be repeated ad infinitum as part of summertime scheduling) or on video release. That was, after all, how I had discovered a number of films, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Planet of the Apes and Barbarella – I could go on. There was a treasure trove of films from the late sixties for me to get my teenage paws on. But not Toomorrow. I had not even the vaguest recollection of this film – and I would almost certainly have given it a watch had I known of its existence, particularly because of Newton-John’s subsequent global stardom.

The film follows four students – and following Monkees tradition they share their names with the actors. There’s Olivia (Newton-John), Benny (Thomas), Vic (Cooper) and Karl (Chambers). To supplement their income while studying, they form a band, the eponymous Toomorrow. The clip below has them singing Taking Our Own Sweet Time. I was slightly disappointed that Austin Powers didn't pop up somewhere with a "Yeah, baby, Yeah!" to be honest.

Their proto synthesiser, the tonaliser (!), attracts the attention of a race of aliens called the Alphoids, who think that the vibrations generated by Toomorrow’s tunes have a special property that could save their civilization (best not to ask how, eh?). So, they abduct the band and take them to the Alphoid home world. While they are initially resistant, the band perform their music to help the Alphoids get their own particular groove back. It all seems to be a little Galaxy Quest, and certainly the film’s central joke is the cosmic importance suddenly assigned to a few inconsequential humans. After they have helped, the band are returned to Earth, with Olivia waking up thinking it all might have been a strange dream (oh dear). Here's the new trailer, which has been restored by the British Film Foundation and Deaf Crocodile from the original negatives. So, to answer your question, yes, the restoration is self-evidently gorgeous and you can now watch Toomorrow in all its psychedelic glory.

That’s the plot and the trailer, but the story behind the movie is even more of a shaggy dog tale. It was originally conceived by Don Kirshner (the man behind the Monkees’ music) and James Bond producer Harry Saltzman. The plan was for three pictures to launch a new franchise and make money, money, money. It looks like a match made in heaven, doesn’t it? Yet apparently before long, the two men loathed each other. The director, Val Guest (Quatermass, The Day the Earth Caught Fire), apparently wasn’t paid for any of his work – and neither was anyone else who worked on the production. As such, Guest obtained an injunction just after the film’s premier, meaning that it could not be shown until he and the others had been paid. And he never got paid. While that sounds a little like biting off your nose to spite your face, (the film couldn’t make any money if it wasn’t being shown, after all), the result was that after just a few public performances, the film would not be shown in public again for decades. So, that’s why I never encountered it during the vintage sci-fi video frenzy I experienced in my teens.

Of course, we all know Olivia Newton-John, but her three bandmates were all working musicians prior to Tomorrow and continued to work in the industry long after. Benny Thomas’ work is predominantly in television, but he did release a solo album as late as 2004 (through Olivia’s own record label, so they obviously remained friends long after the film). Vic Cooper went on to work with Tom Jones and as a multi-instrumentalist enjoyed a long career as pianist and musician. Finally, Karl Chambers continued to drum and was long associated with the Philadelphia music scene. So Kirshner's plan was (as previously with The Archies and The Monkees) to create a group whose members could both perform the music and act as their fictionalised selves as well.

The film also included an uncredited appearance by Shakira Baksh, who would go on to marry Michael Caine and become Shakira, Lady Caine. The union was a happy one, lasting 52 years.

Perhaps it is just as well Toomorrow failed so spectacularly. Had it been successful and gone on to complete its planned trilogy, Olivia Newton-John’s career might have followed a very different trajectory. At the very least, it would have been very unlikely that she would have been later considered for the role of Sandy Olsson in 1978’s Grease (and had she made a mint from the Toomorrow Trilogy, she probably wouldn't have bothered). What began as an ambitious attempt by Don Kirshner and Harry Saltzman to launch a new pop group and film franchise, their best-laid plans came to naught. Ultimately, Toomorrow has become a curious if not groovy footnote in Sci-fi musical history (as well as Newton-John’s career) and perhaps, it was all for the best.

Bottom of the Well: A Touching Animated Story About a Mouse and Friendship

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:30:43 +0000

This is short but very sweet. A young mouse, out on an expedition, falls down a well. Now, that might not end well (ah!), but at the bottom, in despair, he meets a new friend who might be the key to his survival. Yet, this involves sacrifice. I won’t tell you anymore because spoilers, but give it a watch, particularly if you are feeling a little down in the dumps today. The screenshot above might give you a small clue, but I have no doubt that Bottom of the Well will cheer you up!

This animated short was the thesis film for two young creatives at SVA (School of Visual Arts in New York). Xinyu Shen directed and produced, created the story and worked on the animation and editing. Meanwhile, Charlie Yuyung Luo was co-producer and contributed character modelling, look development and the 2D cutscene animation. Together they have created something very sweet – and very special. Have a watch below.

Remembering Kevin Keegan: His Forgotten Hit Single, Head Over Heels in Love (1979)

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:45:02 +0000

We're not a sports website, so we won't pretend to be experts on Kevin Keegan's remarkable football career (although I really like him when I was a kid). Like millions of others, though, we were saddened to hear of his passing. While he will forever be remembered as one of England's greatest footballers and most charismatic managers, there's another, rather unexpected chapter in his story that many people may have forgotten - or perhaps never knew. In 1979, at the height of his fame, Keegan ventured into the music charts with Head Over Heels in Love, a surprisingly successful single that became a hit in several European countries (Top Ten in Germany, where he was playting at the time) and remains a fascinating footnote in the career of a true sporting icon.

The outpouring of tributes following Kevin Keegan's death reflects not only his extraordinary football career but also the affection in which he was held as a person. Just on this obscure YouTube video alone, fans are remembering him as "King Kev," a footballing legend and a true gentleman whose influence stretched far beyond the clubs he played for and managed. One supporter recalled following whichever team Keegan played for as a child, while another said he was the reason they became a Newcastle United fan in 1994. Others remembered his trademark curls, describing him as their first crush, or simply mourned the loss of a hero who inspired generations. Even listeners who first encountered him through his recording with Smokie shared their sadness. The messages came from across Europe, with one fan poignantly observing that "Germany mourns an exceptional English player," underlining Keegan's enduring international appeal.

As fans around the world remember Kevin Keegan the footballer, it's worth also remembering Kevin Keegan the entertainer. Head Over Heels in Love may never rival his achievements on the pitch, but it remains a charming reminder of a time when one of football's brightest stars wasn't afraid to try something completely different.

Coming Soon: The People of 1926

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:25:29 +0000

Last year we brought The People of 1925 figuratively back to life in an article that went beyond the politics of the day to focus on ordinary people leading everyday lives. It attracted a wider readership than we expected, so we've decided to follow it up with The People of 1926.

The research is taking a little longer than anticipated (just as it did last year), but look out for the article over the next few weeks. As before, we'll be exploring the faces, fashions, and fragments of ordinary lives from 1926, and, where possible, discovering what happened to those people afterwards.

Meet Justin Time: The Homemade Talk Show Host Who Pulls No Punches

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:51:53 +0000

I had an email from one of my former students, Will Ross, the other day. It was short and sweet (which was surprising considering the reams he used to write for classwork just, I suspect, to extend my marking misery). Regardless, he moved on to pastures (and professorial victims) new and I thought I’d seen the back of him. But oh no – he just had to share his latest video with me because “I remembered that Welsh people have a sense of humour too”. I should refer him to something widely but incorrectly attributed to Dylan Thomas: “The Welsh pray on their knees on Sunday, but prey on their neighbours for the rest of the week”. It’s a bad play on words, but if you enjoy that kind of thing, then watch Will’s video; it’s full of them…

We have former roving but sadly disgraced (don’t ask) reporter Justin Time - who occasionally changes his name – reduced to producing his own TV Chat Show at home. Never mind, he has the coup of the century – any century - an interview with Adolf Hitler (who just happened to be in the area promoting his new vegetarian cookbook and believes that Justin still works for the BBC). Justin doesn’t spare the sometime dictator – he goes straight in for the kill with a series of questions that are a combination of probing, persistent and provocative. No, sorry. They’re puerile, preposterous and piss-taking – which is what makes them funny. I must admit I missed a few of the punchlines the first watch, but Mr Time quickly beats the boy from Branau into a corner where there is just one (not even a last) resort…

I think if Terry Jones had had access to video technology, then this is exactly the kind of thing he would have been making in his Colwyn Bay living room. It’s rough around the edges, for sure, but it did what it set out to do – provoked laughter. Have a watch – and yes, of course I am featuring this just in case Will is hailed as a comic genius in ten years. I will also be available for interview (for a small fee) where I can expound on Will’s classroom antics, but could I have Louis Theroux rather than Justin Time, please? He might let me off more lightly.

Twin Islands: A Beautiful Animated Short About Twins, Gods and the Curse of Symmetry

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 16:30:47 +0000

When the gods wish to punish us… and if you’re twins, then your run the risk of double trouble. This animated short from Rubika students tells the story of a pair of twins who are rescued by the gods and are gifted a place to live. Twin Island East for one, and Twin Island West for the other. The only problem is that the gods (twins themselves) ordain that everything must go two by two in a kind of cult of symmetry. That leads to a big problem when the queen of Twin Island West gives birth… and it isn’t twins!

To find out what happens, watch the video the below. This very professionally made animation is the work of directors Manon Sailly, Charlotte Sarfati, Christine Jaudoin, Lara Cochetel, Raphaël Huot, and Fanny Teisson with music and sound design by Valentin Lafort. Voices are by Daphné Westelynck, Robert Bennett, and Eon Ballinger. There is a little twist in the tale, so watch to the very end!

Robert Wun FW26 Haute Couture: Childsplay and the Art of Wearable Imagination

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 15:32:38 +0000

We don’t usually feature fashion on Kuriositas, but when this video of Robert Wun's FW26 (which stands for Fall/Winter 2026 in case you didn't already know) Haute Couture show, Childsplay, popped up in my feed, I felt I had to share because these clothes are something else. The event took place on Wednesday, 8 July 2026, during Paris Haute Couture Week at the Dôme de Paris – and if your reaction is like mine, it will be something along the lines of who the hell is ever going to wear these?

I remember being schooled on haute couture by a friend. She told me that the question was almost an irrelevance – that it wasn’t the point of the exercise. That, of course led to more questions from me…

The answer was (with a slight roll of the eyes, if I remember correctly) that haute couture sits somewhere between fashion and art. The runway pieces are not designed for everyday life; they are a showcase of imagination, craftsmanship and what a designer can achieve when there are no practical limits. Think of them less as clothes and more as wearable sculptures. Well, that was me told – and so since then I have always looked at these events less cynically.

Childsplay is a perfect example. Robert Wun takes the memories and imagination of childhood – toys, fairy tales, balloons and dressing up – and transforms them into astonishing works of couture. It is playful, but underneath the fantasy is an incredible level of skill, with some pieces taking hundreds of hours to create. I can't imagine the hours of work that went into my favorite from this show, the spacegirl outfit - you will know which one I mean when you see it!

So, who actually wears them? A very select group: celebrities, performers, collectors and wealthy private clients. Wun’s clients have included Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Cate Blanchett, Cardi B, Adele, Celine Dion, Florence Pugh and Naomi Osaka, among others. Many of the looks they wear are custom-made rather than identical to the runway versions. Robert Wun’s creations have appeared on red carpets and major events, where the clothing becomes part of the spectacle itself. For these buyers, a couture piece is not simply an outfit; it is a one-of-a-kind work of art.

And perhaps that is why Childsplay is worth watching. You may never own one of these creations, and you may never have an occasion to wear one, but for a few minutes Robert Wun reminds us of something we often lose as adults – the joy of imagination without limits.

What Are Those Things on Giraffes’ Heads?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 13:23:09 +0000

Perhaps we spend so long looking at the main creature feature of giraffes – their elegant, incredibly extended necks – that we miss other interesting bits. That may be the case with those things on the top of their heads (and we don’t mean their ears!). So, what are they and what are they used for? The Ark in Space, our sibling site, has a new feature on this most interesting anatomical oddity with a cool gallery of giraffes to boot. So, nudge nudge, wink wink, pop over and take a look!

They certainly have the most fascinating of faces…

First Image Credit Second Image Credit

Tanked: The Award-Winning Animated Short About Two Lobsters, Love and Karma

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 09:30:53 +0000

Have you ever had a romantic moment interrupted? It can be annoying – and it is certainly the case for the two lobsters in Tanked an award winning animated short by Duncan Rudd. Their tango in a tank is interrupted by the chef, who has a dinner order to fulfil and a sadistic gleam in his eye. Well, you know what karma is…

Tanked was something of a passion project for Rudd, who fitted it in around family and work commitments over a period of nine months. Although this animation is short and sweet, the production values are very high – you feel that you know the lobsters well from almost the outset – and the chef is a great villain. If you enjoy this, then perhaps try Paul Rudd’s The Ballad of the Pale Blue Dot which we featured on Kuriositas last year.

Haka Pei: Easter Island's Ancient Extreme Sport That Sends Warriors Racing Down a Volcano

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:13:31 +0000

Take two banana tree trunks, lash them together, point them downhill and jump on board. Get your mates involved and turn it into a competition. You might not associate Easter Island with extreme sports, but they have been part of the island's culture for centuries (with the occasional hiatus). There is no doubt that the highlight of the annual Tapati Rapa Nui Festival is the Haka Pei competition. Although the festival also celebrates Rapa Nui culture through singing, swimming, cooking demonstrations and countless other events, few can compete with the spectacle of hurtling down the side of an extinct volcano wearing nothing more than a loincloth and body paint. Image Credit

The origins of this sport trace back to an ancient Rapa Nui rite of passage, where young people tested their courage by taking on the daring haka pei descent. Completing the challenge proved they possessed the bravery and resilience expected of adults, earning some the status of matato'a - elite warriors. In this tradition, the haka pei marked the passage from childhood into adulthood.

Another account tells a different story. Rather than a coming-of-age ritual, the haka pei may have been a form of warrior training, designed to instil fearlessness and prepare fighters for clashes between rival clans on the island.

Does the exact origin of the sport matter? Not to the huge crowds gathered at the bottom of the hill, waiting to see how each of the twenty or so competitors will fare. Who will travel the furthest? Or who will be unfortunate and be flung off their fragile sled half-way down? The anticipation is huge, not least among the competitors, and it is great to see how they congratulate each other so enthusiastically when their mission is complete. The hill is covered in grass, but beneath that thin layer lies volcanic tuff capable of breaking bones when riders crash. And crashes do happen. As you might imagine, health-and-safety officials are not among Haka Pei's biggest fans. However, it all seems the height of fun for young men with more courage than common sense! Flippancy aside, I can’t think of a better way to keep an ancient culture alive. Watch the video below to enjoy haka pei in all its glory for yourself.

Can AI Come Up With Original Ideas? Rational Animations Explains AI Brilliantly

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 16:25:19 +0000

This video by Rational Animations begins with Babbage's Analytical Engine, which may leave you wondering why. Well, he did design history’s first programmable computer and even though it was back in the Victorian era, a video about AI must start somewhere. Of course, as the video is called Can AI Come Up With Original Ideas? we know that more is to come – and it gets to Aletheia and Google’s AlphaEvolve in due course.

Babbage’s design was never built, so the steampunk era remains (more or less) a fantasy. His ideas were expanded upon by Ada Lovelace, who took things to another level by wondering whether machines – computers – could come up with their own ideas. Now, Ada thought that they couldn’t (not Babbage’s at any rate). After all, artificial intelligence lacks artifice, therefore intelligence (not to get too philosophical). Or does it?

Coming up to our own day and age, it is the lack of clarity around what counts as a new idea that complicates things. As an English teacher, I will certainly go with the fact that each and every story ever told usually revolves around (at least) one of six basic plots So although something may seem fresh and original - Harry Potter, for example, thirty years ago - it often succeeds because it repackages something timeless for a new generation.

And so, it’s up to you to see what comes next by watching the wonderfully told video below – and I have to say the animations are just brilliant too. Do our machines simply follow our instructions with a little randomness thrown in (aka genetic algorithms) or is there more at play here, such as neural networks? Who can say, but I certainly didn’t think I would be coming across stochastic parrots today – or grokking for that matter (sounds a bit Carry On, if you ask me). Watch the video and decide for yourself whether today's AI is doing anything genuinely original. I watched it twice – and I will admit, I did enjoy it the first time, but the second time was to understand it. It doesn’t half pack a lot into 13 minutes.

Just before you watch the video, I asked Chat GPT what it thought of the video – in a nutshell. It said: “Watching it is a bit like following Alice down the rabbit hole, except the White Rabbit is Charles Babbage and the Cheshire Cat is a stochastic parrot.” Ah, the times in which we live.

Echo & the Bunnymen’s Brussels Is Haunted: A Beautiful, Melancholic Return to Form

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 17:02:08 +0000

I didn’t realise that Echo & the Bunnymen was still going as a band, but after hearing Brussels is Haunted, I am glad that it is. I remember Ian McCulloch leaving the band in the late 1980s and then there was a resurrection in the late 1990s with Evergreen, but after that I lost track. They are now apparently a two-piece, with original members Will Sergeant on lead guitar and programming and Ian McCulloch on vocals, rhythm guitar and keyboards. So, you can tell I’m not a diehard Bunnymen fan, but I think Brussels is Haunted is a great track. Plus there is a new album, Apples for Isaac coming out in September.

You can watch the video below, which is by Jef de Smet, and an intriguing, animated piece that matches the mood and the lyrics perfectly. Even though I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a performance of the song as such, the video is a fantastic evocation of Brussels as a place of ghosts, memories and faded glamour - a city where history, art and personal stories seem to linger in every street and square. Like the song itself, it feels both nostalgic and slightly unreal, capturing that very Bunnymen combination of beauty, mystery and melancholy. Plus, any song that namechecks Plastic and Bert Bertrand is going to get a listen or two from me…

Brussels Is Haunted feels like Echo & the Bunnymen turning Brussels into a dreamscape where personal memories collide with European history. The city is haunted not by ghosts alone, but by wars, art, romance and lost moments - from World War I, Waterloo and World War II to the imagined threat of World War III. In classic Bunnymen fashion, melancholy, myth and destiny blur together: Brussels is haunted because we are.

As a quick aside, while I wrote this, I put Ocean Rain on – because why not? I’ve already put a sell-by date on myself by saying I remember the original split and so a little wander down memory lane wasn’t going to do me any harm. I think almost anyone of my generation will recognise the opening chords of Silver – the first track on the album and although I believe that most people will say The Killing Moon is the standout track on the album, for me it’s The Yo Yo Man. It’s amazing to think how the Bunnymen pumped out four brilliant albums over the first five years of the 1980s (and that we took it for granted!). I seem to remember McCulloch describing Ocean Rain as the greatest album ever made – and he wasn’t that far wrong, frankly. Brussels Is Haunted is pretty good, too… and after decades of Bunnymen mythology, perhaps the only thing left is to mythologise the mythology itself.

Mount Nemrut – Home to Gods Beheaded

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 07:20:07 +0000

The Adiyaman Province of Turkey in the south east of the country is not wealthy – it is still classified as a developing rural region. Yet 25 miles from the small town of Kâhta the visitor discovers the remnants of once fabulous wealth. High on the summit of Mount Nemrut is a huge but little visited necropolis, home to the beheaded gods of the past.

Image Credit Flickr User birasuegi

Image Credit Flickr USer sly06

Sixty two years before the birth of Christ, King Antiochus I ordered a huge tomb come sanctuary to be built for himself. His place of burial was flanked by huge statues – one of himself but others of animals.

Image Credit Flickr User DamianHR

Image Credit Flickr User birasuegi

There were also gods – a syncretism of Iranian, Armenian and Greek which testify to the cultural mix of the area two thousand years ago. Hercules is there, as is Zeus, Tyche and Apollo. Their names were inscribed upon them – those Greek ones we recognize from books and movies as well as their Iranian and Armenian counterparts – Vahagn, Aramazd and Ahura Mazda.

Image Credit Flickr User reibei

Image Credit Flickr User DamienHR

Antiochus was half Armenian and half Greek – another reason why his tomb reflects more than just a single culture. This area was a true cross-road of peoples but there was but a single enemy at the time – the Romans. Antiochus managed to keep his kingdom of Commagene independent, even while many Anatolian territories were being annexed. The enemy became a treasured ally.

Image Credit Flickr User sly06

Image Credit Flickr User borderlys

Antiochus was already part of a dynasty but he wanted to see this preserved. So he created a royal cult and his tomb was built in order for his vassals to worship him after his death. A Greek inscription reveals that he was buried here at the roof of his world as a sign of his parity with the gods.

Image Credit Flickr User Klearchos Kapoutsis

Image Credit Flickr User birasuegi

The complex on Mount Nemrut (or Nemrut Dagi as it is locally known) was built so that many religious festivals could be held there. He commanded that his birthday should be celebrated on the 16th of each and every month and his coronation celebrated likewise on the 10th. To afford this he bought up wealth generating estates and properties which were legally bound to the sites.

Image Credit Flickr User Klearchos Kapoustis

Image Credit Flickr User Marcel Oosterwijk

He put in charge whole families with a vested interest in keeping this particular status quo. The priests of the tomb complex were to instruct their sons in administering the estates and so ensure that these celebrations would last in perpetuity. Or so Antiochus imagined.

Image Credit Flickr User Klearchos Kapoutsis/a>

Yet times change and at some point in the history there was a collective effort to demolish the statues – to bring down the gods of old. All of the statues have been decapitated – their heads roughly removed from their bodies. Archaeologists placed them upright but have not attempted to re-attach the head to the bodies. So, their dismembered heads lie where they fell.

Image Credit Flickr User jetske19

Image Credit Flickr User Klearchos Kapoutsis

Over the centuries people forgot about Antiochus’ tomb. Then in 1883 an engineer from Germany, Charles Sester, was assessing transport routes for the Ottoman Empire. He discovered more than he had bargained for. As he and his team dug they rediscovered the beheaded gods for the world.

Image Credit Flickr User Klearchos Kapoutsis

We know that the damage was intentional as there is a pattern to it, particularly their noses. When and exactly why it was done is lost to history. The area is under snow for several months a year and so the statues have naturally weathered too, making it difficult to ascertain when injury came to the gods of Mount Nemrut.

Image Credit Flickr User DamienHR

Yet despite the distance from their bodies the heads of these gods are still magnificent and their divinely icy stares still demand something – if not worship then certainly awe. The ruins of the tomb-sanctuary of Antiochus are magnificent to behold even today.

Image Credit Wikimedia

First Image Credit Flickr User Klearchos Kapoutsis

The Wee Tiny Gallery - London's Newest Art Hot-Spot for the Borrower Community

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:20:01 +0000

The Borrower community is agog with excitement. At last, they have The Wee Tiny Art Gallery on London’s Princelet Street, near Brick Lane: a space where people of their diminutive stature can admire fine art at reasonable prices. Who am I trying to kid? They’re going to borrow it, of course. Even so, it saves them from scaling enormous walls just to inspect a painting, and its contents are perfectly sized to fit into any cosy little niche at home. As you can imagine, queues are already forming. Image Credit

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Flippancy aside, you would probably walk straight past it - zooming out shows you just how tiny it is. Created through a collaboration between McKay Lenker Bayer of the Tiny Art Show, illustrator Holly Welch, and small-spaces builder and artist John Connors, this miniature masterpiece is both a gallery and a work of art. Showcasing Holly Welch’s exquisitely detailed miniatures within a beautifully crafted structure, it is almost certainly the smallest art gallery in London and the UK - and quite possibly the smallest in the world. We would ask a Borrower, but not one seems currently available for comment...

The video below by Daft Monkey goes into more detail about the Wee Tiny Art Gallery. Press play and it will go straight to the part about The Wee Tiny Gallery (about the five minute mark, although the rest of the video is very interesting too!).

If you would like to see how it was made, here is a short video by the artists.

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Bog: The Beautiful Irish Animated Short That Explores Grief and Memory

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 09:20:59 +0000

Bog is an enigmatic, beautifully made animated short, written and directed by Éabha Bortolozzo and Jack Kirwan. Our young protagonist, Oisin (pronounced uh-SHEEN and meaning Little Deer) embarks on a poignant journey through the mysterious depths of the bog. There, he uncovers the buried memories of his beloved father. Guided by the majestic spirit of the Great Irish Elk, he confronts his father's pain and suffering, gradually coming to understand the emotions that have shaped them both. As he descends ever deeper into the earth, Oisin also discovers a greater understanding of his own feelings and learns how to express them with honesty and clarity.

Among others, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor lends his voice to the film. One of Ireland's most acclaimed actors, he is best known for playing the unforgettable Nidge in Love/Hate, while international audiences will recognise him as Ebony Maw in Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. His impressive screen career also includes Peaky Blinders, Dublin Murders and numerous acclaimed stage productions.

For me, the fact that the spirit animal spoke the Irish language, while Oisin spoke English (even though they understood each other fully) added an extra layer of melancholy to the story. It may not have been deliberate, but it underlines the profound changes that Ireland has been through over the last few centuries – and represents something else that was taken away from the Irish people. Watch Bog below.

Alan Turing: The Father of AI, the Enigma Codebreaker and the Turing Test

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 07:43:21 +0000

Can machines think? Alan Turing may have shortened the war by cracking Enigma, but it was answering this question that may well have been his greatest achievement. This great, highly informative video from History Extra shows how, as part of a group of mathematicians, Turing imagined machines that could think and solve problems independently of human intervention. This was, of course, more than seven decades ago…

After the war, Turing turned his attention to the possibility of machine intelligence. In 1950, he published his groundbreaking paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in which he introduced the Turing Test - also known as the "imitation game" - as a way of assessing whether a machine could demonstrate intelligent behaviour. The ideas he explored remain highly relevant in our age of generative AI. I wonder what he would make of the collage of his life I just requested from an AI model (top)?

Turing’s death by suicide at the age of just 41 reflects the times in which he lived. He was unable to play the imitation game of pretending to the world to be heterosexual and so, despite the accolades for his war-work, he was pursued and prosecuted for being himself. This led to his death. Later, of course, he would be celebrated as the father of modern computing – I just find it a desperate shame that he died thinking that his reputation was irrecoverably damaged.

Watch the fascinating video about Turing’s life and achievements below.

The Strange Comfort of the “Retreat”: Why We Keep Leaving Home to Get Better

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 06:15:41 +0000

The Promise of Elsewhere

Nobody teaches us to say it, and yet everybody says it. I just need to get away for a while. We say it after bad years and bad news, after burnouts and break-ups, and sometimes after nothing we can name at all. The curious thing is not that we say it, but what the sentence assumes — that whatever is wrong with us is somehow anchored to where we are, and that a sufficient quantity of distance will loosen its grip.

It is a very old assumption indeed. For as long as human beings have been getting themselves into trouble, they have been packing their bags and going somewhere else to get better. The question worth asking is why we remain so certain that it works. Image Credit Wikimedia

The Ancient Roots of Retreat

The retreat, it turns out, is one of humanity’s most persistent inventions. The ancient Greeks travelled considerable distances to sleep in temples dedicated to Asclepius, the god of healing, in the hope that a cure would arrive in a dream — an early example, perhaps, of the restorative mini-break. The early Christian hermits went further still, walking into the Egyptian desert to be spectacularly alone with their thoughts. Medieval pilgrims wore out their shoes on the road to healing shrines, and monasteries perched themselves on mountains and remote islands with what can only be described as deliberate inconvenience.

It would be easy to mistake all this for escape, but that rather misses the point. The hermit was not running away from the world so much as constructing a silence in which he could hear himself think. To retreat, in the original sense, was not to flee. It was to create enough distance from one’s ordinary life that one might return to it as somebody slightly different.

When Place Became Medicine

By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the retreat had acquired a medical degree. Before modern medicine could reliably cure very much at all, the environment itself was the prescription — and doctors dispensed geography with tremendous confidence. The fashionable and the unwell, frequently the same people, descended upon spa towns such as Bath and Baden-Baden to drink and bathe in mineral waters of dubious flavour and celebrated reputation. The seaside resort owes its existence to physicians who prescribed sea air and cold bathing for nearly everything, and entire English towns were effectively built on the strength of the prescription pad.

The grandest expression of the idea was the Alpine sanatorium, where sufferers of tuberculosis were sent to recline on balconies and breathe mountain air, sometimes for years at a time. Thomas Mann set The Magic Mountain in precisely such a place, and readers will recall that its hero arrived for a three-week visit and stayed for seven years — which says something about the strange gravity of these institutions. The medicine, we now know, was limited, but the ritual was powerful: rest, altitude, isolation, routine and hope. And yet people did sometimes leave better than they arrived — and wherever something works, however mysteriously, an industry is never far behind.

The Retreat Becomes a Modern Industry

The modern world, never slow to spot an ancient longing, has turned the retreat into a product line. There are yoga retreats and silent retreats, digital detoxes for those who cannot stop scrolling and wellness resorts for those who cannot stop working. Some of these sell genuine transformation; others, one suspects, mostly sell photographs of infinity pools. But the emotional promise on the label is the same one the pilgrims bought: leave, reset, return changed.

This is also why the language around retreats has become so delicate. When a place promises renewal, recovery or transformation, it is no longer merely advertising a destination. It is asking for trust.

Why Distance Feels Like Relief

Strip away the mineral water and the mountain air, and something real remains. Physical distance creates mental distance — the two are more closely wired together than we like to admit. Our habits, good and bad, are not free-floating things; they are stitched into places. The armchair where we worry, the kitchen where we pour the drink, the commute where the dread sets in. Ordinary life runs on an invisible choreography, and we dance it automatically, every day, without once consulting ourselves.

A new place interrupts the choreography. Away from home, the cues that trigger our oldest routines simply are not there, and life stops feeling quite so automatic. There is also the quieter liberation of arriving somewhere as a stranger: at home we are permanently cast in our roles — the employee, the parent, the reliable one, the struggling one — and we perform them because everyone around us expects the performance. In a place where nobody knows us, the casting is suspended. This, more than anything the Victorians bottled, is what the retreat actually dispenses. It is not that elsewhere is magical. It is that home is sticky.

The Most Serious Form of Retreat

The most serious inheritor of the tradition is not found in the brochure rack. Residential addiction treatment centres are built, quite deliberately, on the very principle this article has been circling: that a person struggling with a substance use disorder often cannot begin recovery inside the environment where the addiction lives, surrounded by its cues, routines and pressures.

This is why the way such places describe themselves matters so much. A family searching for help is often making a frightening decision under pressure, with imperfect information and very little time. A specialist marketing agency for rehab centers is not simply promoting a facility; it is helping treatment providers communicate safety, credibility and care before a person ever walks through the door.

What the sanatorium did partly by accident, treatment centres attempt by clinical design — structured days, planned meals, distance from triggers, and a temporary release from old roles. The stakes are considerably higher than at any spa. The person arriving at such a place is often in crisis, and the retreat they are checking into is not an indulgence but a threshold.

We Leave So We Can Return

And that word — threshold — is really the answer to the question we began with. The retreat endures because it was never actually about the leaving. The hermit came back from the desert; the pilgrim walked home again; even Thomas Mann’s hero eventually came down from the mountain. A retreat that never ends is not a retreat at all, merely a disappearance. Its strange comfort lies in the return ticket: the knowledge that we are not escaping our lives but stepping far enough away from them to see them clearly, and to practise, in peace, becoming someone we can bring home.

Tollund Man: The 2,400-Year-Old Bog Body That Still Fascinates the World

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:18:59 +0000

I have always been a little uneasy about human bodies in museums, regardless of their age. It isn’t a disquiet based on religion, but around the issue of permission. I’m opting for cremation when my last page turns, and that will avoid me becoming the Tollund Man of the year 4000 no matter what the cause of my demise (hopefully). I wouldn’t want people gawping at my human remains – although I can think of any number of people who would probably relish the thought of people looking at them thousands of years in the future. Not my kind of immortality, I’m afraid! We will obviously never know what Tollund Man or Grauballe Man, two of Denmark's most famous 'bog bodies,' preserved for over 2,000 years in peat bogs might think of the ultimate fate of their bodies. It’s unlikely that they would even understand the concept of a museum, let alone their place in it. And besides, besides, besides…

On to the video. Ole Nielsen of the Silkeborg Museum walks us through the discovery of Tollund Man, whose case was as cold as can be (even though his death was not natural), but whose face is the best-preserved from pre-history that we have and who gives us many clues about what life was like in the way back when. The team at the museum also use cutting-edge technology to see more of Tollund Man’s physiology – and the results are remarkable. What I always find even more fascinating, though, are the reconstructions of ancient faces - and there is one at the museum which shows us what Tollund Man would have looked like just before he died. I used that to ask AI to visualise him in his native habitat - that's the image you see at the top of this post.

As I said, I do have some reservations around bodies being exhibited in museums, but was a little comforted (if that is quite the right word) by one of the comments on the video by @LPdedicated. It goes: “I worked at Silkeborg Museum and every morning when I opened the exhibition, I would just sit in the room with the Tollund man in silence for a few minutes before I went to my office… Fun fact: every year at the start of November his birthday is celebrated at campus". So, although he could never envision what would happen to him after his death let alone give permission, at least Tollund Man had some at least one thoughtful companion in the museum. I am sure the commenter is not the only one to have spent time reflecting in this manner – and there aren’t many people who have been dead 2,400 years whose birthdays are still celebrated. So perhaps TM wouldn't be too unhappy about it, after all.

I digress. Watch the fascinating video about the Danish bog bodies below.

Fire: An Atmospheric Animated Short Capturing the Horror of Wildfire

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 17:19:09 +0000

As you (may) know, at Kuriositas we like to showcase some of the best student-created animated shorts. Many, if not most of them, tell stories that are action-heavy, which helps show off the technical prowess of the students. Fire is something quite difference. While it certainly covers the elements that the students must show in order to complete their degree, this tells and altogether different story. As such it is refreshing to see a group of collaborators take such a distinct and different pathway to the norm. What we get initially is a beautifully rendered series of images of a languid summer’s afternoon, almost as if time has stood still. It's a perfect summer's day. A cat is our protagonist (if it can be called that) as he meanders around the yard and inside the house. Yet even as he does so, there is a steadily increasing sense of unease that something isn’t quite right.

Of course, the house has been abandoned due to an encroaching fire. It’s a prescient piece of filmmaking in that respect, as so much of Europe has been impacted by successive heatwaves over the last few months. As the fire encroaches, its impact is felt. This is an impressive piece of animation, one that had me transfixed from start to finish. Congratulations to the directors, Baptiste Fraboul, Esther Lamassoure, Julie Le Forban, Valentin Serre, Léna Gittler, and Florent Sabuco of École des Nouvelles Images for producing something so special. Fire was produced by Julien Deparis, and sound design was by Pierre-François. I would also like to specially mention the soundtrack by Mathis Coopman which superbly catches the atmosphere of the disaster in a very Pink Floydy kinda way, combining with the animation to create something truly cinematic. No wonder this animated short has won awards!

Watch Fire below.

Do graphics still play a major part in gaming?

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 13:32:34 +0000

Graphics used to be the headline act. For years, gaming’s biggest selling point was simple. How real can we make this look?

Each new console generation arrived with a quiet sense of anticipation, bringing sharper textures, richer lighting, and more detailed worlds to explore. You could feel the progress, even in small moments.

The release of the PlayStation 3 almost 20 years ago, that transition from the 480i standard definition era to 720p/1080p HD, was one of the most notable improvements to happen in one big jump.

The way light hit a surface, the way a character moved, the way a landscape stretched out in the distance.

Trailers leaned into that sense of discovery. They lingered on environments, on faces, on tiny details that showed how far things had come. There was a kind of fascination in seeing familiar ideas rendered with just a little more clarity, a little more depth.

Playing a new game felt like stepping into something that had been carefully built to be seen as much as experienced. There was time to take it in, but now expectations have shifted with the rise of esports.

Competitive players see graphics differently. A dropped frame can cost a match. Visual clarity is information, not feeling. Graphics create fairness, not atmosphere. A new generation of players will sit in front of Twitch streams and be able to watch, interact, and even use top US online casinos to bet on live video games.

Anything from games of virtual basketball to Counter-Strike can be consumed, and it’s more about strategy than how the game looks. So how do developers balance how the game looks against how it performs?

How did we get here?

Gaming's relationship with graphics has traced a clear arc.

First came the graphics arms race. Realism was the measure of ambition. Trailers were tech demos. You could watch a game run and see mostly environmental detail rather than actual gameplay. Developers poured resources into fidelity at the expense of everything else, and publishers celebrated the graphical leaps as proof of innovation.

Let’s be honest, early 3D gaming will look jagged and crude now, but there's something iconic about those blocky polygons.

When players remember the original Resident Evil games, they don't mentally upgrade the graphics to modern standards. They remember the feeling those pixelated spaces created. The limitation became the identity.

Then esports changed that thinking. When gaming became competitive and broadcast, responsiveness mattered more than spectacle.

Developers realized that a cluttered visual environment hurts clarity. Performance optimization became fashionable. The conversation shifted from "how realistic can we make this" to "how clearly can we deliver information."

This shift filtered into mainstream gaming through streaming. When a game is being watched by millions on Twitch, visual clarity matters differently than it does in single-player. Spectators need to understand the action instantly. That favors clean visuals and high frame rates over experimental aesthetics that might be visually striking but harder to read at speed.

But virtual worlds still matter

Not everyone is gaming to be the next Ninja or Faker. After a long day of work, people just want to hop onto a game to enjoy its story and immerse themselves in a world different from their own.

For many players, games are an escape. Titles like Ghost of Tsushima or Death Stranding are not about performance; they are about stepping into another world. Graphics matter here because they create that space, not because they push realism.

Other titles like Hades, Pentiment, and Sable don't win because they're the most technically advanced. They win because every visual choice is intentional. None of these games needed cutting-edge fidelity to work. They needed clarity of vision.

Even when games chase realism, what sticks is the experience. Wolverine will no doubt look great, but what matters is being able to pick up Logan’s claws yourself, to feel that weight and movement, rather than just watching it play out in an old X-Men movie.

The 2026 releases tell the same story. The new LEGO Batman game uses Traveller's Tales' deliberately cartoonish aesthetic. It’s like the levels have jumped straight out of an old comic book and onto your console.

The genuine tension

So, where does this leave the debate?

One argument goes that competitive gaming and streaming culture have flattened visual experimentation. When every game needs to broadcast clearly and perform consistently, you lose that charm.

Development resources go toward optimization rather than artistic risk. Graphics become functional rather than expressive.

The counterargument is that this represents gaming growing up. Graphics chasing pure realism was a dead-end obsession anyway. Once you accept that games don't need to look like movies, you're free to explore what they can actually do visually. A game can look beautiful because it's stylized, not because it's realistic. That's more interesting than another marginal improvement in ray-tracing quality.

The honest answer is that both are true. Gaming has split into parallel experiences, each with its own visual philosophy.

The question "do graphics still matter?" assumes they ever worked as a unified standard. They didn't.

Graphics do several different things simultaneously. They communicate information to competitive players. They create emotional landscapes for escapist players. They express artistic intent for creators. They function as cultural markers that date and identify eras.

Gaming isn't choosing between graphics and performance. It's accepted that different players want different things and different games require different visual philosophies. That's not a decline in graphics' importance. Its graphics are finally becoming mature.

Photo by Samsung Memory on Unsplash

The Curious History of Bingo: From Italian Lottery to Global Phenomenon

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:41:34 +0000

Image by DesignUni on Magnific

Few games have travelled as far, or changed as many times, as bingo. It has been a Renaissance-era state lottery, a French parlour game for the aristocracy, a German teaching tool for schoolchildren, and a beloved fixture of seaside halls and community centres. Today it lives happily on screens around the world. The story of how a simple game of matching numbers spread across five centuries and several continents is one of the more delightful curiosities in the history of play.

It Began in Renaissance Italy

The earliest ancestor of bingo can be traced to Italy in the 1530s, shortly after the unification of the country's various states. A national lottery called Il Gioco del Lotto d'Italia was established, and remarkably, a version of it still runs in Italy to this day. Players chose numbers in the hope of matching those drawn, and the game became a reliable source of revenue for the state. This early lottery contained the essential seed of bingo: numbers, chance, and the communal thrill of the draw. As the reference work Encyclopaedia Britannica notes, the game has carried many names and forms across the centuries, but that core lottery mechanic has stayed remarkably constant.

The French Refinement

By the late eighteenth century, the game had crossed into France, where it was embraced by the wealthy and educated classes under the name Le Lotto. It was here that the format began to resemble the bingo we recognise today. French players used cards divided into rows and columns, with numbered squares and blank spaces, and tokens to cover the numbers as they were called. Le Lotto became a fashionable pastime among the French elite, a sociable game played at gatherings rather than a state gamble. The layout those players used, with its careful grid of numbers and gaps, is the direct ancestor of the ticket a modern player marks off today.

From Church Halls to the Digital Age

Through the twentieth century, bingo became deeply woven into community life. In the United States it was famously used to raise funds for churches and charities. In the United Kingdom it flourished in dedicated bingo halls, many housed in grand former cinemas and theatres, becoming a cornerstone of social life, particularly for older generations. The calling of numbers even developed its own rich folklore of nicknames, from "two little ducks" for twenty-two to "legs eleven."

The digital era brought the game full circle, back to the home where the French elite once played it, but now connected to players everywhere. Online and mobile versions let people enjoy a game of bingo from wherever they happen to be, preserving the social chatter through chat rooms while removing the need to travel to a hall. The community spirit that defined the bingo hall found a new form online, proving the game's remarkable ability to adapt to each era it passes through.

A German Teaching Tool

One of the stranger turns in the game's history came in nineteenth-century Germany, where a version of lotto was adapted for the classroom. Teachers used the number-matching format to help children learn multiplication tables, spelling, and even history. It is a charming detail that a game now associated with leisure and chance was once a serious educational aid, used to drill young minds through the appeal of play. The idea that learning is easier when it feels like a game is hardly new, and bingo was an early proof of the concept, one that modern educators rediscover every time they turn a lesson into a quiz.

The American Leap and the Accidental Name

The game arrived in North America in the early twentieth century, and this is where it acquired both its modern form and its famous name. As the story goes, a toy salesman named Edwin Lowe encountered the game at a travelling carnival in the late 1920s, where it was being played under the name Beano, because players marked their cards with dried beans.

Lowe saw the potential and began producing his own version. The legend holds that during a game, an excited winner stumbled over her words and shouted "Bingo" instead of "Beano." Lowe liked the sound of it, the name stuck, and a global brand was accidentally born. Whether the tale is entirely true or has been polished over the years, it is exactly the kind of happy accident that the history of popular culture is full of.

Lowe went further, hiring a mathematician named Carl Leffler to expand the number of unique card combinations so that games could have more players without producing multiple winners at once. Leffler reportedly threw himself into the task so completely that, according to popular accounts, the strain took a serious toll on his health, all in the service of a game about matching numbers.

Why Bingo Endures

The secret to bingo's five-century survival is its beautiful simplicity. There is no skill barrier, no complex rules to master, and no need to be an expert to enjoy it. It is a great equaliser, a game where a first-time player has exactly the same chance as a veteran. That accessibility, combined with its sociable nature, has allowed it to slip effortlessly from Italian lottery halls to French salons to German classrooms to seaside towns and finally onto the screens in our hands.

Not many pastimes can claim an unbroken line back to the Renaissance. Bingo can, and it shows no sign of stopping. It remains what it has always been: a simple, communal delight built on the timeless pleasure of hoping your number is the next one called.

Svolværgeita: Jumping the Goat's Horns

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:28:37 +0000

If the first words that just came in to your head were never in a million years, then you are probably in good company. The Svolværgeita mountain in Norway was first climbed just a little over a century ago in 1910. Yet since then a tradition has emerged among the mountaineering fraternity: those who reach the goat’s horns jump them. Because they can.

Image Credit Flickr User Sonia Marotti

The town of Svolvær in Norland County nestles below the mountain. It is situated in Lofoten (which we have visited before on Kuriositas) on the south coast of Austvågøy, and faces open sea to the south with the mountain directly to the north. It is easy to see where the goats horns got their name. There are two spiky rocks which only the most experienced rock climbers can (safely) reach.

The National Library of Norway

Image Credit Flickr User QuiteAdept

The first picture above is from the early 1900s when the mountain was first conquered, followed by a photograph of how the same scene looks today. You can just about make out the goat’s horns on the left side of the mountain, about two thirds of the way up. From down below it looks tiny.

Image Credit Flickr User Malabar

Yet when you get close up like this your realize the enormity of the goat's horns.

Image Credit Flickr User Geoff Rossi

You could easily argue (and many would agree) that the heights of Svolværgeita should be considered strictly for the birds. Even the local sea birds seem content just to look up at the mountain. Yet when you get up there, it offers quite the view…

Image Credit Flickr User Gauteh

Image Credit

Imgur

Image Credit Flickr User Henrikj

Image Credit NFK

First Image Credit Flickr User Cascade Hiker

What NOT to Do If You Crash Land on an Alien Planet – A Brilliant Animated Short by ESMA Students

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:19:12 +0000

Lurks should be a training video for the Intergalactic Federation of Planets called “What NOT to do if you crash land on a mysterious alien planet” because the protagonist does so many things wrong. You would think that she has never watched a horror film before – and this trope-laden animated short by ESMA graduation students deliverers them one after another (after another). Now, reading back, that doesn’t look like much of a plug for this, but I found it immensely entertaining (although I desperately wanted some sort of final twist in the tale, right at the end, which did not appear but which could have raised the bar here, in terms of structure and storytelling).

The planet, spacecraft and character animation (especially the monsters) are extremely well realised, especially considering this is a student film. There are any number of technically very difficult sequences in this short, and hats off to the team for delivering them with great aplomb. Altogether, a chilling cautionary tale of how to survive an alien environment – or not. The students who created this are Kelssy Abdou , Ikram Benmaza, Mélodie Carn, Amanda Cere, Adrien Chaumier, Maëlle Couzinier, Maëline Dalous, Victor Del Campo and Aglaée Pons. Music was by Valentin Guay with sound created by Tristan Le Bozec, Guilhem Favard and Jose Vicente. Well done to everyone involved in the project.

The Frog that Turns Blue

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:46:16 +0000

The Moor Frog of Central Europe has a trick up its sleeve when it comes to getting a mate. The male turns blue for a week each year but it's perhaps not for the reason you think! Pop over to the Ark in Space to discover the real reason (and it’s not to attract a mate!).

Image Credit Wikimedia

The Sky Blue Mushroom

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:45:42 +0000

It looks like it could be something offered to Alice just before she makes a journey in to Wonderland but this sky blue mushroom is not a product of the imagination of Lewis Caroll. It can be found on both islands of New Zealand – and bizarrely enough in a few places in India.

Image Credit Flickr User Ewan-M

Image Credit Flickr User Roberta WB

The sky blue mushroom does not have a common name other than, well, sky blue mushroom but if you have a moment for a real tongue twister its scientific name is Entoloma hochstetteri. It gets its very distinctive blue color from pigments within the body of the fruit known as azulene. Azulene is found in nature as a constituent not only of pigments in mushrooms but of some marine invertebrates.

Image Credit Flickr User Ewan_M

Image Credit Flickr User crispyking

The mushroom appeared briefly along with five other native fungi on a set of stamps issued by the New Zealand government in 2002 and it can also be seen on the reverse of the country’s $50 note which was released in 1990. Outside of New Zealand, however, and people seem blissfully unaware of the existence of this incredible blue mushroom.

Image Credit Flickr User electro8

The fruiting body (or basidiocarp) of the mushroom is usually found among moss, ferns or fallen leaves and the cap grow up to around four centimeters in diameter. With a conical shape it does look like something out of a fairy tale or children’s story and the lush green backdrop of New Zealand’s woodland simply adds to the expectation (albeit a little infantile, but hey) that a pixie will start to leap around it at any moment.

Image Credit Flickr User little.tomato

Image Credit Flickr User yooperann

Although the mushroom is not edible it is not known if it is poisonous or not – no one seems to have tried to eat it so far in its history. It was first described by a European in 1866 so it is a little surprising that there has not been a willing Alice in the interim to furnish us with details of its edibility or otherwise. Yet other species in its genus are known to be poisonous so the likelihood is that this beautiful blue mushroom would not be much good in an omelette.

Image Credit Flickr User cordyceps

Image Credit Flickr User mollivan Jon

First image Credit Flickr User little.tomato