Walking in and out

Under these circumstances, having Fantine euthanized is a morally good outcome. You and your partner and doing absolutely everything you can, and that’s not sustainable.

(In contrast, Qatar is at 45 tons per person, Australia and the US are at 14 tons per person, and China is at 9 tons per person.)

In short, blaming Israel for the heatwave in Europe is antisemitic because Israel's contribution to global CO2 emissions is comparatively miniscule.

LEGOLAS & GIMLI

latest finished commission featuring legolas and gimli for @scrimplications — whose dark haired legolas vision is UNMATCHED! 🙏🏽🥹

My illustration for the charity art book "Botanichnyi sad" *The Botanical Garden*

Малювала соняшник до артбуку @botanichyi_sad ♥️

The Fence has published an exposé on Stuart Semple (of Anish Kapoor 'feud' notoriety) which they have been working on for six months.

investigation reveals Semple / his studio / his partner Emily Mann (who's described as acting as his 'enforcer' in his business) :

mishandled £400k grant of public money intended for a public gallery, allowing the money to flow freely between the public project, his own personal studio and personal projects such as Culture Hustle (his online business selling paint etc)

underpaid or failed to pay many of his assistants to the tune of several thousand pounds each.

former assistants have taken him to court and he simply hasn't bothered to show up and he's threatened to sue former assistants who asked for their back pay

repeatedly funds ambitious projects that never see release eg Abode, an 'Adobe-rivalling' suite of creative software (he claims he still intends to release this)

encouraged a cult-like atmosphere at his studio in Bournemouth

was frequently in debt and having to negotiate with bailiffs etc for his debts while at the same time crowdfunding various projects

ran fake social media accounts boosting Semple and his work

The portrait that emerges is one of decades-long scam artistry tbh and someone who's juvenile, manipulative, narcissistic.

The Fence btw is a decent fairly small-circulation quarterly magazine from the UK which specialises in satire, investigative journalism, culture, and fiction. You can read the piece in its entirety if you register (which is free).

a few links:

The Fence's newsletter from April discusses this article & how Semple has tried to muddy the SEO waters

Semple threatened to sue The Fence for publishing this story - many of you are American so here's the relevant UK law on defamation.

The first thig that put up a solid red flag was the shipping material. It's cool that he has custom boxes for his studio, it looked really neat. Then I opened it and saw things like "Not for bean boy" printed all over the inside of the box.

Between Mirror, hyper pigments, and black 2.0, none of them were as extremely out there as the videos on his site made them seem. The colors are vibrant, the black is dark, and the mirror is shiny. But the level the videos showed them at are not levels I can recreate.

So like, he exaggerated as an advertising scheme. Alright, shame on him.

Antique Victorian Long Rose Cut Garnet Brooch

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

The old lady is not in her home. She is at work. She's meant to be what in Italian is called "la portinaia", aka a cross between a doorwoman and cleaner of a residential building. She's in her small "office" space, at the entrance of the building, from where she can survey the coming and goings of the inhabitants. It's a job that has mostly disappeared, but is culturally very clear to us as having the connotation of "potentially gossipy, one-million-percent judgmental woman who sees everything that goes on in the apartment complex, knows everyone and their secrets, and has Strong Opinions™️".

any time someone is in any kind of crisis or upheaval, offer to feed them. tell them they don't have to choose what it is if they can't make decisions, just ask about allergies and preferences and tell them you're just gonna make food happen at their house.

friend having a baby? delivery gift certificate to order food to the hospital after the kid shows up.

someone's relative passes away? offer to make them dinner.

buddy gets laid off? ask if you can order them lunch.

pal stuck in a depressive episode? offer to drive them to fucking mcdonalds, if that's what they want.

people in crisis are tired and sad and angry and the last thing most of them are doing is thinking about feeding themselves. so if you have the ability or time or money, providing that is always, always a good move.

In my firsthand experience, it's actually very overwhelming and its own mental load to manage and try to limit waste when a family member dies and your village shows up with 12 meals on one day. When you can really actually use 12 meals across 12 days...

I had a friend get 2 different back to back MAJOR health issues and our village was able to plan feed her (Including share important dietary restrictions related to her illness!!!) for like 8 weeks through treatment, etc.

Live in the UK

are an adult and have at minimum Indefinite Leave to Remain

Can scrape together about £1200 in one place for a few minutes (can be salary/your actual bank account, but better if not, as you’ll need to park it somewhere else for a month or so)

Can reasonably do mildly convoluted admin tasks (I.e., could you keep a spreadsheet that juggles a few things like “dates to cancel subscriptions”, and remember to cancel the subscriptions?)

Are confident, capable and able to do life paperwork such as opening bank accounts

Then you can usually farm a bit of pocket money with bank switching.

Bank switching is taking advantage of cash offers that UK banks offer to switch your current account to their bank. They often offer £150 cash for doing this. The definition of a “current account” is usually “has ~£1200 in it and two direct debits set up,” so if you’re willing to quickly set up a free throwaway bank account that meets these criteria, you can then switch that account around various banks to take advantage of incentives.

There’s some decent offers right now if you’re willing to do the homework (you could get up to £1500 at the moment if you’re eligible for everything), and people on Reddit write really careful hand-holding tutorials. https://www.reddit.com/r/beermoneyuk/s/DLrpVkmDOo

You can usually only max this out once a year, and then have to take a break (most banks have a cooldown period.) of course, if you have a partner or other family members, you can do theirs. You can pass the £1200 back and forth between you for this, and make double the amount.

If you only do £1000 a year, it’s about the limit of the admin most people want to do, and is tax-free.

You can mess it up - but rather than losing money, you’re more likely to accidentally fail to meet the criteria, or get into an admin snarl where you get querulous emails from bizarre institutions like the Ulster Bank of Lobsterworkers and Divinely Inspired Miners, telling you that they can’t close your bank account until you remove £0.37 from it. However, allowing reputable UK banks to hold your £1200 is a low-risk activity.

You must follow the instructions (and guides) attentively to receive the payouts.

Bank switching is a good, honourable and reliable way to raise a few hundred pounds to pay off large unexpected expenses. A big credit card bill, an air conditioner, an unexpected flight - I find it useful to know that a little bit of extra admin-headache can write off the whole expense.

Last year, wasps built this nest

This year, other species of wasps built a nest on that nest