J Richards
@jrichardsme.bsky.social
Writers & writing, wild places, slow food, stories, art, poetry, nature. UK international. Constantly curious.
😢
No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s,
with its diced carrots the perfect size
and its diced potatoes the perfect size
and its wee soft bits –
what are their names? …
—Jackie Kay, “Grandpa’s Soup”
in DARLING, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 2007
#poem #GrandparentsDay
www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/...
with its diced carrots the perfect size
and its diced potatoes the perfect size
and its wee soft bits –
what are their names? …
—Jackie Kay, “Grandpa’s Soup”
in DARLING, @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social 2007
#poem #GrandparentsDay
www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/...
October 4, 2026 at 4:57 PM
😢
Reposted by J Richards
If you’re watching The Traitors this is a proper nerd-out on how to spot a Traitor from Hannah Fry youtu.be/twDvxNooI_4?...
How would Alan Turing have played the Traitors?
YouTube video by Hannah Fry
youtu.be
October 4, 2026 at 6:34 AM
If you’re watching The Traitors this is a proper nerd-out on how to spot a Traitor from Hannah Fry youtu.be/twDvxNooI_4?...
Reposted by J Richards
Happiness
Raymond Carver
🖤
Raymond Carver
🖤
September 29, 2026 at 9:37 PM
Happiness
Raymond Carver
🖤
Raymond Carver
🖤
Reposted by J Richards
The best thing I ever ate? Mum’s boeuf à la mode on my 21st birthday
The best thing I ever ate? Mum’s boeuf à la mode on my 21st birthday
She prepared a miraculous feat for my celebration. The very thought of it still makes me smile
www.theguardian.com
September 28, 2026 at 4:51 AM
The best thing I ever ate? Mum’s boeuf à la mode on my 21st birthday
Reposted by J Richards
“Out of more than 1,000 empty units he helped audit nationally, on average more than half didn't have a letting agent actively marketing the property. He says some councils don't even know who the landlords are.”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My hometown shows that high streets have to change or die
Aberdeen is launching an ambitious bid to revive its struggling centre. Could it offer lessons for other high streets?
www.bbc.co.uk
September 28, 2026 at 6:14 AM
“Out of more than 1,000 empty units he helped audit nationally, on average more than half didn't have a letting agent actively marketing the property. He says some councils don't even know who the landlords are.”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Lady Macbeth. Infirm of purpose!
Give me the fucking daggers
Give me the fucking daggers
Ok don’t let’s get carried away but I found something genuinely good on Threads.
September 27, 2026 at 11:11 AM
Lady Macbeth. Infirm of purpose!
Give me the fucking daggers
Give me the fucking daggers
Reposted by J Richards
The Northern Line, if it were proper Northern. (Made this a few years back, but thought I’d whippet out again.)
September 26, 2026 at 6:43 PM
The Northern Line, if it were proper Northern. (Made this a few years back, but thought I’d whippet out again.)
Reposted by J Richards
Smile, it’s Friday! 😃
Meet ‘The Oldest Smile in the World’ a tiny face that’s been smiling for some 7,400 years!
Carved from oak during the Mesolithic, this small human figure was found in 1966 in a layer of peat during dock construction at Willemstad in the Netherlands.
#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
Meet ‘The Oldest Smile in the World’ a tiny face that’s been smiling for some 7,400 years!
Carved from oak during the Mesolithic, this small human figure was found in 1966 in a layer of peat during dock construction at Willemstad in the Netherlands.
#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
September 25, 2026 at 11:28 AM
Smile, it’s Friday! 😃
Meet ‘The Oldest Smile in the World’ a tiny face that’s been smiling for some 7,400 years!
Carved from oak during the Mesolithic, this small human figure was found in 1966 in a layer of peat during dock construction at Willemstad in the Netherlands.
#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
Meet ‘The Oldest Smile in the World’ a tiny face that’s been smiling for some 7,400 years!
Carved from oak during the Mesolithic, this small human figure was found in 1966 in a layer of peat during dock construction at Willemstad in the Netherlands.
#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
Reposted by J Richards
Ai Weiwei unveils his epic new Australian work: ‘90% of art is just garbage. Real art questions the existing order’
Ai Weiwei unveils his epic new Australian work: ‘90% of art is just garbage. Real art questions the existing order’
From his farm in Portugal, the acclaimed artist speaks about war, peace, the state of the world – and his 40 metre sculpture Mushrooms, on Sydney Harbour
“It’s like a film set. Like it’s not real,” the bemused Uber driver says as we pass through a succession of silent rural villages washed with milky sunlight. He’s right: signs of human life are weirdly absent during our windy journey through the Alentejo. I’m making my way to Ai Weiwei’s secluded farm, nestled deep in the Portuguese countryside, where arguably the world’s best known living artist has quietly lived for the last six years.
When I arrive, I am ushered inside a vast cathedral of a building, a replica of Ai’s erstwhile, and controversially demolished, studio in Shanghai. The space is cavernous. It’s gridded by huge wooden columns and its dizzyingly high ceilings are webbed with beams. There is no artwork on the walls, nor are there any obvious signs of production or activity. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
September 25, 2026 at 12:02 AM
Ai Weiwei unveils his epic new Australian work: ‘90% of art is just garbage. Real art questions the existing order’
Reposted by J Richards
...so read my long love-letter to this show, in which I explore all its complications and unanswered questions, here. juderogers.substack.com/p/the-unansw...
The unanswered questions of 70 Up
The death of Nick, goodbye to Neil, and the power of watching fourteen real lives in time-lapse – the return of my Mid-Week Culture Culture Blast
juderogers.substack.com
September 23, 2026 at 12:29 PM
...so read my long love-letter to this show, in which I explore all its complications and unanswered questions, here. juderogers.substack.com/p/the-unansw...
Reposted by J Richards
"Last night on ITVX, a boy brought up on a rural Yorkshire farm who became a nuclear fusion scientist spoke about his life, three days before his death." After the last episode of 70 Up, I woke up today with a fire in my belly desperate to review it and write about it...
September 23, 2026 at 12:29 PM
"Last night on ITVX, a boy brought up on a rural Yorkshire farm who became a nuclear fusion scientist spoke about his life, three days before his death." After the last episode of 70 Up, I woke up today with a fire in my belly desperate to review it and write about it...
Reposted by J Richards
I am the very model of a modern day typographer
A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan
#typography #fonts #graphicdesign
A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan
#typography #fonts #graphicdesign
September 8, 2026 at 7:03 PM
I am the very model of a modern day typographer
A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan
#typography #fonts #graphicdesign
A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan
#typography #fonts #graphicdesign
Reposted by J Richards
Some lunchtime reading from me: searching for the women who made the Bayeux Tapestry.
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-bayeux...
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-bayeux...
The Bayeux Tapestry and its backstories
Can the Tapestry’s narrative ambivalence tell us about the women who made it?
mathewlyons.substack.com
September 17, 2026 at 12:17 PM
Some lunchtime reading from me: searching for the women who made the Bayeux Tapestry.
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-bayeux...
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-bayeux...
Reposted by J Richards
btw, you should absolutely watch this brilliant documentary about the Bayeux Tapestry's journey from France to the British Museum on the iPlayer www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Two - Secrets of the Bayeux Tapestry: Inside the Museum
A stellar cast of historians and experts unravel the secrets of the Bayeux Tapestry.
www.bbc.co.uk
September 14, 2026 at 6:17 PM
btw, you should absolutely watch this brilliant documentary about the Bayeux Tapestry's journey from France to the British Museum on the iPlayer www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
Reposted by J Richards
I appreciate that "this is good" is a bit of a vapid comment, but yeah, this is good
I am the very model of a modern day typographer
A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan
#typography #fonts #graphicdesign
A font take on the tune “Modern Major General” by Gilbert & Sullivan
#typography #fonts #graphicdesign
September 8, 2026 at 7:56 PM
I appreciate that "this is good" is a bit of a vapid comment, but yeah, this is good
Reposted by J Richards
White Auroras are a rare, visually stunning phenomenon observed in high-latitude regions like Finland, Norway, and Alaska. They occur when low-energy particles hit oxygen at high altitudes.
August 22, 2026 at 6:56 AM
White Auroras are a rare, visually stunning phenomenon observed in high-latitude regions like Finland, Norway, and Alaska. They occur when low-energy particles hit oxygen at high altitudes.
Reposted by J Richards
From the rolling contours of West Yorkshire to the Atlantic beyond St Ives…
Saffron Swire on how landscape and colour seeped into Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture:
Saffron Swire on how landscape and colour seeped into Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture:
Barbara Hepworth’s blues
The sculptor is known for her mastery of shape and movement—but colour was just as essential a part of her art
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
August 22, 2026 at 9:34 AM
From the rolling contours of West Yorkshire to the Atlantic beyond St Ives…
Saffron Swire on how landscape and colour seeped into Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture:
Saffron Swire on how landscape and colour seeped into Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture:
Reposted by J Richards
Victoria has begun vaccinating about 5,000 little penguins at Phillip Island and St Kilda to protect them against the deadly H5 bird flu, in what is believed to be the world’s largest vaccination program involving wild birds.
August 21, 2026 at 5:15 AM
Victoria has begun vaccinating about 5,000 little penguins at Phillip Island and St Kilda to protect them against the deadly H5 bird flu, in what is believed to be the world’s largest vaccination program involving wild birds.
Reposted by J Richards
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
—André Gide, winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature
—André Gide, winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature
November 25, 2025 at 11:52 AM
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
—André Gide, winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature
—André Gide, winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature
Reposted by J Richards
Good idea, Franz.
Why, on these few remaining summer Sundays, don’t you go off into the country first thing in the morning?
Franz Kafka, 1916.
Franz Kafka, 1916.
August 16, 2026 at 8:38 AM
Good idea, Franz.
Reposted by J Richards
EVERY STORY ABOUT BEAVERS FOR THE LAST DECADE READS LIKE: WE RELEASED A DOZEN PADDLE TAILED LITTLE FREAKS AND THEY IMMEDIATELY BEGAN A TERRAFORMING PROJECT THAT REVERSED A CENTURY OF ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE IN THREE WEEKS.
August 14, 2026 at 4:47 PM
EVERY STORY ABOUT BEAVERS FOR THE LAST DECADE READS LIKE: WE RELEASED A DOZEN PADDLE TAILED LITTLE FREAKS AND THEY IMMEDIATELY BEGAN A TERRAFORMING PROJECT THAT REVERSED A CENTURY OF ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE IN THREE WEEKS.
I've turned alerts off now so that worked 🙄
Jumpscare Kid Jumpscare
ALT: Jumpscare Kid Jumpscare
static.klipy.com
August 14, 2026 at 6:29 PM
I've turned alerts off now so that worked 🙄
Reposted by J Richards
It's Tove Jansson's birthday today. Since it's also #WITMonth, I recommend THE WOMAN WHO BORROWED MEMORIES, her sublime collection of stories on art, creativity, nature, solitude & relationships. Translated by Thomas Teal & Silvester Mazzarella. #BOTD
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2023/12/06/t...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2023/12/06/t...
August 8, 2026 at 7:01 PM
It's Tove Jansson's birthday today. Since it's also #WITMonth, I recommend THE WOMAN WHO BORROWED MEMORIES, her sublime collection of stories on art, creativity, nature, solitude & relationships. Translated by Thomas Teal & Silvester Mazzarella. #BOTD
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2023/12/06/t...
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2023/12/06/t...
Reposted by J Richards
Reposted by J Richards
