Cultural historian and writer. Author of Palace of Palms, a Times and New Statesman Book of the Year. Now posting on Blue Sky @kateteltscher.bsky.social
Thrilled for @KateTeltscher that the great Claire Tomalin has chosen #PalaceofPalms as a book of the year in @NewStatesman. ‘Enthralling’ she says - and she’s right.
A fun read! Some delightful ice cream van lore, including the ‘international parental conspiracy’ that the ice cream van jingle announced that stocks had run out (my mother-in-law was an early adopter in 1960s-70s Birmingham).
Ice cream vans. As summer finally arrives in the UK why not have a read of this FREE article exploring the history & folklore of ice cream vans - their chimes, ice cream & urban legends!
https://t.co/51sCNi2dsL
We are delighted to begin our Prison Reading Groups 25-year celebration with our keynote speaker, British-Iranian author, the incredible Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. #ReadinginPrison25
Very pleased to share that the article on the opium poppy I co-authored for the Plant Humanities Lab is now live! Featuring archival materials from @Kew_LAA
Start the Week from the wonderful @hayfestival on indigenous expert knowledge, culling for conservation and walled gardens, with Robin Wall Kimmerer, Olivia Laing and @hedgehoghugh. Coming up on @BBCRadio4 at 9.
‘We need other logics for our approach to nature’: the woman uprooting colonialism in botany | Plants | The Guardian @PlantHums_UK https://t.co/kNIjfgAXe0
Superb Cosgrove lecture this evening by Prof Judith Carney from UCLA @KewScience @BritishAcademy_@RoyalHolloway Centre for Geohumanities - about food, autonomy & freedom, using superb archival history & the concept of Bio-refugia to talk about participatory & just food futures.
Dominic Sandbrook savours SPICE: ‘A story of tremendous verve and scope… Roger Crowley’s rollicking, blood-soaked account of the race for the Spice Islands of east Asia is the book for you.’ https://t.co/3fBO6uxqrL @YaleBooks@crowley_roger
‘Some day I’m going to paint a portrait, a heroic portrait of these little weeds because they have the resilience that I wish I had, and actually that we need’. Mona Caron, BBC World Service, The Conversation https://t.co/eZo3lUqlg3
🛁 Sake Dean Mahomed, the first #Indian in the #UK to publish an #English book and open an Indian restaurant, changed hygiene forever. This is his story.
@sukhadatatke reports
https://t.co/tdKBmwYPyJ
Dazzling display of the architectural qualities of palms:
'Singularity' from @_MarcQuinn Light into Life show @kewgardens.
Precisely modelled on a Bismarckia nobilis leaf from Kew's Palm House (and placed just outside).
@BillJBaker @Scott_Zona @IPS_PalmSociety
What a difference a letter makes!
From Robert Hannigan’s forthcoming “Counter-Intelligence: What the Secret World Can Teach Us about Problem-Solving and Creativity”
Excellent lecture by Yota Batsaki @RoyalHolloway yesterday.
Great overview of emerging field of Plant Humanities. Ended with brilliant analysis of Kapwani Kiwanga's glass-encased fern sculpture, 'On Growth', currently on display @highlinenyc.
@Economicbotany@LiveseyRuth
British Formula 1 driver @LewisHamilton's Met Gala @Burberry look was inspired by the story of John Ystumllyn, one of Britain’s first black gardeners, and the symbolic language of flowers in black history. John Ystumllyn was an 18th-century gardener and is considered the first well-recorded black person of North Wales. Most likely brought to the Ystumllyn estate as an enslaved boy, he was well-respected in his local community, eventually marrying a local woman named Margaret Gruffydd.
Hamilton's outfit was hand-embroidered over two weeks by a team of 20, before the finishing touches were painted by hand in New York. Inspired by Ystumllyn's green thumb, the coat is embroidered with periwinkles for endurance, yucca for eternity and protection, daffodils for their hardiness, and cedar branches for everlasting life. The thorns around his neck symbolize the perils of slavery.
Excited to be invited to @WorldMonuments Palace of Palms event @kewgardens this week.
It's a brilliant cause – the Net Zero Carbon restoration of Kew's Palm House – and just happens to be named after my book!
@georgeisediting @JohnD_WMFB @Kew_LAA