James Hamilton

[Dr Francis Young @DrFrancisYoung]

I'm excited to be speaking to @SmithsonianSA next Wednesday about my new book 'Fairies: A History', just released in the US! Link for registration below: 🧚‍♀️📚🎙️🇺🇸

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

@Eorlhelm Spiritual classics in the broadest sense IIRC. Can be tricky to find a full list of them but it's Brother Lawrence, Revelations of Divine Love, Hilton's Scale of Perfection, Bunyan, Imitation of Christ and Baxter's Everlasting Rest etc

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

@Eorlhelm I had this in the late 80s - part of that tremendous Hodder series.

[Simon Beattie @simon_beattie]

Ooh. The lovely people at Boosey & Hawkes have created a nice page for my Remembrance Day piece. https://t.co/nSJEsfJkKz

[Ruth Millington @ruth_millington]

Thanks Owen, I wrote this article out of love for my city and BMAG ❤️

[Historic Cricket Pictures @PictureSporting]

Most pictures from the Victorian era are, by necessity of the equipment used, quite formal. Which is why this one, of Oxford University keeper Sam Brain relaxing on the pavilion rails before going out for Cambridge's second innings in the 1893 Varsity match, is rather appealing. Brain played in three Varsity matches and in 1893 a handful of games for Gloucestershire. The stand behind him was the old 'A' enclosure, with the carriage mound behind it. This was replaced by the Warner Stand in 1958

[Sean @seansphotos]

accidentally shot a roll twice so now its just abstract

[Ruth Millington @ruth_millington]

For @Telegraph, I wrote about the case of the missing masterpieces at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Where are great works by William and May Morris, the city's radical Surrealists, Sandro Botticelli, Orazio Gentileschi, Simone Martini, Eugène Delacroix and Canaletto?

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

This is splendid:

[Paul Rees. ex Rucksack. @HannahIamthest1]

Did you know that one of the greatest practical jokes ever pulled beyond Earth belongs to astronaut Owen Garriott.

In 1973, Garriott was part of the crew aboard Skylab, America’s first space station. The prank he played on Mission Control officer Robert Crippen earned a permanent place in astronaut humor.

Before the mission, Garriott brought a tape recorder into space. On it, his wife had recorded several short lines. One day, when Robert Crippen made radio contact with Skylab from Houston, Garriott was ready with the recording.

The exchange went something like this:

“Skylab, this is Houston. Please respond.”

A cheerful woman’s voice came over the line.

“Good morning, Houston. This is Skylab.”

After a brief pause, Mission Control asked carefully:

“Who is speaking?”

“Hi, Robert,” the voice replied. “This is Helen, Owen’s wife.”

For a few seconds, Crippen tried to process what he had just heard. Then he finally managed to ask:

“What are you doing up there?”

“I just thought I’d bring the boys something to eat,” the voice answered from orbit. “Everything is fresh.”

Mission Control fell silent for nearly a full minute.

Then the connection was cut.

Apparently, even a trained flight controller needed a moment to recover from that one.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Harry Howard @howardharry]

By the brilliant @ruth_millington on the decline of Birmingham Museum (@BM_AG)

'Where there were once beautifully decorated ceramics by Victorian designer William De Morgan and objects by Morris & Co is now a large photograph of… a piece of bread. Mounted poorly on a tacky piece of board, the caption says “Crusty Cob” and asks: “What is your favourite filling?”

https://t.co/F6629ya3M1

[Mack @Regularmack]

A love affair with Chicago’s alleys that spun out of control. Alley Cat Alley Cat is 72 pages, 8.5x11 and is currently on sale for $30

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

@hairygit 59, then. I remember seeing a 1987 magazine advert for the first CD issue of the album based around a group of 40-something executives "deserted by everything that once made life sweet" crowding into a car parked beneath their office to listen and remember. 20 years ago once!

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

I'll add a fourth: the very visibility of tourism-based growth leads to a wild exaggeration of its importance esp. in places already relatively prosperous: people come to think that cities with tourism are dependent upon tourism.

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

Two difficult issues to raise, perhaps from a UK viewpoint three. (1) The valorisation of travel (2) The tendency to judge a place purely from the point of view of the imaginary visitor (3) The idea that tourism is "light touch" & reversible.

[Heidi N. Moore @moorehn]

all my life living in New York, I believed in never gatekeeping, always sharing the good spots. But now I am at 180° away from that belief. Anything even mildly good about the city, if shared, gets ruined and overrun instantly. and the people overrunning it are pure selfish narcissists with no regard for anyone else, none of the city's spirit of situating yourself among others. Just selfish little suburban brats everywhere taking incredibly stupid photos. It really does have to stop somehow.

[Heidi N. Moore @moorehn]

all my life living in New York, I believed in never gatekeeping, always sharing the good spots. But now I am at 180° away from that belief. Anything even mildly good about the city, if shared, gets ruined and overrun instantly. and the people overrunning it are pure selfish narcissists with no regard for anyone else, none of the city's spirit of situating yourself among others. Just selfish little suburban brats everywhere taking incredibly stupid photos. It really does have to stop somehow.

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

And the link: https://t.co/OSeTB2QTLm

[James Hamilton @lixmount]

A sequel here to my earlier piece about Francis Chrystal - a different kind of artist altogether in Scotland's capital, the late humanist photographer Robert Blomfield. Link in first reply.

[Dr. Alex Zawacki @achillghost]

There’s an incredible bit in Simon Young’s Fairy Census where a man becomes unaccountably lost with his friends, immediately realizes there’s fairy nonsense afoot, and deploys a traditional remedy for getting out of that type of situation. Folkloric OODA Loop.

[Past Glasgow @PastGlasgow]

Tenements under construction at 85-105 Gorbals St, Gorbals Cross, taken from Rutherglen Loan c1870. In the foreground is a pub occupying the remains of a chapel that once formed part of Sir George Elphinstone of Blythswood's c17th mansion.

📷 Glasgow City Archives, Thomas Annan

[Past Glasgow @PastGlasgow]

There are precious few photos of tenements under construction, but this one's a beauty. Looking down the avenue and beyond to Victoria Rd in the 1870s, with the tenements on Queen's Drive going up on the left.

📷 George Washington Wilson

#Glasgow