"Helios" by Luke Jerram

I would love to see this amazing art installation is person! This enormous representation of our star is a companion piece to one of the moon that artist Luke Jerram created in 2017, previously here.  Of this current creation, the artist's website says:

Helios is a touring artwork of the Sun by UK artist Luke Jerram.

Measuring seven metres in diameter, the artwork features 72dpi detailed imagery* of the Sun’s surface. At an approximate scale of 1:200 million, each centimetre of the internally lit spherical sculpture represents 2000km of the Sun’s surface.

It is very dangerous to look at the Sun directly as it can damage our eyesight, so Helios provides a safe opportunity for the public to get up close to, and inspect its extraordinarily detailed surface, including sunspots, spicules and filaments. The sculpture also features the source of the solar flares which caused the Northern lights to be visible from the UK in May 2024.

As well as highlighting the science of the Sun, the artwork allows us to consider its importance in all our lives; for light, warmth, energy for our planet and how our nearest star has inspired culture and religion throughout history, all around the world.

The installation is a fusion of solar imagery, animated lighting and a specially created surround sound composition by Duncan Speakman and Sarah Anderson.

Over its lifetime, Helios will be presented in a number of different locations worldwide, both indoors and outdoors, so altering the experience and interpretation of the artwork. As it travels from place to place, it will collect personal responses, stories and mythologies, as well as highlighting the latest solar science.

Helios also acts as a venue, enabling hosts to create their own programme of Sun inspired events and activities to take place beneath the artwork, including orchestral and choral performances; space science lectures by astronauts; environmental and wellbeing discussions with scientists and activists; yoga; poetry readings; dance and theatre performances.

Helios, in ancient Greek mythology, is the god who personifies the Sun. He drove a four-horse chariot across the sky each day, giving the earth its hours and seasons.

*The imagery for the artwork has been compiled using approximately 400,000 photographs of the Sun provided by Astrophotographer Dr Stuart Green (taken between May 2018 to June 2024) and NASA observations of the Sun, with guidance from solar scientist, Professor Lucie Green of University College London (UCL).

Photo by Bec Hughes

Detail of the surface of Helios

Photo by Hugh Mothersole

Photo by James Dobson

Helios in Bath Assembly Rooms, England, Photo by Thomas Greetham

Helios at the Old Royal Naval College, London

Dinner under Helios

Silent disco under Helios by Jolade Olusanya

For the touring schedule, check Luke Jerram's site below:
https://my-helios.org/

Just finished reading...

"Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy" by Joyce Vance (a Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at The University of Alabama, and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017 appointed by Obama).

A friend of mine gave me her copy of this uplifting book to read, saying that she found it to be a helpful antidote to the fear and disappointment many of us in the former United States of America are living with. And she was right, it was wonderful to be reminded that the government is not broken, the principles are not broken, Congress is not broken, the Supreme Court is not broken, the office of the President is not broken, the concept of Democracy itself is not broken...these things remain whole, innocent, waiting to be used in an ethical, moral way. It is some of the people within these positions and institutions that are broken. The bedrock is intact. But we the people have the power and obligation to remove and replace the broken ones with those who believe in the Constitution, Democracy, and the ideals of what we can continue to achieve as a Nation.

The book's blurb says:

We’re in this together.

For the past several years, Joyce Vance has signed off posts on her chart-topping Substack, "Civil Discourse", with these four words. In that time, she has guided readers through a continued erosion of democratic norms, the unprecedented felony conviction of an ex-president, and the constitutionally calamitous beginning to the second Trump administration. Here, Vance offers a blueprint for avoiding burnout and despair, and for strengthening our democratic muscle.

Giving Up Is Unforgivable is a clarion call to action, putting our current crisis in historical context and sketching out a vision for where we go next. Vance’s message is hopeful at its heart, even as it acknowledges the daunting challenges that lie ahead. She is the constitutional law professor you never knew you needed, explaining the legal context and the political history— and why the rule of the law still matters. At the same time, she empowers the reader to do something, both as individuals and collectively.

Consider this the birth of a countermovement to Project 2025, a rallying cry for citizen engagement to combat the second Trump administration and save American democracy.

Recommend? Yes, it is a wonderful, easy read: six succinct chapters allow her to make her case and outline a paradigm. If you could use some fortification against the daily onslaught of vicious cruelty and ineptitude, buy a copy and read carefully!

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/801635/giving-up-is-unforgivable-by-joyce-vance/
https://joycevance.substack.com/

"Peace Is Just A Word" by Eurythmics

...Today...the, um...



Uh, it's just...it's just that, uh...



I don't...I can't, um...



...um, yeah.

Stop the world, turn out the sun
I'm so tired of it turning 'round
Stop the world, call it a day
Leave it all behind, leave it that way

Peace, is just a word, is just a word
Peace, is just a word, yeah

Stop the world, just let it bleed
Well, we've taken more than everything we need
Stop the world, just shut it down
(Just shut it down, shut it down)
(Just shut it down, shut it down)
There's no point in it spinning around

I tell you that peace, is just a word, is just a word
Lemme tell ya that peace, is just a word, yeah

Stop the world, take it any where
It's just that, living here is more than I can bear
(More than I can bear, ooh)
Stop the world, just pack it in
Well, we've reached the point, where no one ever wins
No one ever wins

Peace, is just a word, it's just a word

https://www.eurythmics.com/
https://www.annielennox.com/

"Jamie" by Perfume Genius

This song "Jamie" by Perfume Genius is killing me.

Taken from "Glory (Extended)" out now.

https://www.perfumegenius.org/

"Aperture" by Gem Club

I am so excited that Gem Club (the nom de musique of Chris Barnes, previously here) is releasing a new album titled "Emerald Press" on April 17, 2026. This song "Aperture" is the first single. Achingly glorious as usual, Chris!

https://www.instagram.com/gemclub
https://www.iamgemclub.com/

"Suburban Requiem" by Yungblud

He just keeps pumping out the amazing songs..."Suburban Requiem" by Yungblud off his current album "Idols (Complete)" which serves as a part two to the previous "Idols" release. If you missed them, listen to his past tracks "Ghosts" here, and "Hello Heaven, Hello" here.

https://www.yungbludofficial.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Simone Rocha

Simone Rocha's FW '26-'27 co-ed collection at London Fashion Week featured her regular vocabulary of details: lace, ruffles, bows, pleats, cockades, and the rhinestones of costume jewelry. But it was tempered with a trio of of inspiration sources.

To start, there is a story from Irish mythology where a boy falls in love with a woman and they go to live in Tír na nÓg, the land of eternal youth. Second is the Yeats family. For her color palette, Rocha looked to the painting In Tír na nÓg by Jack B. Yeats. She also took inspiration from his sisters Elizabeth and Lily, who ran the Cuala Press, a women-only arts enterprise producing handcrafted books, cards and prints from 1908 to 1940. And finally, she liked the rough-and-tumble secondhand clothing worn by Irish kids in Pony Kids, a renowned photography book by Perry Ogden documenting the vibrant, marginalized horse culture among Dublin's working-class youth in the 1990s.

I personally love the mix of high and low...bomber jackets with oversized suiting, skirts with workwear, and a trade jumpsuit but in black lace. Shearling lined jackets and stoles are a great touch. And please take a moment to zoom in on those amazing tooled leather shoes.

In Tír na nÓg by Jack B. Yeats | sold through Sotheby's 9/25

https://simonerocha.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--London College of Fashion

As part of London Fashion Week which started Thursday, the LCF Fashion Design Technology MA students’ final collections were a delight to see. As I just noted in a post about the Central Saint Martins MA fashion program, there is an exuberance to what fashion and design students from any institution create while still in a safe space. There is a willingness to go out on a limb with a concept or idea, no matter how unfeasible or unsellable it seems. I recall when I was in an interior design program many, many years ago that the most fun I had was creating interiors for completely made-up clients... I was able to do whatever my imagination could dream up. Of course this is not so in the real world: I now have clients with their own needs and preferences. And designers too, must please investors or shareholders and produce things that will sell, not just fantastical works of art. So while still in school, these students get to create fantastical works of art and I am thankful for that.

Just take a look at Jiyuan Fan's amazing carved wood skeleton torsos worn on the outside of suiting or poking through overcoats. But there are others who created garments which do seem sellable to my eye... lovely diaphanous pieces like those from Qian Tan, sharp suiting (literally) from Zeting Xu, or futuristic silhouettes from Kechen Yu. These FW '26-'27 pieces are interesting and sellable.

Qian Tan

Qian Tan

Jiyuan Fan

Zeting Xu

Kechen Yu

Kechen Yu

https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-fashion
https://www.instagram.com/qian.tann/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Central Saint Martins MA

The MA fashion program at Central Saint Martins has produced a truly staggering amount of talent, and as Sarah Mower at Vogue says, the college's "MA graduates are the backbone of London fashion, and have been for years": Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Riccardo Tisci, Sarah Burton, Kim Jones, Grace Wales Bonner, Simone Rocha, Hussein Chalayan, Craig Green, Mark Fast, Paolo Carzana, and Harris Reed. That is quite a (partial) list and it's growing as we speak.

So for London Fashion Week currently underway, the MA program's graduate collections were a delight to see. There is an exuberance to what fashion and design students create while still in a safe space. There is a willingness to go out on a limb with a concept or idea, no matter how unfeasible or unsellable it seems. I recall when I was in an interior design program many, many years ago that the most fun I had was creating interiors for completely made-up clients... I was able to do whatever my imagination could dream up. Of course this is not so in the real world: I now have clients with their own needs and preferences. And designers too, must please investors or shareholders and produce things that will sell, not just fantastical works of art. So while still in school, these students get to create fantastical works of art and I am thankful for that.

There were many students and many collections, but what caught my eye was the mix of pattern and age in the work of Benaissa Majeri...her pieces looked like a post-apocalyptic Dries Van Noten. And Kai Ghattaura's fascinating collection entitled "Seminomadic" was filled with reworked and upcycled pieces featuring South Asian prints and colors. And Finnerty Mackay (who took home the L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award at the annual Central Saint Martins MA Fashion press show) unexpectedly combined an historical sense in wool tailoring (I love the cut away jackets, especially the one with the pleated skirt) with rubber and latex shirts, socks, and shorts! Mackay said his collection was inspired by addiction: "I was interested in looking at it as a queer man," he said. "Substances are everywhere, especially in London. It’s such a part of the community and so many people’s lives. I wanted to look at it as a social problem, instead of a political problem."

Benaissa Majeri

Benaissa Majeri

Kai Ghattaura

Kai Ghattaura

Finnerty Mackay

Finnerty Mackay

https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins
https://www.instagram.com/flirty.lollypop33
https://www.instagram.com/kaighattaura
https://www.instagram.com/finnertymackay

"American Obituary" by U2

As someone living in the former United States of America, I tearfully thank you, U2.

"American Obituary" is from the new U2 EP "Days of Ash" out now.

The cover was photographed in Chapelle Saint-Pierre in the town of Villefranche-sur-Mer, one of my favorite places. The interior was painted by the legendary Jean Cocteau, previously here.

https://www.u2.com/

"The myth that women are more naturally empathetic than men" from BBC Future

I found this article fascinating--and hopeful, showing that empathy is innate and available to all.


"The myth that women are more naturally empathetic than men"
by Melissa Hogenboom* | BBC Future
February 15, 2026

Scientific research is up-ending age-old gender stereotypes about empathy – and revealing new ways of thinking about masculinity.

When women achieve great things, it was erroneously supposed that "they were not Women who did those Great Actions, but that they were Men in Petticoats!", the philosopher Mary Astell wrote in 1705. Even Queen Elizabeth I once famously said that she'd rule the country like a king, despite having the body of a "feeble woman" – as if ruling had to be a masculine path.

While these anecdotes are from the past, subtle gendered biases of what it means to be a successful, powerful individual still permeate.

Notably, we still typically describe traits like empathy as naturally feminine and traits like dominance and assertiveness as masculine. Even when displaying the same behaviour, men are seen as assertive and women as aggressive.

One particularly notable trait that is often gendered in this way is empathy. Women supposedly are natural empaths while men who show more empathy are typically seen as weak.

But why is that? Is it true that women are naturally more empathetic than men, or are we socialised to be?

Gender stereotypes like these have clear consequences on how we raise our children, workplace culture and leadership. But what's less visible is how early these biases start, and the fact that stereotypes reinforce our expectations – imposing significant constraints on how we expect others to behave.

The hormones behind empathy

Empathy involves both the ability to understand others' thoughts and feelings, allowing us to respond appropriately. It can also be thought of in terms of cognitive empathy – our ability to recognise emotions and take other perspectives – and affective or emotional empathy, where we have an emotional response to someone's thoughts and feelings.

Scientists use a variety of methods to empirically measure empathy, including questionnaires and experiential tasks.

And it's long been found that, on average, women tend to consistently score higher than men.

Simon Baron-Cohen, a clinical psychologist at Cambridge University, argues that it is because the female brain is "predominantly hard-wired for empathy", which makes women especially suited for caring roles, while the male brain is "predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems".

While social factors clearly influence empathy, says Baron-Cohen, his work suggests that hormone exposure in the womb plays a role in social development.

His 2006 study of over 200 children aged 6-9 found that testosterone levels in the amniotic fluid during pregnancy – which are higher in males than in females – are directly correlated with how the children performed on cognitive tests on systemising, defined as the ability to analyse rules or patterns. Indeed, testosterone exposure in the womb was a stronger predictor of a child's test scores than their sex alone.

A similar 2007 study also showed that foetal exposure to testosterone was inversely correlated with empathy test scores.

"What's clear is that something like empathy or systemising are a complex mix of biology and social factors," says Baron-Cohen.

Is empathy in the genes?

Many other researchers, such as neuroscientist Gina Rippon, find this hormonal theory problematic. "The idea that all women are naturally more empathic is part of the persistence of the so-called 'female brain myth'," she says. We also must remember, says Rippon, that young children's brains are "hugely responsive to outside influences".

In one seminal study that found gender differences in empathy tasks, the differences were not large: women were more empathetic in 36 of the 57 countries studied, but in 21 countries the scores were very similar, and the authors stated that they "cannot determine causation".

And though women do score slightly higher than average on empathy studies, the range of variation within genders is much greater than between them. "If you look at the spread of the empathy scores within the male and female populations, it's huge," says Rippon.

Girls and women are often said to be more attuned to the faces of others, an important skillset needed for empathy, but results are mixed, and recent research suggests this preference is not something they are born with. A meta-analysis published in 2025 examined 31 studies featuring 40 separate experiments on how one-month-old girls and boys observed others' faces, if they cried when others cried and how alert they were to those surrounding them. In all these measures, no matter the sex, the infants did not differ in their social awareness and keenness in understanding others' emotions.

Indeed, a 2018 large-scale genetic study of empathy involving over 46,000 participants who completed a questionnaire and submitted DNA samples, suggested that genes do play a role in how empathetic a person is. But none of these genes are associated with a person's sex.

Varun Warrier, an assistant professor of neurodevelopmental research at Cambridge University and author of the study, explained at the time that "since only a tenth of the variation in the degree of empathy between individuals is down to genetics, it is equally important to understand the non-genetic factors". This means that the environment in which someone grows up and lives must be playing a role.

The socialisation of empathy

Women tend to display empathetic traits more, not because they are innate, many scientists argue, but because girls and women are socialised to act on their emotions and to prioritise the needs of others from an extremely young age. Girls are also often presented with toys that emphasise softer, more nurturing skills, while boys are encouraged to play with toy tools and cars.

"Little girls are told to be nice and not to be unkind and rough, so it gradually becomes part of who they are," says Rippon.

Many studies have similarly shown that power distorts our empathy and inhibits people from feeling it. In my book Breadwinners, I outline the argument that, as men have historically had more power than women – and continue to do so in business and politics – they are therefore more likely to experience less empathy.


One study found that individuals who perceived themselves as having "lower subjective rank, lower income and belonging to cultural groups associated with the lower class" were better at reading the emotions of others, for instance. That women score higher on empathy could therefore stem from a need to be highly perceptive to those in power, coupled with their own relative lack of power.

Empathy is a malleable trait

Crucially, empathy can be learned, according to Nathan Spreng, a neurologist at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. "Once we understand this idea of a range of emotional experience, we can focus on it and learn what other people's emotions are, and improve our empathy," Spreng said on the BBC's The Documentary Podcast. "It's not static, it's a dynamic thing across the lifespan."

A 2023 neurological study clearly shows that both women's and men's brain waves respond in much the same way when shown images of painful or neutral facial expressions. But in the part of the experiment where participants completed empathy questionnaires rating how empathetic they felt, men scored lower than women did on average. That is, unless they were told beforehand that they'd score well.

In the group of men who were primed with information suggesting that men are also naturally "good at sharing and caring for the feelings of others", the gender differences in how empathetic they felt disappeared.

Not only do these findings suggest that self-reported empathy experiments are hard to untangle from a slew of personal and social biases, but they also further support the hypothesis that a person's expectations and motivations play a major role in their empathy.

Women "tend to come out as more empathic when they know their empathy levels are being assessed", says Rippon, of experiments like these. "It's a socially acceptable trait, so they want to score highly."

One study found that women only outperformed men on a task asking them to accurately infer someone else's feelings when they were first asked to reflect on how they felt. If they weren't nudged in this way, there was no observed gender gap. And when researchers offered participants money to infer others' feelings accurately, empathic accuracy improved for both genders. Participants easily learned to be empathetic because there was a reward for doing so.

Sara Hodges, a psychologist at the University of Oregon and co-author of this study, proposes that women may show improved empathic accuracy not due to an innate ability, but because they are more motivated to do so by societal expectations.

Rather than viewing empathy as a fixed trait we should see it as a process that draws upon multiple sources of information, including body language, speech, stereotypes, personal experiences and past interactions, according to Hodges. "When people are more motivated to know what someone is thinking or feeling, they recruit more sources for constructing that," says Hodges.

The dire consequences of the empathy bias

What is less talked about, says Hodges, is that empathy isn't just a soft skill used for good – it can also be used to manipulate others or exploit people. "For example, in negotiation, if you know the other person's bottom line, you're a better negotiator," says Hodges.

But ultimately, the consequences of expectations surrounding empathy and the like can contribute to inequality in society and have dire consequences for both women and men.

Women are judged as less likely to have leadership potential than men because we tend to see leaders as needing to be dominant and assertive, traits typically associated with masculinity.

But when it comes to loneliness, women are more likely to seek support from their social network than men. Social isolation, instead, is a known risk factor for attempting suicide, the rate of which is much higher among men.

Fortunately, the narrative about the importance of emotional skills among men and women is slowly changing, including the importance of empathy towards others and caring responsibilities, according to Niall Hanlon, a sociologist from Technological University Dublin, in Ireland.

"Broadly speaking, men and boys are socialised to not see care in the way that women and girls do, that it's not part of the trajectory of being a man," says Hanlon. "They do imagine themselves to be fathers, but they don't expect that they will be in a primary caring position."

But society is already shifting to pave the way for more men to embrace caring responsibilities and be more outwardly empathetic. Men are spending more time with children than in the past, and they state they want to spend more time with their family (though women still do the bulk of flexible working and childcare).

The work being done to reframe men as more caring and empathetic will open the door to a new type of masculinity that could help prevent loneliness, says Hanlon – one that emphasises interdependence and empathy rather than autonomous, power-focused individuals.

"There's a lot of research that shows this is much better," says Hanlon. "For men, women and children."

* Melissa Hogenboom is a BBC health correspondent and author of the Breadwinners (2025) and The Motherhood Complex.

Link to original article:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260213-are-women-naturally-more-empathetic-than-men

BEAUTY: Interior Design--Corey Damen Jenkins' Apartment

As an interior designer, I am more drawn to pattern, color, texture, and interesting objects than I am to a minimalist interior. While a calming, Zen-like space has its place and use, I think spaces that feel alive and organic, spaces that reference cultures and art and time periods are more engaging and successful.

So I love the New York CIty apartment famed interior designer Corey Damen Jenkins (previously here) created for himself and his husband Adam Wasserman. It strikes a perfect balance of all the afore-mentioned qualites without being overwhelming. Each element is delicious but expert pairing from a skilled designer elevates all choices!

https://coreydamenjenkins.com/

In Love: Happy Valentine's Day 2026

Happy Valentine's Day!

If I asked you now
Will you be my prince
Will you lay down your armour
And be with me forever

When you open me
All the power in me moves
How you want to see
All the depths of me real

When you open me
All the power in me moves
I feel real

I love you
Love you

When I look into your eyes
There's a danger inside
When I see the edge
I can never hide

See me runnin', runnin', running...
...to you...
...from you...
...to you

There's a strange love inside
It's getting louder, louder, louder, louder, louder
There's a danger I can't hide
Who I am, it's who I am, it's who I am

I'm in love!
I'm in love!
I'm in love!
I'm in love!
I'm in love!
I'm in love!
I'm in love!
I'm in love!

https://linktr.ee/theirrepressibles

Just watched...

..."Sunlight," a comedy directed by and starring the brilliant Nina Conti who wrote it with her co-star (and real life partner) Shenoah Allen... and executive produced by "This Is Spinal Tap" creator/actor Christopher Guest, a lovely pedigree in the comedy world.

If you've caught glimpses of ventriloquist Nina Conti's amazing, pee-your-pants-funny improv shows on social media, you will have had a good introduction to the texture and utter uniqueness of this film. If you have not, here is a nutshell description: Conti is the voice of a small, sarcastic and very irreverent monkey puppet she uses in her act.

The pieces of this film feel familiar. A road movie? Seen it. A film where a character is on the run from a trauma in their life? Been there. A love story? A redemption story? Check, check. But somehow, when Conti and Allen throw all these into a blender, the resulting product feels like nothing I have ever seen. I never knew where the story was going or what either of them would say next, letting the surprise of peculiar, hilarious trains of thought or bizarre streams of consciousness propel it forward. They are both skilled live improv comedians so it is no wonder the came up with something so off-kilter and delightful. So here is the set-up: after Roy Belvedere (Shenoah Allen) attempts to commit suicide by hanging himself in a motel room and blacks out, he wakes in his RV to discover that it has been commandeered by someone (Nina Conti) in a monkey costume with an agenda of her own. What can I say from there? Just put your seatbelt on and enjoy the ride.

Recommend? YES. I loved this film, it made me laugh and feel the much-needed tender side of humanity.

https://www.ninaconti.net/

Just watched...

..."Twinless" written and directed by James Sweeney who also played one of the two leads.

I was happy I got to see this film on my holiday film binge as well. The trailer portrays it as a quirky little indie film but I was not prepared for some of the more profound places it explores. This smart film has at its core a very tight narrative, necessarily well-planned, and its execution is very satisfying.

I don't want to give you any spoilers (although you can find the plot online) since you deserve to see it the way the filmmaker intended. So I will simply say the film follows two men, Dennis and Rocky, who meet at a grief support group for twins who have lost their other half. The story from there has twists which are humorous, shocking, and heartbreaking. Ultimately, this is a rather deep study of a type of loneliness that can make one do extreme or irrational things, and a truly universal need for connection at many levels. And portraying these states of the heart and mind are two wonderful actors who gave effortless performances. Watch Dylan O'Brien (Rocky and Roman) display one of the most envied acting skills as he plays two completely different characters. And James Sweeney is both unlikeable and so completely loveable as Dennis, whose earnest yearning is palpable.

Recommend? Yes, it is sweet, touching, sad, funny, and suspenseful, sometimes all at once.

https://www.twinlessfilm.com/