The transfer window isn’t an actual window, of course. In reality, it’s a large collection of different windows, with each club having one of their own, through which they peer longingly, occasionally flinging large quantities of cash money out of them like half-cut sailors on a ship coming into dock, and they’re all in various states of disrepair. For example, Tottenham have only recently prised theirs open – the previous occupant, Mr Levy, had deliberately painted over the seals – and all summer it’s been flapping in the breeze like the screen door of a haunted house. Manchester City meanwhile have removed the glass from their frames altogether, allowing the free movement of large expensive items safely through it in both directions. There are some officious-looking gentlemen with clipboards currently double-checking the structural integrity of that one. They say they’ll get back to us.
I see that after disappointing at Man City, Savinho changed his name to Sávio, and then scored on his debut for Spurs. In the hope that the same trick works for me, in terms of improving my strike rate in getting letters to Football Daily published, I’m changing my name to Noble Francis” – Phil Taverner.
Burnham has nothing to hide as he prepares to meet president he once called poisonous. It may actually win him more respect
It makes a pleasant change. Not so long ago, Keir Starmer was falling over himself in his efforts to keep things sweet with Donald Trump. Offering the US president a second state visit within minutes of meeting him. Everyone knows you should never put out on the first date: it only makes the other person think you’re a pushover. Sure enough, The Donald banked the marching bands and the Windsor silver service, made polite conversation for three days and then went back to trash-talking him.
Yet still, Starmer just sat there and took it. As if one word of criticism would be too much. Wittering on about the “special relationship” as if Trump gave a moment’s thought to the UK before he did anything. The rest of us wouldn’t have put money on the US president even being able to locate Britain on a map. It was only latterly, when The Donald chose to bomb Iran, that the penny finally dropped for Keir. And even then he looked pained by the apparent betrayal, as he resisted the calls of Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage to join in the war.
In Capelle aan den IJssel is alweer een Aziatische tijgermug opgedoken. Een week geleden, op 19 augustus, werd het insect gevonden in de buurt Paradijssel. In die wijk werd eind juli ook al een tijgermug gesignaleerd.
When I was about 10 years old, my parents organized a vacation to a tiny enclave called Orr Hot Springs just outside of Ukiah, California. Nestled in the mountains with a history dating to 1858 as a stagecoach stop with redwoods shading the trails, the property has a uniquely layered architectural history. We stayed in what my dad called “Art’s cabin,” which turned out to have really been built by a guy named Art in the mid-1970s. A giant tree intersected the middle of the structure.
Art’s cabin is one of few remaining buildings from the property’s back-to-the-land era, before it became today’s modern resort. In 1974, my dad and a group of friends from Berkeley teamed up to buy the hot springs. Over time, a small community developed as people purchased “shares” in the property. Attracted by the cooperative nature of the place and the opportunity to escape the city, people came and went, sometimes staying for a couple of weeks and sometimes for a couple of years. To make income, my dad recalls leading week-long carpentry courses, during which visitors and community members alike constructed what he describes as tiny, “very not-code” cabins, some of which were finished and actually lived in for a time. There was a buzz around building.
As my dad and I both paged through my hot-off-the-press copy of Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California, I could tell that a lot jogged his memory. I grew up hearing stories about the ups and downs of running an intentional community in the hills during the 1970s, and his experience is but one among many thousands. Having also lived in Humboldt County for a time myself, I enjoy the striking sense of continuity throughout the past five decades that author David Jacob Kramer and photographer Michael Schmelling capture in this hefty tome. The work represents a counterculture that, though changed, is still alive and well.
The vernacular of Northern California architecture in the late 1960s and 1970s is a result of resourcefulness, timeliness, and a staunch desire to do things one’s own way. Scrounging for discarded redwood left over by the region’s logging industry and salvaging architectural details and appliances from historical homes, the houses cover a broad range of styles. Think triangular windows, diagonal paneling, cylindrical or octagonal footprints, and ad hoc additions.
Often, builders had no plan, constructing their dwellings to whatever standard they were able. They used plastic to cover windows and sometimes innovated with compositing toilet solutions or solar. The buildings were hardly ever up to code, and many lived with the constant anxiety that their homes could be condemned and they’d be evicted by local authorities. But the risk outweighed an alternative that felt too limiting or oppressive. “In pursuit of something better, back-to-the-landers radically reappraised what a home could and should be—and how it might inform the lives of its inhabitants,” Kramer says in the introductory essay.
Some homes of the era draw their inspiration from Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome design, while others take cues from neolithic forms or Indigenous structures around the world. Many examples of these were published contemporaneously in popular books like Lloyd Kahn’s Shelter, which itself was a spinoff of his editorial contributions to Stewart Brand’s counterculture magazine, Whole Earth Catalog. The legendary publication described itself as an “access device” that served as a kind of ultimate peer-to-peer DIY guide for living and building.
My first impression of Handmade Utopia was that it felt like a kind of reverent extension of Barry Shapiro and Art Boericke’s seminal 1973 photo book Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art. By comparison, this fresh look at the stylistic movement is a more personal expression of wonder and fondness for not only a particular style of architecture but the societal complexities that spawned it.
Kramer and Schmelling adventured through the NorCal countryside over the course of four years to touch base with people who still make their homes in the woods. Even those who no longer live in their decades-old dwellings can retrace their steps to see what remains. And the foundation of every one is composed of ingenuity and independent spirit. In addition to thoughtful introductory texts, the bulk of the book is chock full of photographs, archival material, and anecdotes by the folks whose structures the authors visit.
Rather than a comprehensive study of hand-built Northern California architecture, Handmade Utopia reads more like an homage to what Kramer calls the “audacious hope” of the back-to-the-land movement. And this hope isn’t relegated to its historical roots, as young people today are confronted by the prohibitive cost of both homes and land. “Schmelling and I felt an urgency in capturing these homes before they literally went back-to-the-land, disappearing along with the generation who built them,” Kramer says.
Handmade Utopia is officially slated for release on September 1. Find your copy in the Colossal Shop. You might also enjoy a tour of Ricky Boscarino’s whimiscal hand-built home in New Jersey or Matt Bua’s “repurposed city” in Upstate New York.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - Mona Keijzer wil een nieuwe sociaal-conservatieve partij oprichten. Bij de aankondiging donderdag bleek dat haar ideeën weinig verschillen van andere partijen op de rechterflank. Maar die voeren hun plannen niet uit en "blijven denken dat de overheid het gaat oplossen", aldus Keijzer die eerder bij het CDA en de BBB zat.
Keijzer wil onder meer een kleinere overheid, "rigoureus" subsidies schrappen, het "doorgeslagen duurzaamheidsbeleid" aanpakken, migratie verminderen en ondernemers meer ruimte geven. Ze wil af van beleid gebaseerd op modellen, zoals van het Centraal Planbureau (CPB).
Ze zoekt de komende maanden mensen en middelen voor een toekomstige partij waarvan de naam nog niet bekend is. In november wil ze dan met een partij komen. Ze mikt dan bij verkiezingen voor de Tweede Kamer op "twintig of dertig zetels", zei Keijzer. En ze wil de eerste vrouwelijke premier van Nederland worden, voegde ze eraan toe.
GRAVELINES (ANP/DPA) - Kwallen hebben er opnieuw voor gezorgd dat reactoren van een kerncentrale in Frankrijk zijn stilgezet. De dieren zorgden er eerder deze maand ook al voor dat de grootste Franse kerncentrale niet op volledige capaciteit kon draaien.
Twee van de zes reactoren zijn uit voorzorg stilgelegd vanwege de kwallen. Daardoor draait er nu geen enkele reactor van de centrale in Gravelines op volle kracht. Twee andere reactoren draaien op verminderd vermogen en de overige twee reactoren zijn ook stilgelegd, deels vanwege onderhoud.
Sinds woensdagavond is er meer dan 200 ton aan kwallen opgedoken bij de centrale, stelt een woordvoerster van eigenaar energieconcern EDF. De kwallen hopen zich onder meer op bij de filtersystemen. Volgens de woordvoerster probeert EDF de kwallen vroegtijdig te signaleren en aan te pakken. Zo varen er zeven boten in de buurt van de kerncentrale om de kwallen te vangen en verder op zee weer los te laten.
There'll be no rest for X Corps' lawyers this weekend after startup Operation Bluebird rolled out the twitter.now social media network this week. The launch came the same week as Nitter was served a cease-and-desist letter, and it's the latest in the saga of Twitter branding that X boss Elon Musk dispensed with when renaming his $44 billion purchase as 'X'. Unlike Nitter, which lets users view X content without an account, twitter.info is a new social media platform and "not affiliated with X Corp." Users must sign up for a paid account and can then post and view posts. "You'll see trust signals on posts," a FAQ on the service's website explains, "and you control your own feed with a simple dial — freedom of speech, not freedom of reach." At present, the service is asking $20 for early access as a founder, and $40 for the "Fighter" tier, which adds a slingshot badge to the user's profile. As for why the service isn't free, like other X alternatives such as Bluesky or Mastodon, the answer is, "To keep bots out and stay independent. "A paid door proves there's a real person behind an account, and member funding keeps us answerable to you instead of advertisers." Operation Bluebird filed to claim the Twitter trademark last year, reasoning that since Musk ditched it in favor of X, it was fair game. X disagreed, and snapped back: "Twitter never left and continues to be exclusively owned by X Corp." The case is ongoing, and no judgment has been made. However, the team behind Operation Bluebird is clearly confident enough in the outcome to launch twitter.now and posted, "Twitter is a reclaimed brand. "Twitter.now is not an attempt to recreate the old platform." The Register asked X what it makes of it all, but Musk's mouthpiece has yet to respond. In a week in which X lawyers have seen off the likes of XCancel and Nitter, at least for the time being, it will be interesting to see what happens to twitter.now. X's content is not what the service is offering, but the old Twitter branding is certainly in its crosshairs. Your move, X. ®
