RAMS is a graffiti artist from New Zealand, probably most famous for the creating murals on each of the 4 sides of the abandoned 45 Park Place, NYC a few years ago.

RAMS is one of the best graffiti writers in the world right now—every time I see RAMS do something, I’m always like ‘what’s he going to do next?’ And it’s always something bigger and more ambitious, daring, and stylistic. Roger Gastman

More recently, RAMS has been out in the Middle East rappelling down buildings near the Pyramids to produce a kind of work that’s not often seen in the area.

Right now I’m focused on the Middle East. The risk is high, but so is the potential. Every country is different, but many haven’t had much exposure to this Western art movement. Graffiti has appeared there before, often politically — especially during the Arab Spring in 2010, which makes things dangerous.

The results are on his Instagram.

Matt Loader from Glasgow-based architecture firm, Loader Monteith in Dezeen magazine talking about Glasgow’s old buildings and their tendency to catch fire: Glasgow’s burning problem is a symptom of a greater failure

These fires are … the consequences of a system that lacks the teeth to protect buildings before fire, decay or neglect take their toll.

[It] is not misfortune, it is the absence of meaningful accountability for owners who allow listed buildings to remain unoccupied and deteriorate. It’s the absence of adequate policy that compels action before catastrophe strikes.

The entire article is worth a read, and I can find very little to disagree with. He mentions the failings of local Government and their lack of a plan for the city as a whole, which definitely rings true to me.

We don’t have a cohesive vision of what Glasgow is. Without a clear direction, much of our built heritage has fallen into ownership of absent organisations and individuals, often without the skills, awareness of their perilous condition, or funds to renew them.

The Golden Z project is mentioned, scathingly. A project for three streets in the city. Not mentioned is the Avenues project. In fairness, this has made parts of the city easier to navigate by bicycle, but those bits are islands to and from which cyclists must navigate through the ever-present motorised traffic. And to what end? To which of the many closing pubs and restuarants are these people headed?

If ever you wanted to understand how Glasgow treats its buildings and legacy architecture, you only need to read about The Egyptian Halls, a building which has been listed since 2019 as one of the most endangered buildings in Europe.

Architecture & Design site Dezeen have a short video about Souto de Moura and his time working on Braga Municipal Stadium, home of SC Braga.

It’s a beautiful stadium, appearing to emerge from the granite cliff-face by its side. Although my favourite detail might be how the roof is angled to collect and reuse the rainwater on the grass.

Dezeen’s video is the second part of a series on the architect, with the first focusing on how de Moura became an architect.

As a bonus, here’s my football team, Rangers, beating SC Braga at this very stadium back in 2020!

The Tobacco Merchant’s House in Glasgow’s Merchant City is 250-year old building, owned and maintained by the Scottish Civic Trust, who work from the building. They are currently running a Just Giving page to help raise £250,000 for its upkeep.

The building at 42 Miller Street is the last of the Georgian villas known as the Virginia Tobacco Merchants’ houses to remain standing in Merchant City of Glasgow.

This area of the city was once the playground of the Glasgow “Tobacco Lords”, a group of slavers whose names still adorn many of the streets and buildings in the area.

In fact, back in 2020, there was a campaign to have them renamed - I would still like to see that happen.

Anyway, just because the original proprietors were problematic doesn’t mean it’s not a building worth looking after. Visit the Scottish Civic Trust’s JustGiving page and donate if you can.

Sharon Zhang from Truthout on Trump’s latest: Trump Uses Same Language Cited by ICJ in Genocide Ruling Against Israel.

On Tuesday, Trump threatened to destroy the entirety of Iran and its population of 93 million people.

Referring to the threat, Oona Hathaway, Professor of International Law at Yale Law School said,

This will be exhibit A in future war crimes trials if he carries out his threats

If that were to come to pass, Trump would join a long list of present and former heads of state charged with war crimes, including both Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Vladimir Putin, for his contribution in the illegal abduction of children from Ukraine and deportation into Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes in the Gaza war including starvation. Both he and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have been said to use “starvation as a method of warfare.”

Trumps threats have been condemned by a number of public figures including Pope Leo XIV and the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres.

I recently picked up a couple of Guy Delisle books, doing what you’re not supposed to and literally judging them by their covers.

Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City and Muybridge are superb, the latter especially. Who knew the story of Eadweard Muybridge needed to be told?

Delisle’s illustrations are so good. Every panel feels like it has just enough pen strokes in it to give it the weight and movement that it needs, and no more.

Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City is a journal of Delisle’s time spent in the city while is wife worked for Médecins Sans Frontières, while Muybridge is a much more dramatic story of one of the early pioneers of moving pictures.

Muybridge himself deserves so many more stories to be written about him. Unfortunately, the recent documentary, Exposing Muybridge doesn’t seem to be available in the UK, so I’ll have to track it down elsewhere.

Chris Morris’ cult classic (all Morris’ work comes into that category I feel) Brass Eye first aired in 1997.

20 years later, Oxide Ghosts: The Brass Eye Tapes was a behind-the-scenes movie made by director Michael Cumming and screened only during a short run of of live dates in 2017, and again in 2022.

In January this year, the YouTube channel Oxide Ghosts was created and several videos have been published since.

I’m going to assume that these videos are part of those tours. Either way, it’s great to see hear Cumming’s thoughts on the show all these years later.

Here’s the latest one, Brass Eye Hidden Secrets | Ep 1.

The Angine de Poitrine zeitgeist will probably lead to an increase in the purchase of microtonal guitars and basses. But where to buy them?

I can’t remember even seeing an off-the-shelf microtonal bass until Eastwood Guitars came out with the Warren Ellis Microtonal MT Bass Guitar last week.

I also know very little about Warren Ellis so I can’t vouch for his microtonal credentials. The bass is very nice, though.

I have a birthday coming up if someone wants to buy me it.

personalsit.es

That’s it. There’s not much more to it than that. Other than to say it was originally built by Andy Bell of piccalil.li

This site was built to share and revel in each others’ personal sites, and is currently home to ~937 of them. Witness these in wonderment and awe. Immaculate. Stunning. How did they do that? Yes, you should definitely get around to redesigning yours soon.

I submitted ronnie.fyi a couple of days ago and it’s up there now. I’ve been having a nosey around and here are some sites I’ve enjoyed.

• artlung.com
• coryd.dev
• chriskirknielsen.com

These are all super maximalist styles, not a bootstrap framework in site. Love to see it.

Jonathan MacKenzie has put together a modular synth cover of Angine de Poitrine’s Sarniezz. As a synth luddite, this is basically just magic.

The Nerve is new to me. Seems like it might only have arrived this year. It’s a UK-based news outlet, formed by 5 women from across the Guardian and Observer newspapers.

We are the team behind the 2018 Cambridge Analytica investigation that shifted the world’s understanding of Silicon Valley.

I first heard Stewart Lee talking about his role as a contributor on Nish Kumar and Coco Khan’s podcast, Pod Save the UK. The Nerve team as a whole looks pretty strong.

Pretty strong design aesthetic they’ve gone for. Maybe they’re trying to carve a more zine-like niche, away from the other independent news outlets, like Byline Times?