National Trust – Set on the shores of the Menai Strait, visitors to the gardens at Plas Newydd in Wales can take in the sea air and enjoy views of Snowdonia.
The gardens, dating back to the 16th century, owe much of their dramatic beauty to landscape designer Humphry Repton who in 1798, who planted trees to make the most of the views. Repton’s legacy influences the way the National Trust cares for the gardens today.
Discover ornate courtyards, a vibrant rhododendron garden and a tree house – features when the 6th Marquess of Anglesey lived at Plas Newydd with his family. You’ll also pick up a gardening tip to help you keep your flower beds happy and healthy over winter. The gardens at Plas Newydd are only open at weekends during the winter.
It turns out reindeers’ amazing night vision is thanks to a strange ‘mirror’ in their eyes called the tapetum lucidum that is extra sensitive to UV light
The USS Monitor, an iconic piece of military history, sank 160 years ago. Now a marine sanctuary, the wreck has become an unlikely testbed for ocean conservation
Adweek (December 14, 2022) – These 22 Campaigns Made Creative Professionals Jealous in 2022 – From popular social ads to Super Bowl spots, these are the works that creatives loved:
Like nearly everything coming out of the Party Land crew, this made me laugh. Not a normal laugh. A surprised laugh. An ugly laugh. The type of laugh that creeps out of the guilty part of your subconscious. A vocal acknowledgement of the fragility of existence amidst the looming specter of oblivion. A giggling acceptance of the collective unspoken—that all one can do in life is to embrace the absurdity of it all and smile. And then maybe eat some hot chicken.
Apple: ‘The Greatest‘ Agency: Apple’s in-house team in London
Chris Garbutt, chief creative officer and co-president, Virtue:
Apple’s “The Greatest” is the anthem for innovation addressing accessibility. Apple knows that in order to inspire its community, it has to have the courage to let the audience lead. This work does exactly that.
Paul Caiozzo, co-founder and chief creative officer, Supernatural:
One ad stood way out to me. The perfect combination of product, culture and freshness. Great, simple extensions that didn’t look to do any “heavy lifting” but rather continued the fun. Doing all of those things isn’t easy and Ocean Spray did it brilliantly.
The Guardian Weekly (December 16, 2022): In Germany, 25 conspirators were arrested and accused of plotting to overthrow the government. The eclectic grouping, known as the Reichsbürger plotters, espoused a far-right ideology but hailed largely from the centre of respectable German society, headed up by an elderly minor aristocrat and including in their ranks family doctors, judges, a celebrity chef and an opera singer.
Three months have passed since fervent anti-regime demonstrations began in Iran. As more grim details emerged of public executions of protesters and the grotesque targeting of women by security forces, Christopher de Bellaigue takes a deep look at the movement, in particular the role played by women and young people, and asks what it might take for a popular revolution to succeed.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook) has spent $100bn building a virtual reality world known as the metaverse, which he believes will replace the conventional internet. The problem is, hardly anyone seems to prefer its clunky headsets and empty landscapes to the real world. With poor financial results and redundancies at Meta, has it all been a hugely expensive mistake? Steve Rose ventures into the metaverse, so you don’t have to.
December 15, 2022 – Iranian-made drones have been shot down in Kyiv. Plus: the race to become the US Republican presidential nominee, urbanism news and Japan’s choice of “war” as kanji of the year.
On a frigid December night, The New York Times accompanied members of a surveillance team for the Ukrainian Army as they used a thermal sight to find enemy positions miles away.
Leaked emails detail how Russia’s biggest state broadcaster, working with the nation’s security services, mined right-wing American news and Chinese media to craft a narrative that Moscow was winning.
Royal Academy of Art (December 14, 2022) – What would Modernism look like if you saw it through the eyes of women artists? How would it change your perception? What other stories might you find?
Watch Royal Academy curators Sarah Lea and Professor Dorothy Price discuss the pioneering work of four women making art on their own terms: Paula Modersohn-Becker, Kӓthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin.
Christopher Putvinski (December 14, 2022) – Snowfall in Old Québec at around 5 a.m. during the Christmas season. I had included this footage in an edit on Christmas in Québec, but felt it was so nice that it deserved its own edit as well. Song is Provence by GÅEL.
Visit to Quebec City in December to capture the Christmas season.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
