TODAY, the third Monday of January, has come to be known in the UK as "Blue Monday", the most depressing day of the year. The idea originated in 2005 via a press release issued by a travel company. Using a formula accounting for factors like weather, debt, post-holiday gloom, failed resolutions, low motivation, and the need for change, they calculated this date to be the saddest day of the year.
LAST WEEK I read an article about a couple who had such trouble staying offline when they wanted to be, that they did the most drastic thing they could think of: they disconnected their internet. They had a landline installed to make calls, and used the Yellow Pages to look up telephone numbers.
WE ARE BACK with our Design History series, and this week, we’re taking a closer look at an essential material in modern manufacturing and construction: stainless steel.
10 Images With: Christiane Lemieux
@christianelemieux
THIS INSTALMENT of 10 IMAGES features the work of Christiane Lemieux, a Canadian-born entrepreneur, and interior and housegoods designer who also lists Photographer, Artist, Art Advisor, Author, and Founder of LEMIEUX ET CIE (a brand she launched in London in 2010) on her bio.
Right now, many forms of knowledge production seem to be facing their end. The crisis of the humanities has reached a tipping point of financial and popular disinvestment, while technological advances such as new artificial intelligence programmes may outstrip human ingenuity.
ON THURSDAY we met up with an old friend who we hadn't seen in over ten years. He was in London for only two days and thought we might meet for a pint and catch up. We choose that little pub in Belgravia that I told you about before. It was so good to see him again and we had such a nice time over mid-afternoon drinks...
One word has been popping up increasingly on earnings calls and in corporate filings of some of the world’s biggest companies. From Wall Street giants like BlackRock Inc. to consumer titans like Coca-Cola Co. and Tesla Inc.
Known as the murder capital of the world at the start of the 90s, by the late 2000’s Medellín, Colombia, had undergone a revival. As violence ebbed, it welcomed new investment and visitors from abroad. Backpackers roaming the streets became a common sight.
IT'S FUNNY that now we're back in the city, find myself still drawn to cosy cottages, especially stone ones like the one we left, or this one, yellow brick and covered in climbing roses. A four-bedroom manor house built in 1820, this listed cottage is located in Ampleforth, North Yorkshire...
What AI Teaches Us About Good Writing
As soon as I sit down to write, I feel compelled to scrub my bathtub and reorganize my filing cabinet — the most tedious chores suddenly become more appealing than the task at hand. Writing can feel so daunting that we’ve invented the term writer’s block to describe the unique sensation of its challenge, and we debate whether the ability to write well is learned or simply innate.
An amber-colored glass paperweight sits in my nightstand drawer. It used to belong to my dad, who recently died, and to his grandmother before him. It’s shaped like a cube, with delicate flowers painted on each side, and it’s heavy in my palm. But I rarely pick it up, because I have no papers that need weighing down. The object occupies valuable space that might otherwise be used for a book, tissues, or anything else that I actually use. Still, I keep it, along with a few other pieces of what you might call “sentimental clutter”—personally meaningful yet impractical objects: a box of old birthday cards, a chipped seashell, a loyalty card for a café that no longer exists.
THE INSTAGRAM algorithm seems to think that we love all things Scandinavian at the moment, and perhaps we do. That's how we came across Finnish social media content creator Metti Forssell (@mettiforssell) for this instalment of 10 IMAGES. We hadn't known of her before, but we love her penchant for chubby furniture and boiserie, chevron flooring and chandeliers; coffee and pastries on marble tables, shrimp pasta, bouclé chairs and more...
A handful of global giants dominate the industrialisation of the Amazon rainforest, extracting tens of billions of dollars of raw materials every year, according to an analysis that highlights how much value is being sucked out of the region with relatively little going back in.
AS MENTIONED earlier, we’ve been searching for a coffee table that we both love. It hasn’t been an easy search, as I was looking for something with Carrara or Viola marble, but P was looking for a wood one. In the end, we discovered that there aren’t that many choices available after all, but in our searches...
IN THE NEW living room, there is a marble fireplace with a large mantel that we're still trying to figure how to decorate. Currently, there is a large pelargonium in a terracotta pot on the lefthand side, as well as a tiny cutting from a larger epipremnum pictum argyraeus in a pot next to it.
