gairfowl

[gairfowl]

[gairfowl]

jimbles fitzjimbles was like "I loved doing all that colonialism and war and being racist not for the inherent patriotic joy of it but because it made me the coolest person in the room" and terror girlies looked at him and only saw gender

[gairfowl]

antarctic exploration is so funny because you read about the endurance expedition and it’s a zany adventure with a lovable stowaway and trials and tribulations that show the indomitable nature of the human spirit without a single man lost and it ends in a thematically resonant and meaningful way with a fitting and beautiful conclusion and then you get to the belgica and the crew are running away constantly, they frame the cook for his own beatdown and get him fired, the beloved moral-boosting chipper ships boy literally falls off of the boat and drowns before they even GET to antarctica, the commandant and the captain are deliberately freezing the ship in ice to protect their beautiful belgian honor, they’re constantly falling into crevasses, and the ships pet penguin dies in what i cannot stress enough is the most narratively ominous and portentous circumstance on the morning of their imprisonment in the ice. the doctor was literally imprisoned for fraud.

[gairfowl]

Polar Bear | Canada Wild

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~ Cottage Economy, William Cobbett, 1833

[gairfowl]

In the Land of the Penguins by Georges Lecointe

(The Sequel)

[gairfowl]

so. is anyone out there still jopping (watching the terror 2018)

[gairfowl]

[gairfowl]

so, ross' official account of the antarctic expedition is pretty dry (i love how even michael palin, avowed ross fanboy, calls it a little terse, which is so diplomatic of him i want to buy him a coffee -- i think smith called it a dry and pedestrian tome). almost every personal touch is absent (i think it was palin who called it airbrushed), and it basically has the character of a scientist's journal, cleaned up and published, or the 'method' section of a thesis. now, that's very fair, given that the '39 antarctic expedition was extremely explicitly scientific in its aims. but it doesn't exactly make it riveting. but what is very fun about it is when you compare it to the other, informal accounts from the same expedition, and see just how airbrushed it is.

maybe the best one (not surprisingly, i guess) is the franklin island incident: of course, this is robertson's version:

[...] such was the rise and fall of the waves, that a landing was almost despaired of, when Captain Ross stood up in the boat, resting his hand on Captain Crozier's shoulder, and evidently resolved for a spring at whatever risk. Captain Crozier observing this, proposed to him to attempt to touch the land with his hand only, and then christen it by what name he pleased: to which Captain Ross immediately replied, "Ah! old boy, if I put my hand on it, the body must follow;" and instantly springing upon the shelf of the dyke, he quickly succeeded in scrambling up the rock, whilst the angry sea dashed its spray high upon his heels. It was now Captain Crozier's turn, and he, watching his moment with a seaman's eye, also got cleverly up the icy rocks clear of danger: [...] (pp. 50-51)

meanwhile, in the official account... all of the above is summarised as follows:

[...] the Terror's whale boat being more fit for encountering such a surf than the heavy cutter of the Erebus, I got into her, and by the great skill and management of the officers and crew I succeeded, by watching the opportunity when the boat was on the crest of the breakers, in jumping on to the rocks. (vol. I p. 213)

... now. to be entirely fair to the author, i don't know how i would have made "i lowkey used my second in command as a stepladder" sound scientific and professional either. but the smashcut of placing these two side by side... fantastic. a delight.

[gairfowl]

Hazel McNab (born 1959). British

"Last Light" (2024)

Reduction linocut 47 x 64cm

[gairfowl]

@theterrorbingo fill: 103 The Ladder (ref. Anatomy of a Murder, Saul Bass)

[gairfowl]

myths about sinking britain

“there is no historical precedent for sinking britain!” doggerland, which connected britain to the european mainland, was submerged by water in 6500BC. there is precedent for sinking britain.

“it is unfeasible to sink britain!” britain is strategically located to allow many nations to co-operate in its sinking

“sinking britain would raise sea levels!” the netherlands already has dams

“sinking britain would cause more problems geopolitically than it would solve!” we simply won’t know this until we sink britain

[gairfowl]

[gairfowl]

Give me Claudius!!! Sorry, but have you seen this?!?!?!? His beautiful beard, hand, waistcoat 🫦🫦🫦

Oh, Allegra! What a lucky girl you are)))

[gairfowl]

the de gerlache trauma dump will never not be funny to me

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Thomas Jopson + caring for others