Mike Riversdale

The Christian advertising is fine, it's actually quite nice street art. I do however question the placement as this on the end of the abandoned Monmouth Viaduct which is in the middle of nowhere where I'd be surprised any people will ever see. The repeated phrase "Jesus Loves You 🩶 Repent" is also, um, weird. Love doesn't often come with a requirement of repentance, and when it does it's not love.

It's all terribly photogenic and I have to be careful that I don't flood the Daily Photo album with every damn conceivable view of this abandoned railway viaduct .

Yes, I s'pose it is a bit weird, in fact you're right, it's bloody strange eh! Ok, so child boxing is off the table, but what about balloon jumping, heck yes! Balloon jumping at Stag Lane Aerodrome. The participant is suspended in a harness under the balloon which appears to be sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper. (Photo Credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images) You can of course read all about child boxing (no, we're not doing it), balloon jumping, dwile flonking or dwyle flunking, eel-pulling, firework boxing, and flagpole sitting, goldfish swallowing (no!), octopus wrestling, ski ballet, ending with the classic cheese rolling.

Under the Iron Bridge* as the River Wye keeps on rising due to heavy December rains. * It's real name is the Duke Of Beaufort Bridge, and it used to be for trains.

A summary of the story from, New Movie Tells Story of Steven Spielberg ‘Jurassic Park’ Premiere… in Wales : In the 1980s, Carmarthen’s Lyric Cinema was ready to be demolished but local drama volunteer Liz Evans thought the theater would be perfect for staging shows and decided to mount a production of Jesus Christ Superstar . Evans soon realised the potential was there to keep it as a venue. How to follow Jesus? Jurassic Park , of course! According to reports, a premiere of Jurassic Park was initially arranged, only to be canceled for unspecified reasons, however her cause was taken up by friend Richard Goodridge, the mayor at the time. He wrote directly to Steven Spielberg complaining about the aborted premiere. Goodridge was then contacted by Spielberg’s reps and the show was back on. This screening took place at the same time as the Royal premiere in London. Upping the ante, Evans apparently pipped their projectionist to the post, ensuring Wales got it shown first by mere minutes.

All Monmouth tourists should take a drive up to the Round House on top of the Kymin and take photos of the panoramic view from above. I have plenty . This is different though, a view up to the Kymin. In the forefront is the Duke Of Beaufort Bridge , known locally as the Iron Bridge. It then rises up from the River Wye , peaking over some Wyesham housetops and trees, to a sunlit Kymin field, finally arriving at the Round House at the top. Moody sky as well eh. Oh, and in 2015 Huw Evans ran up to the top and back down in a record 39m 50s.

Before you ask, AoNZ = Aotearoa New Zealand. NZ's Joanah Ngan-Woo beats England's Abbie Ward to the ball in the final lineout of the match during the 2021 Women's Rugby World Cup. Copyright: © Dave Lintott Photography 2022 Of course winning the Rugby World Cup, against England, on home turf, by 3 points, with a brilliant move in the last seconds, will always be joyful. It wasn't just the win though, it was the way the Black Ferns did from game one AND how all of the teams played during the 2021 competition (played in 2022). It's the impossible action that captured a nation. The 2021 Rugby World Cup has been won, and it wasn't by the team almost nailed-on before things began. This Saturday, the Black Ferns completed the greatest moment in their history as they won the World Cup in front of the biggest crowd they'd ever seen. So what went wrong with the Red Roses, and how did New Zealand seal it? I know it's a few years old but if Scott "Razor"

A long long time ago I was staying in  Monmouth , no not last year, I mean a long long time ago, and at the now moved Chippy playground was a little bit of graffiti (well, just graffito really). I took a photo of the word "Smile" and it's been the cover image for my "Street Art" photo album ever since. Imagine my delight dear reader (well, just reado really ;) when I spotted this last year in the Monmouth underground pass. I like to imagine that this was created by the offspring of the original 🤔😁

"The best thing since sliced bread." - but when was 'sliced bread'? On Saturday July 7th, 1928 , the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri , made history by selling the first pre-sliced bread using a machine created by Otto Frederick Rohwedder . So, everything since July 7th, 1928 is "since sliced bread".  Many sources say the first record of the idiom is thought to be in 1952, when the famous comedian Red Skelton said in an interview with the Salisbury Times: “Don’t worry about television. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.” However, one source found it used in The Northern Whig (Belfast, Ireland) of Thursday 8th March 1951, which quoted the American journalist Dorothy Kilgallen (1913-65) writing in the New York Journal-American about British film actor Stewart Granger. In the article, Kilgallen’s sister is quoted as saying: “He is the greatest thing since sliced bread!”  [source:  Origin of the Phrase ‘The Best Thing Since Sliced Bre

A Christmas decoration on Monnow Street in the country town of Monmouth in Wales.

I've gone all in and you can subscribe to a podcast of my NotebookLM created audio summaries of specific large blog posts, currently 4 episodes. You can use whatever podcast app you want, from the popular Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Pocket casts, but the choice is you.

I first saw an animated GIF of the above a few years ago and was charmed by it, as was creator of the following video, John Liebler , that inspired it.   I make my living creating art and animation of the beautiful and often surreal world that exists within our living (and sometimes dying) cells. Although I've been doing it since the late ’90s, It was in 2006 that The Inner Life of the Cell brought my work to the widest audience on Earth: Youtube. Originally planned as a classroom tool, Inner Life takes the viewer through many of the inner workings of a leukocyte (or white blood cell) showing many of the cellular structures and organelles along the way. I spent about a year and a half creating about eight and a half minutes of animation under the guidance of Dr. Robert Lue and Dr. Alain Viel. As the footage was rendered, we started to get a feeling that this was something special. When it was finished, I thought that the visuals could stand on their own to show the wonder of the c

Yes. Mike's Audio Summaries , is a YouTube podcast experiment. I've published three at time of writing this and they have caused much amusement, confusion, and conversation. So how does each episode get produced, here's the complete run down of how I do it. 1: Write a blog post It all starts with me having an idea of blog post that will be lengthy, something that will take me a while to write as it is fact heavy, has many sections, and needs me to actually do some research.  The posts I use for the AI audio summaries are definitely not based in my usual posts, they just don't have enough in them. 2: Use NotebookLM Once I've written my post and it is published I then go to Google's NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google/ NotebookLM (Google NotebookLM) is a research and note-taking online tool developed by Google Labs that uses artificial intelligence (AI), specifically Google Gemini, to assist users in interacting with their documents. It can generate summaries, e

And it's a real pint as well. I only now notice it says, "Try before you buy", I don't know why as I got a full pint for that price in Monmouth's Kings Head (a Wetherspoons).  At those prices no wonder Britain is constantly drunk 😂

A drunken and wrong argument from me with a patient and honest mate left me thinking, "How long could Aotearoa New Zealand actually last if the boats, planes, and Internet couldn't arrive?" Let's imagine Aotearoa New Zealand suddenly and unexpectedly cut off from the rest of the world, you can choose your disaster of choice, limited nuclear war ( global and we're all fucked anyway ), a massive weather something, zombie outbreak overseas, or Winston Peters drops his trousers and does a dump on the main UN Assemble table  and no-one wants to play with us anymore. The reason isn't important but what is, suddenly and for the foreseeable future, is that we are no longer connected - the event has happened! Note: I don't have access to any insider information that say the Government hopefully has, so this is all gonna be a bit 'finger in the sky' using stuff I find on the Web and it'll be an exercise in averages, "sort of"s and even my own

You've seen the top looking down, well here is from the bottom looking up.

New / bigly updates to photos albums: Romesh Ranganathan (2024) St James Theatre, Wellington Bulls, New Zealand Oh, my 2022 trip across the top of Australia hasn't been shared in albums, doh! Darwin Litchfield National Park Jabiru Anbangbang, Cooinda Lodge Kakadu, and Edith Falls Katherine Kununurra, and Lake Argyle Halls Creek, old cemetery, and Palm Springs Derby Broome

Oh how I would love RNZ here in Aotearoa New Zealand, or BBC Radio in the UK to start such a glorious item as the Swedish Summer & Winter in P1 (site is in Swedish let your browser translate it for you). ‘The last campfire in Swedish society’: Sommar i P1, the radio show that unifies a nation  brought my attention to it: [Such candour] has become expected from those who are chosen as Sommarpratare (summer speakers) on Sommar i P1, an annual Swedish radio institution in which guests are given 90 minutes to talk about a subject of their choice and play music. To be selected is considered such an honour that it’s been described as the Swedish equivalent to a knighthood. It's been an annual event since 1959 and begins each year on Midsummer’s Day and runs daily until the middle of August, featuring 58 different guests, ranging from politicians to artists and actors, chefs, sports stars, scientists and teachers. Sounds so interesting, if a scientist isn't your thing don't w

It's been on that roundabout since forever but I have no idea what it is, why it's there, or even how old it actually is. Let the Googling begin ... Tapping the map 'inside' the photograph takes me to Google Maps where it's called, The Cross, Monmouth . On there it has a link to a British Listed Buildings website that calls it Overmonnow Cross , now we're getting somewhere. Maybe, apart from telling me where it is all the site really tells me is that it's a Grade II listed Building, classified as "Religious, Ritual and Funerary", and that the details come from Cadw ("Cadw is a Welsh word meaning ‘to keep’ or ‘to protect’. .. working for an accessible and well-protected historic environment for Wales.") . Ok, let's head over to Cadw before doing some more Googling if needed. Voila! History   Partly medieval cross, probably C15, which was rebuilt in 1888 incorporating the socket stone and possibly the base of the shaft. The cross was d

It took me many evenings work to create the post Do We Live Better Than Medieval Royalty? and, on the back of my Google NotebookLLM experiment with my own CV I suddenly thought, why not put my post and all the links and videos from the medieval post into NotebookLLM and see what we can truly do. I am very happy to share the Notebook I've created so you can get ask your own questions of all (most) the sources. I think you can, with a Google account, get into it by opening it here . But of course I can generate an audio overview for the whole subject , enjoy!

Like Sherlock & Co.  this is a new podcast to me and similarly each episode is a "story". The premise of The Program , a collection of loosely connected stories (so far as I have listened), is that the world has been through the " singularity " and the survivors are now living in a very different state. Each episode is some sort of look back over the events humanity went through before and during "The Update", and "Carmageddon". It's cleverly written, can be quite philosophical, definitely challenges our ideas of a benevolent "AI", and even a little mystery focussed. Whilst I can't take more than a story at a time as it can be quite heavy, but I must say I am certainly enjoying it, and the acting is most excellent. The Program audio series is a fiction podcast set in a future in which Money, State, and God became fused into a single entity called the Program. Each episode is a self-contained story focusing on ordinary people

This tiny Medieval bridge is still in use, I walked over it without a care in the world. It was only whilst I was looking at some other info that I discovered a stack of history about Clawdd-du, and particularly this medieval bridge. The Clawdd-du, also known in historical records as the Black Dyke, Black Ditch or Clawthy, is a mediaeval linear defensive earthwork or moat, constructed as protection for the faubourg  [suburb] of Overmonnow, on the opposite side of the River Monnow from the town and castle of Monmouth, Wales. The ditch was excavated in two stages, before the mid-thirteenth century, and then again after the mid-fourteenth century. It was crossed by our small stone bridge which was in direct line with that of Monnow Street, in Monmouth, and the Monnow Bridge across the river. It carried the road from the town westwards towards the village of Wonastow. The Clawdd-du is now partly infilled, but still exists for most of its length as a broad ditch used for drainage. It is a S

Growing up I was a bath a week sort of kid, Sunday. When I hit puberty and was playing sports it certainly upped its frequency but was never every day. Coming to New Zealand it became, for reasons I can no longer recall, a shower every morning. Some people I know have a shower when they wake up and shower before they go to bed, I don't know what they get up to during the day but it sounds very dirty. I've now reverted to a shower every other day and, you never know, may even make even less frequent. I'll monitor the stench for everyone 😁 This BBC article,  There's no need to shower every day – here's why , is not just an opinion piece but has some fascinating UK bathroom history. The humble shower has also attained new meaning. During the 1900s, a burgeoning advertising business attached new symbolism to our bathrooms. The shower, says Southerton, was marketed as a tool for saving time, but also for reinvigoration. Around 1970, shower ads consisted of simple drawi

These are not my photos, obviously, however they are out there on the Internet and so I present to you my two favourite images of the past 100 years. Miriam Margolyes with a John Dory fish Ian McKellen becoming Mother Goose

What a find! So, you like Sherlock Holmes stories, you're particularly in with the BBC Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman), you don't even mind the three Robert Downey Jr movies .  Sherlock & Co.  is for you! Classic Conan Doyle stories set today. Yes, sounds familiar, and even the tone and voices lean heavily on the Cumberbatch / Freeman outings, but their last one was 2017. But have no fear, this is new, fresh, and absolutely entertaining. Subscribe  or YouTube it  and then download them all to give yourself a bloody awesome Sherlock Holmes time! My name is Dr. John Watson, once of the British Army Northumberland Fusilier Regiment, now a true crime podcaster based in Central London. I don't have much experience in criminology, so this is mostly a record of how I met possibly the most brilliant and bizarre person I have ever (and will ever) know. Join me as I document the adventures of Sherlock Holmes.