Links the Snook and I have sent each other lately:

• The secret history behind that infamous “Jesus Is My Friend” song – ZAP!
• Buried for Nearly 2,000 Years, a Monumental Dionysian Fresco Sees the Light of Day in Pompeii
• Oscars 2025: Why are we so mesmerised by Succession, The Apprentice star Jeremy Strong’s red carpet outfits?
• Rick Steves – Update on my Medical Travels: I’m Cancer Free!
• The Average Adult Has Enough Rom-Com Knowledge To Recognize 8 Of These Dishes, But How Many On-Screen Dishes Do You Know? – I only missed two! 💅 I haven’t seen all the movies, but I knew who was in them and was able to make educated guesses.

Michael Sheen writes off £1m of debt for 900 people. Maybe he really is an angel? 👼

TIL that there are still churches – primarily in Appalachia – where they handle venomous snakes and drink strychnine to show their faith. 😳 I’d like to act shocked, but given that part of my family comes from Kentucky, I’ll just note that it explains a lot.

I recently changed my LinkedIn profile to say that I’m Open to Board Roles, and a few recruiters picked up on that #opentowork photo frame immediately. No, I’m not looking to go back to work! Still very happily retired. 😄 I am specifically only interested in board roles, and there’s no way to flag that without also putting up that photo frame.

Being on a board is something I’ve been thinking about for several years, after a mentor raised it as a potential career path for me. There’s a real lack of tech industry experience and tech skills on my boards, and women are also woefully underrepresented. I have considered doing the AICD course, but yowza! it’s expensive to do just in the hopes of getting a paid board role someday. I had coffee with a friend recently who’s on several boards, and she advised that the course isn’t needed right away if I start by aiming for non-profit, volunteer roles. And right now, my focus is very much on doing whatever I can to make the world a better place.

If you have no idea what being on a board actually entails – because I certainly didn’t! – Anil Dash has a great article about it.

As big fans of Finns, Swedes, and sauna in general, how could we not love this? They even wear the sauna hats! (Now Rodd is sad and second-guessing our decision not to put a sauna in the garden.)

“Being told we cannot draw is the first step to telling people that no, they are not as competent as they believe themselves to be. Once you can convince a human being they cannot draw, you can convince them of mostly anything.

Someone is benefitting from making you believe you are incompetent and it is not you.”

This piece – “How to draw an orange” – from Mike Monteiro’s Good News really, really resonated with me, and not just because I’ve literally got a painting of oranges on my wall. I know that I’m my own worst critic, and I know that it’s held me back from doing things in the past. Someone reached out to me with an opportunity recently, and I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that they think I’m qualified for it. I’m a grown-ass, competent woman, and I can do this.

• Needle drop! The world’s first sewing machine orchestra takes Munich – Happening today! If I were in Munich, I would 100% be attending this.
• 100 Years of Art Deco with Claudia Chan Shaw – Four lecture series that started in Sydney this weekend. Maybe I’ll go to one of the rest?!
• Karma is a Cruise – There is a TAYLOR SWIFT CRUISE, you guys. 😳🛳️

Over on Bluesky, Chris Kluwe responded to someone that was inspired by his recent actions and wanted to buy an NFL jersey with his name/number on it. Instead, Kluwe recommended they donate to The Trevor Project or Trans Lifeline. Goddamn. DONE, SIR. 🫡

I found it profoundly sad that both of those sites start with information about how to exit out of them immediately, presumably in case a trans person is reading them in a place where they might experience harassment. I mean, it’s great that they share that info, but fml I wish they didn’t have to.