A Garda check point in Santry on the way to and out of the Dublin Airport yesterday

Our leaders sat down to contrive
A plan to extend level five
And also there will
Be no flights from Brazil
Such a fuss just to keep us alive

John Moynes

RollingNews

Via The Guardian:

Sometimes, Stuart Ritchie feels like he’s being pursued by an army of smiley faces. The lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, is not delusional: instead, and somewhat to his surprise, he is on the frontline of a coronavirus information war.

The emojis often decorate the Twitter profiles of the self-proclaimed “lockdown sceptics”, a subset of social media users who remain unconvinced that coronavirus restrictions are necessary, even as the number of deaths in the UK approaches 100,000.

Often they are indignant at the efforts of Ritchie and others to refute the claims of a small but thoroughly amplified cadre of columnists, academics and enthusiastic amateurs, ranging from the free speech advocate Toby Young to the engineer and diet guru Ivor Cummins, who provide dubious but densely argued justifications for their stance.

At some point they settled on the smiley as their membership badge. If it is meant to be friendly, it doesn’t necessarily come across that way….

😂.

The information warriors fighting ‘robot zombie army’ of coronavirus sceptics (The Guardian)

Previously: Ivor Cummins on Broadsheet

‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ – Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer’s most-recognised artwork – was recently subjected to two years of detailed research which, while failing to shed light on the identity of the subject, has revealed all manner of hidden detail including eyelashes (only visible under a microscope) and the fact that the grey background is actually a green curtain.

The surface condition of the painting (which has been subject to multiple restorations over the years) was studied by researchers Emilien Leonhardt and Vincent Sabatier, of Hirox Europe using a custom-mounted microscope.

The resulting 10 billion pixel panoramic scan – a gigantic stitch of 9,100 individual microscopic photographs, is available here in 2D and 3D for your perusal.

colossal

Joe Chester – Anyway

Get me to the church on time.

Specifically, the 17th century baroque chapel of l’Eglise du Gesu in Nice, France, where Joe Chester has recorded his new live album Under The Ragged Thorn without an audience.

The album is currently only available as a limited edition CD on Bohemia Records and spans Joe’s solo career to date, including songs from last year’s double album Jupiter’s Wife.

Joe is also known as an ace producer and for his work with The Waterboys, Sinéad O’Connor, Hedge Schools and, last but not least, A Lazarus Soul.

Joe has uploaded videos of some of the live performances onto his YouTube channel.

Nick says: Nice work.

Joe Chester

Broadsheet.ie