El fotógrafo / la foto. pic.twitter.com/KOalsamV7W

— Dan ★ (@DanGamboaB) August 29, 2026

Vlaho Bukovac, 'John the Baptist' (1897)

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Museum of Modern Art, New York (1964)

 

Frants Henningsen, The Good Samaritan (1881)

Genuinely, deeply haunting

Let's be honest, most of what the Children's Film Foundation (CFF) produced was (probably) not very good. I say this with no great malice or cynicism. The truth is that, as per Sturgeon's law, most of everything isn't very good, never was and never will be. Here and there though there were some gold nuggets, and they withstand scrutiny even now for more than just nostalgia's sake. Haunters of the Deep (available to watch on line for free here) is definitely one.*

It's not about submarines. It doesn't have any baddies. And the adult characters are just as important to the plot as the children are. In fact Haunters of the Deep is really an unusually mature film for children. For the early 1980s, at a time when every American on British telly was a moron or an evil capitalist villain (or, worse, a Cold Warrior), it's also unusually subtle. In fact the two American characters, a young girl and her father, are played as likable right from the outset - albeit (literally) in over their heads, lost in deepest darkest Cornwall, and then subsequently in the deepest darkest depths thereof.

The setting of Haunters of the Deep is also an unusually gritty "real world" one for a children's anthology series that's usually given to wholesome prepubescent whimsy rather than to modern "cultural relevance". Yes, it's set in Cornwall, land of second homes and public school surfers. And yes, it's beautifully shot. But it makes no bones about the lifestyle of a hardworking family on the edge struggling to make ends meet. So in a sense it's even more impressive that at a time when the CFF itself was in the doldrums the producers seem to have positively fought off any inclination to go "political". Even as the Thatcher government was closing down mines in the north of England, the economic atmosphere here in Cornwall is a seemingly quite wholesome one of reform, retraining, and reopening with American investment. There are the Yankee yuppies and there's a BMX and there's the usual idiot older brother, who listens to pop music on a walkman (and likes to do stunts on his younger brother's bike). Mixed in are not a few melancholy references to the decline of both mining and the Cornish fishing industry, though without any punches being pulled about the need for change or about how the mining itself was horrifically dangerous in the bad old good old days. 

From a modern point of view the film's beautiful sunlit vistas are a painful reminder that back in the day there were still filmmakers who knew how ghost stories work. Contrast rubbish like The Woman in Black (or most of Hammer's back-catalogue, for that matter). Kubrick knew that a brightly lit hotel lobby is scarier than a "spooky" dark cellar, and to his credit so does Ari Aster in Midsommar. And the stand out performance of the piece is Cardinal Newman's 'Lead Kindly Light', whose historical cultural connexion with mining is well thought of. The fact that the ghosts are trying to help the characters makes them paradoxically more scary, because it makes the audience actually focus on their ghostliness - their being dead, lost before their time in terrible circumstances - rather than distracting with some feebly conceived malevolent motivations. And the idea of a ghost boy who is trapped in his childhood is a beautifully disturbing and memorable notion, especially for children themselves.

All-in-all, Haunters of the Deep is almost certainly an unwitting gem that has survived the test of time remarkably well. And if CFF had been able to keep on making children's films as good as this - rather than proto-woke drivel like Terry on the Fence - then maybe there might have been some call to preserve it.

*Friend or Foe (available for a small fee from BFI here) is probably another.

Jacopo Vignali, 'The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence'

"Butt music" from The Garden of Earthly Delights

Caravaggio, Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Dei Palafrenieri) (1606)

Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 'Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saint Christopher and Saint Sebastian'

Julius Kronberg, 'David and Saul' (1885)

Daniel F. Gerhartz, Daniel jouant de la harpe 2009

Daniel F. Gerhartz, 'Daniel jouant de la harpe' (2009)

Naruki, Patrick Church

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A post shared by Abtei Maria Laach (@benediktinerabteimarialaach)

En, ipse stat post paríetem nostrum, respíciens per fenéstras, prospíciens per cancéllos.

dovegraveyard, 'To pretend'

Even by Spanish standards, this is a fairly modern "look" for your kid's First Holy Communion.

Dear writers, we need your imagination, your narrative creativity and your lively thinking. We need these to create spaces of freedom and authenticity, within which divine grace can make the promise of consolation and peace resound. https://t.co/FEmCrdQ392

— Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex) June 24, 2026

Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness'

William Holman Hunt, A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids

Rockwell Kent, To God! (1918-19, reworked through 1963)

forgive me father for i have sinned pic.twitter.com/X6DX7Ulosi

— ⚪️ (@dudeszone) June 11, 2026

St Vitus

Talon Abraxas, 'The Sacred Heart'

View on Threads

dom.aelred

I think this little 33 knot prayer-rope is my best yet.

If you might be interested in one, do get in touch.

[Instagram]

“Are you the new recruit?” asked a heavy voice. 

And in some strange way, though there was not the shadow of a shape in the gloom, Syme knew two things: first, that it came from a man of massive stature; and second, that the man had his back to him. 

“Are you the new recruit?” said the invisible chief, who seemed to have heard all about it. “All right. You are engaged.” 

Syme, quite swept off his feet, made a feeble fight against this irrevocable phrase. 

“I really have no experience,” he began. 

“No one has any experience,” said the other, “of the Battle of Armageddon.” 

“But I am really unfit—” 

“You are willing, that is enough,” said the unknown. 

“Well, really,” said Syme, “I don’t know any profession of which mere willingness is the final test.” 

“I do,” said the other—“martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Good day.” 

[H/T: Eivind Berge's Blog: The wisdom of G.K. Chesterton in "The Man Who Was Thursday"]

Today I found him in Cardiff!
by u/Moonhunter7 in doctorwho

© Brian Oldham

Francisco Lachowski

@minkm105 #13 #tattoo#မူဆယ်မြို့ #အားပေးသူတိုင်းကိုကျေးဇူးတင်ပါတယ်😘😘😘 ♬ nhạc nền - 𝙋𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙘 𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙢 ♪ - 𝘿𝙟 𝙋𝙖𝙙仔 𝙏𝙚𝙖𝙢 𝙈𝙞𝙭 ♪

Hannah Stewart

This life-size sculpture by sculptress Hannah Stewart depicts Mary and a teenage Jesus. It was commissioned by a Catholic school in Fulham, London.

The School community have been absolutely delighted with Hannah's work. She has not disappointed producing a sculpture of great quality that beautifully represented the ideas and themes it was set to encapsulate. Hannah was a pleasure to work with, full of ideas and open to suggestions. I recommend her without hesitation. 

[The school's headmaster]

Michelangelo, Crucifix (Sacristy of Santo Spiritu, Florence)

Oskar Zwintscher Zwischen, Schmuck und Lied (1900)

The entrance hall of William Beckford's country house folly Fonthill Abbey in 1823

The footmen at Fonthill Abbey were, by some accounts, very young indeed.

Anna Lea Merritt, The watchers of the straight gate (1894)

Platonism

Platonism seems to be the current gateway drug to every flavour of traddy weirdness (if not to say actual traddy b-s), from Tolkien to Charles Coulombe's thoughts on the Latin Mass and "western Hermeticism" to Stephen C Lovatt's "gay traditionalism" to Tom Rowsell's "neo-paganism".

Why is this? I don't know. In order to find out I suspect I'd have to go back and read a lot more Plato than I have any great desire to.

My feeling though is that it's got something to do with a desire for a detachment from the boring mundane reality of the materially perceptible world.

And let's face it, whether you're into elves, Latin Masses, magic, old gods or bum-sex (or all five!), there are times when that's quite a comforting thing.

Alexandre Cabanel, The Fallen Angel

'Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.' 

[Charles Caleb Colton]

Tintoretto, Miracle of the Slave (1548)