Leonardo - Adoration of the Magi

Of course being a Leonardo work its fate was always likely to be unfinished, but as it is in its naked state it's still majestic and strange, both skeletal and chaotic in its details, but even with the abundance of dramatic forms space is itself also a palpable presence or reality in the awe-filled painting. Just an afterthought that in the film 'The Sacrifice' by Andrei Tarkovsky, a character whispers after gazing at a reproduction of this painting that he has always been terrified by Leonardo.

Desert

A man went with a vacuum cleaner into the desert. What a fool. He was going to hoover everything up, was he? Well where was he going to put whatever he vacuumed? Back into the desert, that's where. Pointless.

Goal!

The British government has pledged for the rest of the 2015-16 football season to drop a bomb on terrorists for every goal scored by Manchester United in the English Premier League. The statement seems to be a real PR coup for the government of David Cameron, garnering both huge social-media and mass-media support, and with Mr Cameron gaining thousands of friends as an immediate and clear result. There were admittedly some murmurs of dissent from some of Manchester United's rivals around the issue of favouritism, but when suggestions of terrorist sympathies were voiced, these murmurs quickly quietened to silence. Also on the issue of this 'favouritism', some pointed out that the  inevitable patriotic commitment to attack may in fact leave Man Utd vulnerable in defence - though those making such a point have discovered that, despite their protestations of fair-mindedness, this has equated to a very serious social faux-pas.

Surfjan Stevens - Fourth of July, live

Underworld - Stagger