Something big is cooking up! I've been sketching a proper backstory for Anna and Tom for a few days. 38 chapters. 4 acts. A complete story of how they found each other — and what they found together. Here's what you need to know 👇 The full details are... you know where 😉

In Qinghua Embroidery Studio in Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 61-year-old Wei Qinghua and her daughter Qin Guizhen sit side by side by the window, showcasing a remarkable skill—without any preliminary sketching, a gentle turn of the wrist brings a butterfly motif to life. Dong embroidery is a combination of weaving, printing and dyeing, paper-cutting and embroidery skills. Wei is a representative inheritor of this intangible cultural heritage. "In recent years, more young people in the village have chosen to work elsewhere, but when they return home, they still want to wear traditional ethnic clothing. Many people come to me to buy finished embroidered garments, which makes me feel this craft still has market potential," Wei said. In 2018, Wei established Qinghua Embroidery Studio and introduced an innovative model that brings together enterprises, bases, inheritors, embroiderers and orders, helping local rural women find employment and increase their income close to home. Together, the mother and daughter have trained over 3,000 embroiderers and helped nearly 300 left-behind women secure employment. Yang Huaying is one of the beneficiaries. "I used to work outside, and my children became left-behind kids. Now I can do embroidery at home and earn an extra 4,000 to 5,000 yuan (about $590-$737) a year while still taking care of my family," she said.

The painting Adolf Hitler submitted with his application to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1907. The admissions committee found it unsatisfactory, noting a lack of talent for human figures but acknowledging some ability in architectural sketching

I was robbed in Tokyo recently, an experience as unexpected as it was distressing. Despite long years in London, plus decades of rough and ready globetrotting to some of the sketchiest places on earth, I have never been a victim in any of these notorious crime hotspots (I feel snubbed especially by London), but this was the second such experience in supposedly the safest city in the world. What are the odds? The first time I dropped my wallet in a branch of the bargain bucket Don Quijote store and later received a phone call from the staff saying they had it, with ID cards intact but 50,000 yen gone. This time there was no phone call, it's all gone, a similar amount of cash but far more worryingly, my entire suite of credit and ID cards. ✍️ Philip Patrick Article |