And your starter for Saturday is ...

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Oldest recorded message in a bottle
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Dropped into the Atlantic Ocean’s North Sea on June 10, 1914, this is the oldest message in a bottle ever found. A fellow plucked it from the sea last year. The bottle was part of a study of ocean currents conducted by the Glasgow School of Navigation nearly a century ago.
Continue reading here

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
“I had suicidal thoughts,” says Clive James. “They all promptly vanished the moment I was under real threat. There was a sudden urge to live”... more

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London by George Reid, c.1920-1933
via Retronaut by Chris
Almost impossible to choose just one of these splendid pictures

1. Benbow Wharf, Bankside
2. Billingsgate Fish Market jetty looking north towards Tower Bridge
3. Blackfriars Bridge and Bankside from the north bank of the Thames
4. Buckingham Palace at night
5. Charing Cross Road
6. Children beneath Southwark Bridge
7. Covent Garden Underground Station from Long Acre
8. Crowds outside 'The Newspaper House', Fleet Street
9. Crowds outside 'The Newspaper House', Fleet Street NOT – wrongly captioned, probably barges on the river
10. Entrance to Blackfriars Station, Queen Victoria Street
11. Forecourt of Victoria Station
12. Fresh Wharf from London Bridge
13. Greenmoor Wharf rubbish depot, Bankside
14. Greenmoor Wharf rubbish depot, Bankside NOT - more barges
15. Houses of Parliament from Lambeth Pier
16. Lambeth from Horseferry Stairs
17. London Pavillion Theatre and Coventry Street from Piccadilly Circus
18. Looking southwest from Lower Custom House Stairs
19. Monument Street near Billingsgate Market
20. Multi-storey horse stables near Southwark Bridge
21. St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden
22. Strand
23. Strand
24. Sunrise over the Upper Pool and Hay’s Wharf
25. Sunset over the Upper Pool from Tower Bridge
26. The Thames towards Waterloo Bridge and St Paul’s Cathedral
27. Trafalgar Square from the steps of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields
28. Trafalgar Square looking south
29. Visitors on the steps of the Tate Gallery
30. Whitehall
31. Whitehall from Parliament Square
32. Bow Lane
33. Cargo ship Baltabor at Hay’s Wharf looking towards Brewer’s Quay
34. Daily Telegraph building, Fleet Street
35. Fleet Street
36. Houses of Parliament from County Hall
37. Gateway of St Bartholomew-the-Great Church, Smithfield
38. J Lyons Corner House on Strand and Craven Street
39. King William IV Street and Charing Cross Hospital from Strand
40. Ludgate Hill
41. London Hippodrome, Cranbourn Street
42. Middle Temple Lane
43. Market porters in Drury Lane, Covent Garden
44. Mill Bank and the National Gallery from the Vauxhall foreshore
45. Mill Bank and the National Gallery from the Vauxhall foreshore duplicate photograph
46. St Paul’s Cathedral from Ludgate Hill
47. Sailing barge at Greenmoor Wharf rubbish depot, Bankside
48. Water trough near St Clement Danes church, Aldwych

Source: Museum of London
See them all here
My final decision

largely because I managed to find a modern image that is almost identical

but also because it is one of my favourite church buildings in London.
See also:http://www.greatstbarts.com/

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The Sentinels: 1900
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

Circa 1900
“Interlocking signal plant, Chicago & Alton Railway”
8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company
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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Can a butterfly build a better TV? Indeed so. And a camel's nose can irrigate a greenhouse. The answer to many of life's problems has already been crafted by natural selection... more

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Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

This is M51, the “Whirlpool Galaxy”. The image is by Martin Pugh who won the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012.
This is one of the most beautiful images I have ever seen.

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Small fish makes undersea “crop circles”
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder

This pretty pattern was created by a small, amorous pufferfish.

Underwater cameras showed that the artist was a small puffer fish who, using only his flapping fin, tirelessly worked day and night to carve the circular ridges. The unlikely artist – best known in Japan as a delicacy, albeit a potentially poisonous one – even takes small shells, cracks them, and lines the inner grooves of his sculpture as if decorating his piece. Further observation revealed that this “mysterious circle” was not just there to make the ocean floor look pretty. Attracted by the grooves and ridges, female puffer fish would find their way along the dark seabed to the male puffer fish where they would mate and lay eggs in the center of the circle. In fact, the scientists observed that the more ridges the circle contained, the more likely it was that the female would mate with the male. The little sea shells weren’t just in vain either. The observers believe that they serve as vital nutrients to the eggs as they hatch, and to the newborns.

The Deep Sea Mystery Circle – a love story

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Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Behind every Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Solzhenitsyn was an overworked, under-appreciated wife. Do they deserve pity? No, they deserve more credit... more

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Guns that are also other weapons
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

On the Propadeucist, “objects that are guns – and are also other weapons”, including a gun that is also several other guns.
(via Richard Kadrey)

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Glaucus atlanticus: For once, the Internet is not lying to you
via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker

This is actually a real life animal. I know. I didn't believe it either. When it turned up in my Facebook feed, via my Aunt Beth, I assumed that this had to be a hoax photo. Had to be. I mean, just look at it. This animal looks like it should appear in pretty photos forwarded to you by your aunt that later turn out to be the result of a photoshopping contest on Something Awful, right?
But then it was on Wikipedia, too. And I thought, “Okay, it’s still the Internet. Somebody is clearly just getting really elaborate in their trolling.”
And I suppose that’s true. If by “somebody”, what I mean to say is “natural selection”.
This is the Glaucus atlanticus. It is a type of nudibranch – shell-less mollusks known for their extravagant shapes and colours. It is venomous. And I am now almost completely convinced that it’s not a joke.
Continue reading fascinating stuff about absorbing the stings from jellyfish which allows these creatures to sting!

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