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Wales and their team photo formations

Wales employ the 3-8 formation before the Georgia World Cup qualifier. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Reuters
Wales employ the 3-8 formation before the Georgia World Cup qualifier. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Reuters

Anyone passing a glance over Wales’s pre-match team photos in recent months would notice there’s something just not quite right about them.

From the numbers not stacking up (four at the back, seven at the front anyone?) to the lopsided nature of the players’ arrangement when a more traditional six-plus-five formation is put into practice, it would appear members of the Welsh national team have a curiously skewed idea of what symmetry is.  Then again, it’s more likely that they’re just having a bit a team in-joke.

 

The 4-7 formation (before the Austria game at Euro 2016). Photograph: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
The 4-7 formation (before the Austria game at Euro 2016). Photograph: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
Another lopsided effort from 2015 (before Belgium in the Euro 2016 qualifiers). Photograph: Getty Images
Another lopsided effort from 2015 (before Belgium in the Euro 2016 qualifiers). Photograph: Getty Images
Just loose (before a friendly with Australia in Cardiff in 2011). Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
Just loose (before a friendly with Australia in Cardiff in 2011). Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
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Smart map for homeless people in Berlin

I love the concept of this map – it’s beautiful and yet also incredibly helpful.

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Adapting the London Underground map, the Berliner Stadtmission, raises the issue of homeless people in the winter.

The map highlights places for help and shelter in the German capital – places where clothing and food can be collected, and where homeless people can find shelter in cold winter days.

The map is map by creative collective Hektik, also from Berlin. See their website for more work for the Stadtmission and examples how the underground map is used. The campaign is titled with the hashtag #WasHeißtFrieren which supposedly means something like ‘what is actually freezing?

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Refugees’ life jackets are transformed into message of peace on Greek island

A bright orange peace sign appeared on a hillside on the Greek island of Lesbos on New Year’s Day, transforming a growing pile of life jackets discarded by refugees arriving on the island into a message to the world.

Dozens of Greenpeace and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) volunteers and local supporters teamed up to create the massive peace sign Friday on a hillside overlooking the small strait between Greece and Turkey that has become a main passageway for those fleeing to Europe.

Made up of more than 3,000 life jackets and built by dozens of volunteers, the sign is a way to honor those who have made the journey and to urge peace in the new year, according to Greenpeace.

Those involved in the project are calling for safe passage to those fleeing war, poverty and oppression.

Thousands of people arrive on the island of Lesbos daily, packed into flimsy rubber dinghies and wooden fishing boats. Most are refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa.

More than 1 million migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe by crossing the Mediterranean in the past 12 months. Another 3,700 people perished in the sea last year while attempting the crossing.

Refugee life jackets

The island of Lesbos in particular has seen a huge influx of people, in part because of its close proximity to the nearby Turkish coastline. More than 500,000 people arrived on the island in 2015 alone, but the small community has also been the site of unspeakable tragedies as some fail to make it safely to shore.

In October and November, so many bodies had washed up on Lesbos that the local morgue ran out of space to house the dead. Tragic scenes played out weekly as ad hoc rescue efforts led by local and international volunteers were unable to deal with the sheer scale of new arrivals.

As those who do manage to make it to shore quickly move further on into Europe, their life jackets stay behind as a growing reminder of the movement of people through the area, as well as the lives that have been lost.

The life jackets have been slowly piling up in a dump on the island, near the town of Molyvos. The peace sign was created on a hillside overlooking the dump.

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Woman creates entire Nativity scene out of cheese!

 

Cheese-nativity

What you see above is made entirely of 40 kilograms of cheddar cheese and cocktail sticks.

Cheese nativity

Prudence Staite, is a food artist who spent five days to make a cheese version of the Nativity – the stable, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the Three Wise Men, two donkeys, two sheep and a cow. Even the straw is made of cheese–in this case, finely shaved cheese. The Daily Telegraph describes how Staite did it:

She first softened the cheese in a special food processor, then formed each of her figures before putting all of the characters into the fridge again to firm up for display.

The tiny crib that contains the baby even includes shaved cheese as straw.

According to Staite, all the figures were equally tricky to make as the detail on their faces was so small. Her solution: A tiny magnifying glass.

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In this video for SWNS, Staite explains how she was able to craft this edible wonder.

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Cleaners accidentally throw away an art installation

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Cleaners at the Museion modern art gallery in Bolzano, Italy accidentally removed an art installation while cleaning up over the weekend. The installation depicted the remains of a wild party scenes including empty bottles, decorations and confetti.

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The piece by Milanese artists Goldschmied & Chiari, entitled “Where are we going to dance tonight?,” is described by the gallery as “a site-specific work staging the scene after the end of a party: the perfect metaphor for the [1980’s.]”  The work is only visible when the museum is closed, after dark, so viewers can get the full effect of the aftermath of a wild party.

Unfortunately, the immersive work is maybe not as recognizable to people who are not as informed in the art scene. After all, if you see trash lying on the floor, you should throw it away, right?

The gallery has put up a notice that the installation will be rearranged as soon as possible. Let’s hope the artists don’t take it personally.

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‘Wil Can Fly’ photo series celebrates boy with Down Syndrome

Alan Lawrence is a photographer, blogger and proud dad of six kids. And one of those kids can fly.

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Lawrence started blogging shortly after he and his wife learned their fifth child, Wil had Down Syndrome. In Lawrence’s ongoing photo project, Wil Can Fly, the 2-year-old is able to take flight all around the world — with a little Photoshop magic.

And Lawrence is using his photos to lend a hand to Down Syndrome research. In honor of Down Syndrome Awareness month this October, he and his family have created a 2016 Wil Can Fly calendar available for purchase, with proceeds going to the Ruby’s Rainbow and Reece’s Rainbow foundations.

Lawrence said:

“Wil has brought a new dimension to our family and has helped us look past the world’s preconceived definitions of normal.  We look forward to witnessing more of his unconditional love as he grows and helps us discover how to truly live life.  Even though Wil has Down Syndrome, my family and I know he is going to do anything he puts his mind to. Wil can fly.”

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One minute time-lapse of London

‘London Minute’, A Short Time-Lapse That Encompasses Some of the Most Iconic Sights of London

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“London Minute” is a time-lapse video by British photographer Paul Richardson for Marriott Internationalthat captured some of the city’s most iconic features and sights in just a shade over one minute. Richardson had made a similar film about Paris in 2014.

Zoom from the London Eye to Big Ben, coast over the River Thames and Piccadilly Circus and quickly take in the beauty the city has to offer.

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London’s aeroplane flights visualised

NATS London flights

Air traffic control company NATS handles 2 million flights in UK airspace every year, with 1.2 million of those arriving at or departing from one of the five main London airports.  That makes more than 3,000 flights daily on just six runways.

When those flight plans are turned into colourful trails, they merge into a mesmerising visualisation of aviation over a 24-hour period:

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Amazing artist

lion-resting

Paul Smith was born in the 1920s with cerebral palsy, instead of allowing that to limit his life, he persevered.  In a society which at that time didn’t support people with cerebral palsy at age 16, he learned to speak, and at 32 he learned to walk.

What’s even more amazing is the way he started to paint using an old typewriter:

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Blind mum sees her baby before he’s born

Blind Mum 3D scan

I love this story of a 3D baby scan to help a blind mum ‘see’ her little baby:

Blind Mum 3D scan 1

For expectant parents, a baby scan visit is a time of joy and anxiety. It’s the earliest opportunity to see a child waiting to arrive.

Tatiana Guerra, 30, will soon give birth to her son, Murilo. She’s blind, so can’t see the fuzzy results of a sonogram. To promote Huggies nappies in Brazil, the ad agency Mood created a 3-dimensional model of her son as he appeared in a sonogram. It then surprised Guerra with the model, giving her a wonderful glimpse of her son that she could touch and study with her fingers.

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