The Weekender

I love it when a country comes together to celebrate something, and this week the UK was beside itself with the arrivals of two pandas at Edinburgh Zoo. There was excited TV footage of them coming off the plane, interviews with panda experts about how they would adapt and boring editorials about “panda diplomacy.” Meanwhile Tian Tian and Yang Guang (for that is their names) sat and munched bamboo. There’s a life leson there somewhere. The Weekender knows what it is….

Best of the blog

This week we expanded our list of favourite Bulgarian graphic designers thanks to the late, great Stefan Kanchev, we found ourselves tickled pink by Harumi Nakashima’s ceramics and we got really jealous of people in Japan thanks to this amazing slide.

Best of the rest

We can’t have been the only ones to be bowled over by the Chromatic Typewriter featured on Colossal this week, while Noel Myles’ photograhic collages of his beloved Suffolk really stood out too. And of course there was Turner Prize coverage aplenty, but The Guardian in particular aced it with an interview and comment piece double-whammy.

Rock n roll insight of the week

In a cracking interview with GQ, Justice revealed their tour rider is: “two packs of Marlboro lights, one bottle of rum and one bottle of Tabasco.” That’ll show that Adele, who clearly has a real issue with American beer…

“That probably won’t help” of the week

Now there is some debate whether this email from a jilted investment banker to his date is real, but if it is then it’s knuckle-gnawingly awful. Our favourite line is: “I suggest that we continue to go out and see what happens.” Oh right in that case then…

Dream educator of the week

If I could choose anyone in the world to teach me how to rhyme then it would be Morgan Freeman. No question.

Christmas cash-in of the week

You can picture the marketing meeting now.:

“So, to sum up we recreate the birth of Jesus Christ. With biscuits…”
“Has anyone got any better ideas?”
Um..

Pictorial record of 2011 of the week

Buzzfeed’s Most Powerful Pictures of the year list is jaw-droppingly good.

Party on panda pals!