The BLT Episode 21: Lawyers of Tut
A grand total of ten news stories from the week were condensed into one minute in our BLT, along with some easter eggs thrown in for good measure (looking at you, Monty Python fans). Did you get them all?
Read on to find out the facts behind the stories and to click through to our sources.
Do you have some news that’s perfect for the BLT that we’ve missed? Tell us, and find out more about how we work by getting in contact today!
Our… Parent? Who Art in Heaven
The Church of England is considering only referring to God using gender-neutral pronouns, following concerns raised by priests. The proposal of scrapping "He,” which would break centuries of tradition, is being discussed by 2 commissions in a new joint project.
In our depiction, God is Terry Gilliam's interpretation: The God who Gives Arthur a stern talking to in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
"I’ve Been Angry for Years”
Also challenging traditional expectations this week are The Undertones, a band in the midlands who are part of the all-female punk and garage collective The Unglamorous Music Project. Now well into middle age, the group from Leicester write all their music.
We’ve reimagined the born-again punk on the left as a hell granny from Monty Python’s Flying Circus: The gang of pensioners who cause mayhem by attacking men, tripping up pedestrians, and vandalising property.
Train Commuters Are Steaming
A Japanese research study analysed almost 2 million geotagged tweets to find out how we feel across different city locations.
It turns out we’re most likely to vent to our followers at train stations. Relatable? On the flip side, hotels and restaurants are where we express joy.
“Basiiiiiiil” is Back
Though hotels may be a place to kick back and relax, not every hotel leaves us feeling breezy. Basil Fawlty, the famously cynical and misanthropic hotel manager from Fawlty Towers, is set to make a comeback. The much-loved series set in Torquay will return 40 years after its end, with John Cleese starring along with his daughter Camilla.
Twitter’s reaction to the news has been mixed, with some questioning if it’s a wise idea. Has the series had its day?
We chose “Farty Owl Stew” as a menu item at our fast-food joint, a nod to the Fawlty Towers anagrams featured at the beginning of every episode. Spam is also available, a reference to the Monty Python sketch in the greasy spoon café in which spam is in every dish.
A Deal with the Devil
Another tortured man with a lot on his plate this week is mancunian Toby Wilson, who decided to pick up a veggie burger and fries as his night out with mates wound down. The meal should have cost him £6.50, but thanks to some careless keying in of numbers, Toby paid a hellish £666.50.
We rebranded Efe’s Kebab Kitchen to Seitan’s, alluding to the meat-free alternative.
The Ugliest Mutt of them All
Late last year, organisers of The UK’s Ugliest Dog Competition began their search. They were flooded with entries, but when the judges found Peggy, they knew they’d discovered a star.
Peggy is a 5-year-old Pugese and was the runt of her litter. She won a grooming and photography session.
Peggy’s owner remains adamant that she’s beautiful inside and out.
Peggy Who?
Not to steal Peggy’s moment, but another dog broke a record this week. Bobi, living with the Costa family in a rural village in Portugal, is now the oldest dog ever.
He was 30 years and 266 days old as of the 1st of February 2023.
Bobi is a purebred Rafeiro do Alentejo, a breed commonly used as a livestock guardian; they usually only live for 12 to 14 years.
His secret? Well, his owner Leonel says Bobi eats the same food as the humans of the family, soaked in water before serving to remove most of the seasoning.
Gets Cheddar with Age
Yet another record breaker was Sir Patrick Stewart, the oldest mouse in human care at 9 years and 211 days old. He lives at San Diego Zoo and weighs as little as three pennies.
They See Me Rollin’
We depicted Bobi the old dog riding a tricycle, newly patented by Milton Butler. Milton, from Stockton, CA, was fed up with paying 5 dollars a gallon for gas, so he took matters into his own hands by inventing a solar-powered tricycle. He’s now on the hunt for investors.
The design, which he calls the “Duckie” after his late wife, was inspired by something Milton saw in his dreams.
Is 10 Foot A Sell-out?
London’s most notorious graffiti writer risks his life every night, heading out into the heavily monitored city. He's one of the most dedicated graffiti writers globally, having been active since the 2000s.
But has 10 Foot lost his right to be called a graffiti writer after selling his story to The Financial Times? The graffiti subculture prides itself in being not about money but about fame. Why he did it, interviewer Miles Ellingham has no idea.
The graffiti in our illustration, "Romani ite domum", translates to “Romans go home.” This corrected Latin from "Romanes eunt domus", featured in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.
How many references did you get?
Thank you for watching and reading through the latest BLT! Which story is your favourite? We’ll see you next week for another delicious visual sandwich.
We love using visual thinking and visual storytelling to create connected and layered whiteboard animations like this. We’re always here to talk to you about how your message could look as a whiteboard animation, contact us today!
A lot can change in 102 years and this BLT delves into some of the odder differences between those innocent days of 1921 and … now.
We all want to feel special. But this week’s news has us wondering if the lines separating humans from animals, and even machines, are increasingly blurring.
From Peru to China to Australia, here are the offbeat news stories that made it into our latest BLT.
As Bob Dylan said, ‘these times, they are a-changing’. This week, we’ve taken a look at the impacts of changes in the publishing climate and the planetary climate.
As Bob Dylan said, ‘these times, they are a-changing’. This week, we’ve taken a look at the impacts of changes in the publishing climate and the planetary climate.
From treasure to tragedy, art to the amoral, we’ve crammed a lot into this week’s BLT. It’s a sandwich Scooby Doo and Shaggy would be proud of.
We are back with more fresh cuts and unlikely combinations that take us from pest control all the way to the potential resurrection of the dodo!
A puzzling week indeed. If our BLT left you bewildered or whet your appetite for more detail about the week's stories, this blog is for you.
Your visual news sandwich is back. This week it includes the Public Order Bill, an increase in Satanism members and energy bills.
Get your wet suit on and join us as we take a dive through through the stories and easter eggs in this weeks BLT!
2023: Back to porridge, back to the commute, back to the gym (if you're so inclined), and back to the BLT.
This week’s BLT reimagines the poster for Apocalypse Now, replacing Colonel Walter Kurtz with a crying dog. To find out how it all connects to the real world, read on.
The news this week has given us plenty to get our teeth into. From cat cameos to magnetic slime, all with unexpected links and crossovers.
Beginning with a moral dilemma, this week’s BLT touches on some ham-related scandals, the future of tattoos, and some of the lesser-known, more bizarre implications of our warming world.
Surprise surprise, animals featured heavily in this week’s BLT: from those caught up to no good to those that help maintain law and order.
Things got heated this week in more than one sense. Let’s unpack some of this week’s news stories and curiosities, plated up and delivered hot off the press in this week’s BLT.
There are a few things certain in this life. The classics include death and taxes, but if this week is anything to go by we can discoveries and consequences.
The BLT often includes animal content, and this episode is no exception, as we weave through the news stories that piqued our interest this week
This week’s episode takes us from old English woods to orbiting satellites as we tune in to the natural world’s response to climate change and create ways to reduce pollution and live more sustainably.
Of course, this week's BLT had to be themed around Glastonbury festival as it kicks off for the first time in 3 years.
Read on for more details about the festival and the other hot topics that made it into the BLT.
It’s been an exciting week for discoveries! Some have brought hope and sadly, some have reminded us of the impact we are having on this marvellous planet we call home. There have been a few losses this week, however.
Our national treasure, Sir David Attenborough has been knighted for the second time! We take a look at some positive climate updates in his honour.
It’s not every week that there is a Platinum Jubilee! We’ve chosen to focus this week’s BLT on Her Majesty, looking into some of the curiosities of the crown.
This week we tackle the virtual and the real, taking you below the sea and back to dry land.
Your weekly sandwich of visual news. This week it features other universes, Elon Music, mutant bacteria, pink pigeons and much much more.
The BLT combines our passion for visual thinking, the week’s news and our creative team to create a delicious visual treat for your feed every week!
Let’s face it, presenting isn’t just about showing up with slides and stats. It’s a performance. A dance. A chance to make ideas leap off the screen and stick. But how do you know if you’re nailing it? That’s where the Presentation Pulse Check comes in.
The familiar feels safe, even when it’s clearly sinking. Here’s the harsh truth: in a world that moves as fast as a TikTok trend, being slow to adapt is a recipe for stagnation.
Over-complication isn’t just tedious—it’s the nemesis of efficiency. Enter the KISS principle: “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
Here’s the thing about getting comfortable – it’s the silent killer of real growth, and I am not talking about bottom-line growth – I’m talking about the type of growth that is far more valuable.
Ah, the Inverted Pyramid—It sounds like a tragic prog rock album you might find at a car boot sale, but it’s a concept that’s as intriguing as it is practical.
Sometimes it’s bloody tempting to focus on fighting today’s fires while forgetting the bigger picture, isn’t it?
Affordance is how something shows you what it can do, like a door handle that makes you want to pull the door open or a button that looks like it should be pressed.
Have you ever been in a meeting where you could just feel your team's energy slipping away? Sometimes meetings drag on, and fresh ideas are as rare as a decent cup of tea, well, in the whole of America!
This peculiar proportion, approximately 1.618, has been lurking in the shadows of human creativity for millennia, like a mathematical James Bond, seducing architects, artists, and designers with its promise of perfection.
Have you ever been in a meeting where you could just feel your team's energy slipping away? Sometimes meetings drag on, and fresh ideas are as rare as a decent cup of tea, well, in the whole of America!
Why do we see faces in clouds, cars with expressions, or even attribute human emotions to our household appliances (admit it, your Henry Hoover has feelings)? The answer lies in the ancient concept of anthropomorphism—a principle as old as humanity itself, born from our inherent need to understand and relate to the world around us by projecting our own characteristics onto it.
Picture this: You walk into a diner with a menu the size of a small novel. You’re hungry, but now you’re stuck—overwhelmed by choice, paralysed by indecision. Welcome to Hick’s Law in action, a psychological principle that’s been quietly dictating human behaviour since the 1950s...
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? That frantic rush, always trying to keep up with the latest trend. Blink, and it’s gone—again. It’s like standing on a moving walkway, but it’s speeding up, and you’re dragging along a suitcase packed full of never-ending to-do lists.
Understanding the Scaling Fallacy isn't just for philosophers or over-caffeinated academics. It's vital for anyone who wants to make an impact with their ideas, especially in creative fields where size does not always equate to success.
Here’s the thing—staying in your comfort zone isn’t just boring; it’s risky. You know what they say: “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
Performance Load teaches us that less truly is more. Visual thinking is about distilling complexity into clarity, turning a tangled web of ideas into a neat, navigable roadmap.
You know that feeling when you’ve just nailed a quick win? The rush, the thrill, the sense of accomplishment—it’s like a hit of dopamine, making you feel like you’re on top of the world. But here’s the thing no one tells you...
Ever heard of the phrase, ‘necessity is the mother of invention’? Turns out, constraint is its often-overlooked sibling—perhaps the unsung hero of creativity.
Ignoring burnout doesn't just impact outcomes; it gradually wears down the very essence of team connection and effectiveness. But here's the encouraging part: there's a way forward that is both within reach and within our control.
In the chaotic symphony of modern life, where every ping and notification competes for our limited attention, the concept of ‘signal to noise’ has never been more relevant. But before it became the buzzword of the digital age, it had its origins in the dry and dusty world of early telecommunications.
It is more than just rounding off; it is a psychological experience where the brain concludes what remains hanging in the balance.
Have you ever wondered why certain stories just hit us in a different way? Chances are, you're in the grasp of something archetypal; those universal, almost sneaky patterns of theme and form that are hardwired into our very being.
When we design, whether that be a piece of graphic design, a software integration or a whiteboard animation, we should strive to minimise errors and make them easy to correct.
Today, I want to explore a theme that is as ancient as it is perpetually relevant, failure. It’s a concept that shapes our very DNA, prompting where we go, helping us grow in our personal and our professional lives.
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When done well, the ingredients in an explainer video combine to create powerful animations that inform, entertain, inspire and stay with viewers. In this post, we look at how they are made.
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Give us the week’s offbeat news stories, and we’ll sum them up in an image, bringing them into the same universe.