All posts tagged: Pottery

Miriam Margolyes admits she’s made almost 10 times her Harry Pottery salary on Cameo

Miriam Margolyes admits she’s made almost 10 times her Harry Pottery salary on Cameo

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Miriam Margolyes made her mark on the Harry Potter franchise when she played Professor Sprout in the iconic films – however, the 84-year-old has revealed that she made far more on the video app Cameo, raking in a six-figure sum. The 84-year-old actor is best known for her roles in Yentl, Little Dorrit, Mulan, Romeo + Juliet and Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, for which she won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. Despite becoming one of Britain’s best-known actors over the last 60 years, Margolyes revealed that she can “spend rather more freely” than she would have been able to thanks to her earnings from Cameo – a video-sharing website where celebrities and notable figures are paid to send personalised messages to fans. Miriam Margolyes on ‘The Romesh Ranganathan Show’ (‘The Romesh Ranganathan Show’) Speaking to Romesh Ranganathan on …

UK pottery giant collapses into administration – in business since 1809 | UK | News

UK pottery giant collapses into administration – in business since 1809 | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

Manufacturing is to cease at renowned pottery firm Denby (Image: Getty) Manufacturing is to cease at renowned pottery firm Denby, and a further 49 workers have been made redundant, administrators have said. The decision means more than 100 jobs have now been lost at the historic company, which has been in business since 1809. Denby Pottery appointed administrators on March 31 after struggling with rising energy and labour costs and weaker consumer spending. Administrators from FRP Advisory said it had “not been possible to secure a buyer for the manufacturing operations” and that a “difficult decision to close the business’s making and design departments” had been made. READ MORE: Supermaket with 300 stores on brink of administration – merger ‘only chance’ READ MORE: UK haulage company collapses into liquidation Denby Pottery appointed administrators on March 31 (Image: Getty) Around 80 workers were laid off earlier this month, according to the BBC. The additional 49 redundancies take the total number of job losses to well over 100. Tony Wright, joint administrator of the Denby Group and …

Pottery Barn Rule Out, Trump’s ‘I Broke It, You Fix It’ Rule In

Pottery Barn Rule Out, Trump’s ‘I Broke It, You Fix It’ Rule In

Published by Sam Flores

A man walks along the shore as oil tankers and cargo ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz, seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. WASHINGTON – A quarter century after retired general and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell warned against invading Iraq by citing what became known as the Pottery Barn rule of “you break it, you own it,” President Donald Trump is unveiling his own motto for his war on Iran: I broke it, someone else can fix it. In a social media post on Tuesday, followed up with statements to reporters, Trump is walking away from any responsibility for the global energy crisis he created when he attacked Iran 32 days ago, particularly Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a full fifth of the world’s oil flows. “All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, …

Ancient pottery shows the earliest evidence of humans doing math

Ancient pottery shows the earliest evidence of humans doing math

Published by skeptic

Floral designs on pottery made almost 8,000 years ago may be more than just art. They appear to be the earliest evidence of math-based thinking. The designs appear on pottery made by ancient Halafians. These people lived in Mesopotamia between about 6200 B.C. and 5500 B.C. (Mesopotamia was an ancient region in what is now Iraq. Some of the world’s first civilizations arose there.) The Halafians were known for their skilled ceramics. Many of the floral designs on their pottery show regular numbers of petals. Those patterns hint that these people used math in their art, archaeologists now say. The researchers shared these findings in the December 2025 Journal of World Prehistory. Archaeologists knew that Mesopotamia’s Sumerian people used math. Sumerians are famous for creating the first writing system around 3000 B.C. They did math based on the number 60. That’s the same type of system that gives us 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour. The new findings suggest Halafians used math thousands of years before the Sumerians. If so, these ancient …

Denby pottery firm on brink of administration – 217 years in business | UK | News

Denby pottery firm on brink of administration – 217 years in business | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

A historic Derbyshire pottery firm has filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators. Denby Pottery Company said it’s been struggling with rising costs for years and has so far been unable to secure a suitable investment partner. The 217-year-old company was previously bought by investment firm Hilco Capital in 2009, saving it from going under. It has now filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators “as a precautionary measure” amid reduced demand, “escalating employment costs”, and “soaring” energy bills. Denby said these pressures had “squeezed the business financially” and it struggled to get funding due to “tighter financial markets”. A statement from the group said, as reportedly DerbyshireLive: “While Denby has explored a range of options, it has not yet been able to secure a strategic investment partner aligned with the long-term vision and values of its historic British brands much loved by their large global fan base. “The search for a suitable partner will continue whether for the Denby Group as a whole or for the brands individually.” The notice of intention …

Who won The Great Pottery Throw Down 2026?

Who won The Great Pottery Throw Down 2026?

Published by Daniella Wilson

The Great Pottery Throw Down came to a wholesome conclusion tonight as the final three potters took to the Gladstone Pottery Museum one last time the hopes of being crowned winner. Over the course of the series, the potters have been put through their paces, facing challenges that range from making bricks, bookends, puzzle judges and animal sculptures to name just a few. For judges Keith Brymer Jones and Rich Miller, they had an incredibly tough decision to make as the remaining three potters – Angharad, Elham and Fynn – took on their final task. The potters where tasked with creating miniature model theatres as well as taking on a tricky throwing technique in their last surprise second challenge. But as the challenges drew to a close, it was revealed that 37-year-old Fynn from Cornwall was crowned the winner of The Great Pottery Throw Down 2026. Fynn first tried pottery as a six week addition to his illustration degree, but it was only two years ago that he began to take his hobby seriously. Fynn. Patch …

Trevor Noah Explains How Kintsugi, the Japanese Art of Repairing Pottery, Helped Him Overcome Life’s Tragedies

Trevor Noah Explains How Kintsugi, the Japanese Art of Repairing Pottery, Helped Him Overcome Life’s Tragedies

Published by José Betancourt

Trevor Noah end­ed his stint as the host of The Dai­ly Show a lit­tle over three years ago, but he’s made him­self into anoth­er kind of pop-cul­tur­al pres­ence since then. In evi­dence, we have his appear­ance above on the pop­u­lar pod­cast and YouTube show Diary of a CEO. For more than two and a half hours, Noah dis­cuss­es with host Steven Bartlett (who, like Noah, also hap­pens to be African-born with mixed parent­age) his rea­sons for quit­ting that polit­i­cal-news-com­e­dy TV insti­tu­tion, his strug­gles with depres­sion, and the time his step­fa­ther shot his moth­er in the head. She lived, owing to the mirac­u­lous­ly unlike­ly tra­jec­to­ry of the bul­let, but that did­n’t stop the expe­ri­ence from becom­ing what Noah describes as the worst of his life. Dis­cussing all this brings to his mind the Japan­ese art of kintsu­gi (pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture). “It’s a prac­tice of repair­ing pot­tery and ceram­ics that have bro­ken,” Noah explains. “What hap­pens is, you break a plate, or you break a vase or some­thing,” and “they put it back togeth­er, these arti­sans who do …