magpie Weekly issue 7.38 / 16 July 2026

This week’s editorial musings
from magpie’s nest

The quote: If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer | Clement Freud …

More books for Sharjah Pushing ahead with its image-building in the book world, Sharjah Book Authority has signed for exclusive rights to operate BookXcess bookstores across the Middle East and Africa. BookXcess is a successful operation specialising in discounted (often surplus-stock) books and running 22 visitor-friendly stores in its native Malaysia; “every BookXcess store is designed to inspire awe through bold architecture, immersive concepts, and thoughtfully curated partners within each space”. It’s affiliated with the Big Bad Wolf Books operation, which runs massive pop-up book sales in 49 cities including Dubai (most recently 26 Feb to 15 Mar at Dubai Studio City). Since there doesn’t seem to be a Dubai date for next year, and the event’s website is defunct, maybe the next Big Bad Wolf sale will be in Sharjah …

Gulf in your pocket Phone maker Xiaomi is partnering with HIPA for the second edition of its Gulf Unposed photo contest for Instagram shots. The theme is What We Carry (“the meaningful objects people keep close and the personal stories behind them”); post a pic to your Insta account with specified hashtags before midnight in 21 July. First prize: a medallion, a Xiaomi 17T Pro (a decent Android-based mid-range smartphone), and one night at Atlantis the Royal for two …

More to film Tashkeel This Sunday sees the first of three Khatar Sessions exploring cinema and community, this one focused on cinema and memory. Filmmaker Nezar Andary has a workshop/lecture on editing as cinema’s fundamental act and its parallels to memory; the main event is a screening of Sarah Friedland’s rather good debut feature Familiar Touch, a coming of (old) age film that won multiple awards at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Nezar is bringing together the UAE’s care community, families facing diagnoses, medical staff, and care workers often far from their own families for this event, with the support of 4get-me-not and students of AUD. Next sessions are 23 Aug 23 on kitchen and cinema then 30 Aug about first-time films of famous directors; this one is 19 July at Cinema Akil, 1-4pm. Info here …

Free access to SAF library Sharjah Art Foundation is offering free membership for its Reference Library, providing access to 5,000+ books, exhibition catalogues, art magazines, digital archives, architectural projects and AV materials. Membership includes 9-5 access Monday to Thursday, monthly curated highlights from the collection, one-on-one consultations with the library team, and scanning for selected materials. Info from library@sharjahart.org …

Art in the UAE And Saturday sees the first of a Sharjah Art Foundation talks series on the evolution of visual art in the UAE and across the Arab world under the helpfully explicit title Dialogues. The first one has Mohammed Kazem talking with Ismail Al Rifai, artist, writer and Head of Translation and Arabic Content at SAF. 18 July 6-7.30pm at The Flying Saucer; it will be in Arabic …

Filter junk brands from Amazon Amazon is awash with fake brands for commodity goods with no company, no warranty, and no real user ratings. Knockoff is an extension for Chrome and Firefox that checks every listing’s brand right in your search results and flags up dodgy items. You can optionally hide Amazon’s paid ‘Sponsored’ listings too. Everything runs locally in your browser – no accounts to sign up for, no analytics, no tracking, and no charge. Works on 23 Amazon marketplaces worldwide. This is an eye-opener …

Job opps 1 Jobs at University of the Arts Sharjah (which still seems to be camping on the old SPAA website: the actual UAS sitesays “there are currently no vacancies available”) include Deans for the College of Theatre and College of Film …

Job opp 2 Jameel Arts Centre is looking for a Freelance Events Assistant to help the Events Manager on a three-months contract from 24 Aug. Min 3 years relevant experience, fluent in Arabic, UAE drivers’ licence …

Job opp 3 Aramco is hiring a Curator of Islamic Art & Culture at Ithra (King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture) – develop “world class” Islamic art exhibitions, manage collections, advance research and scholarship, create “engaging cultural experiences that connect historical Islamic heritage with contemporary audiences”. A big job …

Auctioneering Art auction houses made significant recoveries in the first half of 2026, says a report from art market analysis firm ArtTactic. Global auction sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips totalled $6.8bn, up 70% year-on-year in H1 2026 and the best first-half performance since 2022 (though we think ArtTactic may be underestimating or counting something slightly different: Sotheby’s has just reported $3.4bn for auction sales in the first half, Christie’s came in with $3.5bn, and Phillips did $507m). “Combined with rising volumes, record online participation, stronger sell-through rates and improving average prices, the recovery is being driven by both quality and quantity” says ArtTactic, which seems a reasonable conclusion. Buy your own copy of the RawFacts Auction Review H1 2026 for £245 here …

Reubicación de casa Casa Collective is looking for a new home for its workshops, exhibitions, conversations, collaborations ecosystem. “If a place comes to mind, send us a DM or email us at hello@casacollective.ae” …

Ethics in museology ICOM, the International Council of Museums, has adopted a revised global Code of Ethics, its first major overhaul in more than two decades and the results of a four-year revision process. Reflecting how museums are expected to operate, the new framework includes reference to AI, climate responsibility, governance and public trust, and colonial legacies. Download it here …

Wonderful WTTC, the tourism business trade body, is looking for 7 Contemporary Wonders of the World – “landmarks and buildings created since 1801 that have had the greatest impact on Travel & Tourism, local communities and economic development”. Which is a pretty broad remit. A shortlist of 70 (!) will be announced in January and the final seven next July. It’s a public vote, so get in your nominations for Louvre Abu Dhabi and Burj Khalifa here …

AI slop for all Pangram, which is in the business of detecting AI-generated writing, has been collecting info on AI in social media posts – and the results are pretty scary. Across the five platforms scanned, one in four longform items (over 250 words) were fully AI-generated. LinkedIn is particularly bad: as much as 41% of longform content there is likely to be fully AI-generated. Across short and longform, only 53.2% of X/Twitter articles flagged up as fully human-authored. More info here; Pangram has handy extensions for Chrome and Firefox that were used for the survey …

Made in Bandcamp Good news: Vinyl Souk’s Made in the Emirates Vol II compilation, which we rated highly a couple of weeks ago, is now available on Bandcamp …

Useful app of the week Tinkerfont is a Chrome and Firefox add-on for designers who want to see how different fonts look on real websites: detect the fonts on any page, swap them with candidates from Bunny Fonts or your own uploads, and see the result on layout and content – all before you touch CSS or whatever. Find it here …

Something for the weekend Hamster Run is a simple game in which your hamster has to jump over rocks as it runs across the screen for 60 seconds. The catch: the hamster eats the sunflower seeds it encounters, and they make your rodent faster and so harder to control. Try it here …

Things we didn’t know no.94 The surveyors who first calculated Everest’s height in the 1850s measured it as exactly 29,000 ft, but thought that no one would believe that it wasn’t simply rounded to the nearest thousand. So they added 2ft and officially recorded 29,002 ft. An Indian team surveying more accurately in 1954 found the mountain actually to be 29,028 ft, so the oldsters weren’t too far off …

A poll! How did you like this edition of the newsletter?

It was excellent Pretty good Not so good It was poor