Michael Munnik

@michaelmunnik.bsky.social

1566 Followers 1942 Following

Canadian pilgrim in Wales. Sociologist of media and religion, senior lecturer at Cardiff University, Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK. Musical side-hustle at https://michaelmunnik.ca/

A line of people posed for a photo in a white tent with rainbow bunting. Young people are all wearing dark gowns, white and red hoods, and black mortar boards for graduation. A few academic staff, dressed casually, are clustered in the midst of them.
A bearded bespectacled man in a dark jacket and white shirt with (dirty) white bow tie takes a selfie in a white tiled room.
Chart showing plays on Bandcamp. Column on the left shows song titles, middle column shows plays - complete, partial, and skips using coloured bars of green (complete), yellow (partial), and pink (skip) - and right column shows whether it's in Bandcamp (cyan) or from embeds elsewhere on the internet (orange). We see a lot of pink bars, sometimes two skips and then, below, one skip, and the equivalent entirely cyan bars in the right column. There is one dash of green, so for the song "Anchors Aweigh", it had one complete play as well as one skip. All the other songs have been skipped.
A bearded bespectacled man in a brown jacket playing cribbage with a grey haired man on oxygen in a hospital bed, in hospital greens.
A bearded bespectacled man in an orange Dutch football top with black piping smiles to rhe camera while sitting on a couch. Behind him are potted plants and, to.his right shoulder, an orange cylindrical lampshade.
A bearded white man in salmon coloured football top for Scotland 2026 stands, arms crossed in front.
Selfie of a man's torso with arm across it, giving the devil horns "this rocks" sign. He is wearing a purple shirt and has an orange tie with black lions on it, aligning with the Dutch national football team. On the sleeve is a cufflink also orange with black and white on it. The tie and cufflinks are from my dad, who died in April. I nicked them from his cupboard and wear them in his memory. The cufflinks were made bynhis youngest brother, my uncle Ronald.
A clear frame on a grey door. Inside is a page-length cartoon from an old issue of the Guardian Saturday magazine, illustrated by Tom Gauld. It is titled, at the top, Some Advice on How to Cope in these Tough Times. Below are eight panels (4×2) of cartoon villains, monsters, aliens etc whi are discernable malevolent but who have speech bubbles giving anodyne positive thinking messages like "Think positive" and "Follow your dreams" It doesn't fill the frame, and up in the top right corner is another illustration, this time postcard sized, by my uncle Len Munnik. A man holding a large red arrow walks forward while a rain storm of small blue arrows pelts him in the opposite direction.
A grey door with a black rectangular screwed on plate. A printed strip on the plate reads, in white text, Dr. Michael Munnik. To the left of the ajar door, the office behind is visible but blurred with boxes, empty shelves, some detritus.
Two posters on the wall - one in Welsh, one in English - illustrating Wales with icons of different locations, somewhat in the style of earlier renderings of the Mabinogion. These display points of interest in the history of Muslim Wales. In the foreground to the right is a mannequin head (featureless) wearing a traditional wrapped headdress in a buff khaki colour.
A charity shop shelf of worn slim children's novels of a mid 20th C vintage (think Enid Blyton and co). Tucked.amongst them - pale blue spine and the right height - is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Live concert footage of Crowded House - six white men playing a variety of pop-rock instruments on a stage lit orangey-red on the grounds of Cardiff Castle, with the keep occasionally visible to the left.
Selfie by a bearded man in sunglasses wearing a grey t-shirt with I Heart (the Toronto is not visible below the frame) with two teenage boys behind his shoulder sitting on a sunny grassy hill. One is reclining with his hands behind his head. The sky is blue but hazy.
A bearded, bespectacled man in a black leather jacket gives a thumbs up before a sign that.bilingually reads Gorsaf Bleidleisio Polling Station
Screenshot of FIP currently playing - the cover of the Rolling Stones for the track Start Me Up on a gradient pink background.
A folded v-neck jumper- beige base with broader stripes of brown and green.
Book cover for Stanley Tucci's Taste. White top third, orange bottom third. Black and white photo of the author, a bald bespectacled man with slight facial hair, but cut off just below the nose and before the mouth.
A grey haired bespectacled man lies on a hospital bed covered in blue blankets and a white sheet, wearing a green hospital top. He has a tube of oxygen strapped to his head, entering his nose. A bearded bespectacled man in a brown jacket and blue tartan scarf sits behind the bed, looking at the camera. Between them, a wooden cribbage board is on the bed with blue and red pegs racing the course. The man in the bed holds playing cards.
Scraps of printed visual material (including frames from the comic Mega Robo Bros) on paper that's been cut up, as well as a box of Crayola felt-tip markers half-in the frame, and to the top left corner, the white lid of a glue stick. All are on a yellow table top.
Photo from a book event. Two people - an Asian man with beard and grey jacket and an Arab woman with brown hijab - are seated on pale green chairs to the left of the image. Behind them are several easels with blown-up black and white photos of traces of Islam in historical Cardiff. To the right, at a lectern, is a White bearded bespectacled man in green jacket and pale shirt, speaking and gesturing with palms upturned. Between them is a banner for Seren Books - a quilt-styled star in gradient grey over a pale beige background. Behind them are several blank whiteboards.
A book on a wooden desk. It has a black cover and a few images- mountains, a golden decorative leopard head with red and green jewels, an ancient coin, a white mosque with green doors, and a gravestone with English and Arabic script with two daffodils next to it. The title reads Muslim Wales: A History in 9 Places, and it's by Abdul-Azim Ahmed. Next to the book is a square red pin, and part of another book is visible to the top right. Coming out the top of the book is a paper slip that reads Michael Munnik.
Book cover for Amia Srinivasan's The Right to Sex - black cover with stark white text - on a wooden desk top. Other text notes The Sunday Times Bestseller and a quotation from Lisa Taddeo: "Laser cut writing and a sunning intellect. If only every writer made this much beautiful sense."
Photo of a page from Suzanne Collins's novel The Hunger Games. A character (Gale) tosses a blackberry to another character (Katniss) who catches it in her mouth. I'm especially interested in the sentence "The sweet tartness explodes across my tongue." It is very close to a poem I wrote as a university student about an apple. (To be clear, unlike what the post cheekily suggests, I'm not accusing Collins of plagiarism. The poem, though written a good 10 years before The Hunger Games was published, was never published and only performed publicly once, and I'm extraordinarily small time. It's just an uncanny coincidence of phrasing.)
Cartoon drawing of Algy Pug from Rupert Bear. He's a white short-faced dog in humanoid form (though not really a pug, and then the visible tail through his trousers at the back is kind of large and fluffy - they weren't going for accuracy) wearing white boots, red trousers, and a blue jacket over a yellow waistcoat and white collared shirt. A blue bow tie tops the image.
A woman in an orange hijab and a pale blue dress reads from a phone beneath a big red screen.
A bearded man in grey speaks at a lectern beside red banners reading "Croeso" and "Welcome" and under a big screen that reads "St David a Shaykh al-Hakimi: Gwersi o'r Gorfennol. Dr Abdul-Azim Ahmed. Muslim Council of Wales (and Welsh translation) Islam-UK Centre (and Welsh translation).
A white, bearded man in a cream skullcap, scarf, and robe and a dark blazer adjusts a black poster on a wooden easel in a hall filled with picture displays. The poster has photos and text relating to Islam's history in Wales - this one on the theme of "empire".
Two bearded young men in black clothing speak to a bearded bespectacled man sat on the opposite side of a table with a red tablecloth. Behind are a pair of maps of Wales, stylised to recall the art of the Mabinogion but about Muslims in Wales.
A black vinyl record with fuschia and cream label spins on an old Sony turntable. Wood base is visible at the perimeter and a teal wall.in the background.
A bearded bespectacled man in a striped green, cream, and butterscotch striped jumper grins while holding a fuchsia 45 album sleeve called If Words Could Mend a Heart by Michael Munnik. He sta as before a piano in a teal painted room, on top.of which is a record turntable and a lamp.
Screenshot of a bluesky post from fesshole that reads "I'm a lollipop lady. I always make sure I stop the Teslas. Fuck Elon Musk." It has 666 likes (next to the heart icon), and I've circled it in red.
Book cover for Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, by Dee Brown. It has a black cover, and the text is in white with an impressive 70s orange-red shadow effect. Below the author's name is a sepia portrait of a Native American man. The book rests on top of a wicker laundry hamper.
A central steel fan blade inside a dark oven. When the switch turns on the oven dial, the light comes on and you can see the fan blade spin. After a moment, it's turned off. Oven goes dark and the fan blade slows to a stop.
A fan motor with a copper coil in red plastic casing attached to the back of a metal oven plate. Two wires - a red and a pair of yellow - connect to the unit, coming in from the right.
Stainless steel circular fan on a long metal threaded rod with a motor apparatus visible underneath. It's to the left of a small cardboard box with tape on it bearing the logos of several appliance manufacturers.
James Baldwin, The Cross of Redemption (ed. Randall Kenan) Originally reprinted in THE OBSERVER, April 19, 1964. "The greatest poet in the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the lives of the people. He could have done this only through love—by knowing, which is not the same thing as understanding, that whatever was happening to anyone was happening to him. It is said that his time was easier than ours, but I doubt it—no time can be easy if one is living through it. I think it is simply that he walked his streets and saw them, and tried not to lie about what he saw: his public streets and his private streets, which are always so mysteriously and inexorably con­nected; but he trusted that connection. And, though I, and many of us, have bitterly bewailed (and will again) the lot of an American writer—to be part of a people who have ears to hear and hear not, who have eyes to see and see not—I am sure that Shakespeare did the same. Only, he saw, as I think we must, that the people who produce the poet are not responsible to him: he is responsible to them." "That is why he is called a poet. And his responsibility, which is also his joy and his strength and his life, is to defeat all labels and complicate all bat­tles by insisting on the human riddle, to bear witness, as long as breath is in him, to that mighty, unnameable, transfiguring force which lives in the soul of man, and to aspire to do his work so well that when the breath has left him, the people—all people!—who search in the rubble for a sign or a wit­ness will be able to find him there." Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/7754/the-cross-of-redemption-by-james-baldwin-edited-with-an-introduction-by-randall-kenan/9780307275967/excerpt James Baldwin, The Cross of Redemption (ed. Randall Kenan) Originally reprinted in THE OBSERVER, April 19, 1964. "The greatest poet in the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the lives of the people. He could have done th…
View from the ferry window at stern leaving the dock at Departure Bay in Namaimo, BC. The lower and right frame of the image is shaped by a white moulded window frame. Visible through it is part of the deck with a white guardrail, some clear water churned up with froth, and the lanes and boarding apparatus of the dock. Above, a grey cloudy sky, and on the horizon, lots of green coniferous trees.
A bathroom sink faucet - combined hot and cold with an oblong crystal-effect head thst you need to pull out and point in order to operate. It's on a cream-coloured porcelain sink with a dark mottled counter and a few bathroom effects visible at the margins.
A costume laid out on a grey plastic patio table in the sunshine. The white patio railing is visible in the background. A cracked black plastic bowler hat sits right, slightly overtop a rough t-shirt from rough, unbleached cotton with unfinished hems. A brown burlap sack that’s been cut and stitched into trousers continues to the left, with a brown bit of plastic cord as a belt. A strip of the same burlap was cut into a necktie shape and sits overtop the t-shirt roughly where a tie would be. In the foreground on the table is a stick with some kitchen twine fastened to one end; at the other end of the twine is half a coconut with two holes punched in it where the twine is tied. It makes the sort of toy where you’d flip the stick to get the half-coconut balanced on top of the stick.
Screenshot of the quoted post below, in which Merriam-Webster has a gif of a green gradient square with words in a black sans serif font scrolling at high speed. My screenshot caught on the word "swampy"
A bottle of sparkling Shiraz with a Sumac Ridge label on a coffee table with three empty crystal champagne flutes to its left. In the foreground, a white plate with three scallops wrapped in bacon still on a plate (they're pierced with wooden toothpicks).
Photo of. Newspaper. The headline reads "Mega blush of Robins descends on Saanich" by Darron Kloster of the Times Colonist.
A young woman in a stripy multicoloured top sits at a table with a pencil in their right hand, poised above a large two-page spread crossword puzzle.
(Abbreviated programme notes): HAS THE FORM OF THE ROMANTIC COMEDY ever been more perfectly expressed than in When Harry Met Sally (1989), rereleased in UK cinemas just in time for Christmas? Rob Reiner's film might not have been the first rom-com, but the dream team of director Reiner, writer Nora Ephron and stars Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, fashioned a rom-com that to this day remains the gold standard for the genre. Ephron, operating at the top of her game, gave us a razor-sharp screenplay that sings with wit, warmth and zing, crafting characters who manage to annoy each other while simultaneously making us fall in love with them. The four-way chemistry of Reiner, Ephron, Ryan and Crystal is so perfect that it's impossible to imagine any other arrangement working half as well, but mention must also go to the supporting performances of Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby as Harry and Sally's long-time friends Marie and Jess, in roles that could easily have reverted to type. When Harry Met Sally is remembered for moments that are now part of the cultural zeitgeist - the 'men and women can't be friends' conversation; the last-minute New Year's Eve run; a really good sandwich - but it's the narrative and characters that connect those iconic moments that give the film its depth; Harry and Sally's decades-long loneliness is easy to miss amidst the zingy dialogue, but it rises and swells until it crashes at the film's crescendo. Harry's description of his wife telling him she never loved him is as emotionally devastating as it is hilarious in Crystal's deadpan delivery. charming in the hands of a never-better Ryan. Their journey through each whereas Sally, in all her emotionally messy fussiness, is irresistibly other's lives resonates so well that when Harry and Sally finally sleep together in a moment of emotional vulnerability, their subsequent falling out When Harry Met Sally is just as fresh, witty and warm as it was in 1989. Christopher Machell
Muslim Council of Wales STATEMENT ON PLANNED TERROR ATTACK ON THE WELSH MUSLIMS AND JEWISH COMMUNITIES 12.12.2025 The Muslim Council of Wales is deeply disturbed by news that two extremists planned a vicious attack on Madina mosque and a Jewish cemetery in the Welsh capital city of Cardiff. We are witnessing the noble goal of a Wales of cohesive communities being undermined. The safety of all communities is paramount, and we call for cooperation from authorities to ensure that everyone can practice their faith freely and without fear. "The planned attack is horrifying, but it is not surprising that two men have been radicalised. There are those in our society, online, and in the public eye who are emboldening division between neighbours." "In the last year, Wales has seen attacks on mosques, anti-Muslim vandalism, and increasingly exclusionary attitudes towards Muslims in education, the workplace, and politics. "Islam is a Welsh religion, it has been at home here for centuries and will continue to flourish. Wales has always been at its strongest together, and we must find common cause with each other against hate." Dr. Abdul Azim Ahmed - Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Wales The Muslim Council of Wales advises Muslims to be vigilant, but not fearful. Take measures to protect mosques and families, and verify news before sharing.
Two stacks of cardboard boxes in a living room, with a table and chairs to the right border and a bookcase visible behind the stack at left. The top boxes are open, and the smaller stack on the left has bubble wrap visible at the top.
A sachet for Twinings Lady Grey tea propped against a grey mug with tea visible over the mouth. Both are positioned on a grey textured chair. The tea sachet is black and grey with accents of orange and yellow, and rather than a top hat, the ridiculous icon is a parasol.
A sachet for Twinings Strong Earl Grey tea torn at the top and propped against a grey mug with tea visible over the rim. Both are positioned on a textured grey chair. The sachet continues the Twinings Earl Grey motif of black and shades of grey with a purple flare, but other accents here are shades of pink, including bars at the side and the ridiculous top hat. Nice that pink can be strong.
A Twinings Vanilla Earl Grey tea bag sachet, torn open at top, propped against a grey mug with a tea bag floating at the top just visible over the lip. Both rest on a textured grey chair. The sachet is black and shades of grey with a dash of unifying purple (for the theme of the company's Earl Grey series) but has predominant creamy off-white accents, as well as the ridiculous cliched top hat.
The sachet for Twinings Earl Grey (purple shares on a grey and black background, with a ridiculous top hat icon), propped against a grey mug with tea and a floating bag just visible at the top, on a textured grey chair.
A box of Twinings teabags dubbed the Earl Grey Discovery Collection sits on a grey textured chair with no arms. The box advertises 4x five different versions of Early Grey tea, each with a different coloured tab and a cutesy faux Britannia icon: Earl Grey, Vanilla Earl Grey, Lavender Earl Grey, Strong Earl Grey, and Lady Grey.
Movie poster for Cool Runnings. Four men in colourful t-shirts and shorts mak funny gestures while half-in a bobsled painted black, yellow and green for the Jamaican team.
An older man with grey hair and glasses in a grey jumper speaks at a wooden podium in a wood-floored Church sanctuary. Against the white wall are carved.wooden chairs amd a table, and a blue and white banner hangs at the top right.
Screenshot of table from Microsoft Word. Left column is dates, next is word count tallies for the day, notable for two zeros. Next is an accumulative total that finishes at 8,449, and then at right some notes on what was accomplished.
A table with four columns. Left is days of the week, from 10 Nov to 14 Nov. Next column is a daily word count (noting two zeros on 10 and 13 Nov), followed by a cumulative count that finishes at 7,563. Right column is minor notes on what was happening in the writing each day.
A woman in glasses and a red dress stands before microphone reading from a journal in her hands. She's offset to the right, and her shadow, with green and red aura fringes, displays on a bare white screen behind her.
Cover of a report called Media Bias: Gaza 2023-24 by the Centre for Media Monitoring. Two megaphones on a red and white cover, one with an Israeli flag and a smaller one with a Palestinian flag. It's placed on a pale table, and the hexagonal pattern of an ottoman is visible at the top left.
Three books on a pale table, with a hexagonal-patterned ottoman in top left. To left, Why Journalism Still Matters by Michael Schudson; centre, What Journalism Could Be by Barbie Zelizer; to right, Beyond Journalism by Mark Deuze and Tamara Witschge.
Three books on a pale table, with a hexagonal patterned ottoman in the top left behind. To left, Putting Reality Together by Philip Schlesinger; centre, Uncertain Vision by Georgina Born; to right, The BBC: Myth of a Public Service by Tom Mills.