Found this in the garden (local foxes leave 'presents' 😔) and now I'm worrying about my male exposed velcro...
Deaf, cochlear implant user, annoyed liberal centrist. 18th/19thc art collecting/researching + academic/consultant/government economist. Lots of art. DMs=block. #arthistory #19thc #18thc #Britishart #knowledgeexchange
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Found this in the garden (local foxes leave 'presents' 😔) and now I'm worrying about my male exposed velcro...
Watching the very last episode of #Rev - a lovely, acerbic, witty joy of a BBC show with #TomHollander, #OliviaColeman, #MilesJupp etc. I used to watch it when first broadcast but, for some reason, missed this very last episode. It is so touching. Come back Adam, soon.
If you watched this and thought 'Surely the #artmarket can't be that much of a jungle?', no. Not all of it is. This is that fake, crass, rent-a-name contemporary art con of a market you want to avoid. Want to 'invest' in art? Buy old masters. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zprw
Just staggered by this from the US. If the same traits come here, I think we shut up shop... www.cnbc.com/2024/05/21/g...
Oh come on BBC, tighter editing surely.
Look, @channel4tv.bsky.social, I know 'why' you do different colour subtitles on #GBBO - but, guys, it is *maddening*! Just. Do. Black. On. Your. Pastel. Background. Scheme. Arggh!
Now watching Things to Come (1936) - the film forecasting a war beginning in 1940 lasting until 1966 followed by post-apocalyptic misery, populist hate lasting until 1970, and a super-civilization based on unrelenting technological to 2036. It must have frightened the bejezus out of people in 1936.
Watching the 1936 #Hitchcock film 'Sabotage' - based, it claims, on Conrad - and frankly it is an appallingly bad melodrama with all the menace of a blancmange. Did it seem better in 1936? Possibly. But 'all time classic'? Um, no.
Why on earth is #Starmer so, well, hopeless? Like millions of others I wished the government well. It hasn't delivered. 14 years in opposition and no practical plan in sight - just attempts to appease Faragistes at the bar of the Dog & Duck and rhetoric. It's a vague government led by a grey leader.
The luck of this appalling guy is extraordinary. www.bbc.com/news/article...
Since the 1890s America's given us an isolationist foreign policy, hemispheric expansionist foreign policy, neutrality as foreign policy, a client state foreign policy, a bit of revanchism and the odd moment of madness. Never, though, have we had a clown foreign policy. www.bbc.com/news/article...
If you listen carefully you'll hear the sound of a million Frenchmen crying...
You can almost hear William Rankeillor's best friend saying, 'Mrs Rankeillor, ye dinnae want tae spend all that money on a headstane fer Wully. I've got ma ain chisel!' It's charming. #Elie #Fife
I took a #selfie (really unusual for me because, well, I'm not the loveliest specimen), and asked an #AI engine to edit to remove the seeming hole in my head caused by the sun hitting it. It did (swipe) by entirely changing the image. Moral: #AI won't work for you, it will work for the algorithms.
In 'a bar full of older people'. Until I realise they're not 'older people'. They're the same age as me now. Cribbage anyone?
A gem of an #Edinburgh tiled bar, and it isn't the Café Royal. Delightful Burmantofts (?) tiling throughout.
Just finished this - #FerdinandMount 's uncovering of the real life of his aunt. I remember his uncle with affection - my father worked for him. A kindly, impeccably dressed man, I remember a slightly stiff formality but also the warmth toward this (then) 5 year old. A pity he was so deceived.
'As she's gotten older...'. Has the BBC just given up on written English? BBC News - Artist still enjoying life as she turns 107 www.bbc.com/news/article...
One of the very, very few things that are positive about mild #asthma is one's ability to do a Mutley laugh. ('Schushin' fushin' rushin,' Dick Dastardley!')
A glorious name: Kingsman Baskett.
Is it just inexperience or is #Wetherby inaccessible easily by bus or train? Why does the north dislike Wetherby so much?
Art bought - 3 pieces (1839 watercolour bird and c.1825 naive watercolour landscape being two of them) in delightful #Pocklington. Henceforth having bought art shall be referred to as 'having pockled'.
Yes, this 👇. All of this. He's right.
So we needn't have bothered about 'levelling up'?
Here in #York for a few days hunting for 19thc art to buy but...it's a desert for it. #Yorkshire folk - where should I be looking? (Going to #Wetherby antiques fair on Saturday).
The party of 'It never didn't not do me no 'arm'. Rickets, polluted beaches, lead in petrol. A glorious past.
Too late now but Barrister (trial attorney) in complex fraud cases. Niche, I know, but arguing a case on my feet based on command of detailed evidence and induction - yes, I'd crush it.
#SharonOsbourne is in deep, paralyzing grief and agony - and I'm moved by the sight of one human so in love with another she's beyond anything at this moment. May her family's love envelope and support her.
Slightly worrying message here. Surely it should be 'Don't let anyone tell you what you can or can't do IF YOU CAN ACTUALLY DO IT'. Not thrilled at the prospect of 'have a go' brain surgeons, for instance.
If that wouldbe #Renoir portrait on #FakeOrFortune was faked, surely the 'Ecole des Beaux-Arts' label would have (a) been from the 1860s/70s and, (b) been less evidently hidden? I know the prov trail isn't great but surely there's a rationale for that?
In the #WomensEuros #England look slower than Spain. Time to mix change in formation with some subs?
It's Dunning-Kruger politics all the way in *all* political parties in the #UK at the moment. They're supremely confident in their cluelessness. We're doomed.
No, after reading the report it is pretty clear abandoning #BradfordOnAvon is *exactly* what you're doing #EnvironmentAgency. BBC News - Bradford-on-Avon 'not being abandoned' after £11m scheme u-turn - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
What a lovely series: @robsongreen.bsky.social 's Weekend Escapes is a showcase for a lovely part of the world and a gentle joy of a programme. If you haven't caught it before, do yourself a favour: enjoy it.
Poor wee Brendon. This is awful. Awful. That a parent can do such a thing is hideous. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
The #Starmer government is extraordinary. It's as if every day they wake up and say 'How many voters can we capriciously antagonize today?' www.itn.co.uk/news/environ...
@wokingham-libdem.bsky.social, since #WokinghamBoroughCouncil isn't here, perhaps you'll relay a message? Here's what the council *said* they'd collect today. They didn't. They collected recycling. Is it a game?
'Could'? You'd have thought this would have happened years ago. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
I don't get: you've a local monopoly of supply over something that literally falls from the sky, the 'regulator' seems cool about ludicrous price hikes, you pollute to save money, fines are derisory and executive pay fantastic. And you're in *debt*??? www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Unexpected #TSEliot at #Marlow: Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present
To #AllSaintsChuch in #Marlow for a splendid summer concert for piano, organ and soprano. Delightful.
Loving the #ColdplayCouple memes.
Just watched this and along with millions of others there'sxone question. Why? For what earthly reason would you do that? The Big Cases, The Sycamore Gap - From Roots to Ruin: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002fnjp via @bbciplayer
Seeing a BBC journalist having to almost apologise for rattling the cage of #TimDavie is very, very worrying. #DCMS, there is something very wrong with the culture of the Beeb under this man and this board. Surely you can see it? www.bbc.com/news/article...
It's 1826. You've just bought a new book, but you can't afford your own ex libris bookplate. So you make this.
A woman called Willow D. Peeple, apparently. Only one left who wants it.
I'm in #Norwich and, I can't help it, everytime I see or hear the word 'Norwich' my 1970s brain says 'Live! from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week! Saaale Offff The Century!!! And here is your host, Nicholas Paaarsonsss!' Bizarre. Norwich as a televisual Shangri-La.
'Murió la Verdad' (The Truth has died) by #Goya. He echoes our times from the #19thc like nobody else.
In #Norwich for a few days, art hunting.
#AndrewMarr is spot on here in @newstatesman.com - except for the article title. Change 'more' for 'some'. Inside No 10 they must be stuffing cotton wool in their ears. A thumping victory squandered.
I've never read a more blatant attempt by a BBC journalist trying to influence the course of our politics. Extraordinary. He might as well have said 'vote Reform'. BBC News - Chris Mason: Reform's momentum is making the political weather www.bbc.com/news/article...
#MAGA: 'We want to make more people suffer.' Also #MAGA: 'Wait a minute. The suffering was meant for *other* people, not me!'
Just bought for a pittance, but is she too good to be true? Dated 1844 on heavy blue paper, she was 'A Peasant sketched in the woods...' #19th British artist.
Mid #19thc pen and brown ink drawing of a two-wheeled light cart with a hatted driver under an umbrella. Possibly by Sir John Fiennes Twistleton Crampton (1805-1886).
Thwock Grunt Thwock Grunt Thwock *Applause* Is there no escape from #Wimbledon?
I'm used to #Londoners being uncouth and pretty rough (strangers to deoderant and queues, rude, unhelpful) but a woman has just used the floor of the bus I'm on as a spitoon. Ye gods.
I didn't vote for it, but I wished this government well - but they've been all over the place. Who on earth is advising ministers? And why does it all look made up as they go along? Still time to pull it back, but not much. www.bbc.com/news/article...
My #lawn currently. It looks like the batting track at Headingly on day two of a Test Match. No #rain for days!
A phrase I dare say #MarkCarney recognizes from a #Brexit context... #America: our #Brexiters said the same thing. We didn't 'hold all the cards'. It's been downhill ever since. Of course, #Trump will bail out...
From The Studio of August 1927 - and a sign of the times. Finding models with *un*shingled hair may have been a trial.
My heart goes out today to the family of #DanielAnjorin. What a super young man he sounds, and how tragic it is that he will never get to live his life.
Goodnight, world.
Some recent purchases. I can't get enough art. Here: Crampton, Steinhauer, Oldfield, Griffith, Oakley Gummer, Naylor, Bolton and two anons. Not big names. At all. Just good art.
As a librarian and as an author whose works are in the LibGen database without my permission (I know this thanks to excellent work by @theatlantic.com) I find this ruling to be deeply enraging: on.ft.com/3IdFyua Meta wins artificial intelligence copyright case in blow to authors
The use of animals in research *isn't* inevitable. There are alternatives. Support nc3rs.org.uk attempts to find them so that research can proceed - without the cruelty and suffering to animals. www.animalfriends.co.uk/save-animals...
Does it have to meditate first, @microsoft.com ?
BBC replies to a complaint from people who've lost trust in the corporation's impartiality by saying they desperately want to gain the trust of bigots and are happy to lose the trust of the rest of us. Extraordinary.
I had hoped the awful #KateShemirani had disappeared from our news, but no. She's back, spouting more unscientific nonsense. Pseudo-medicine is deadly. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Does anyone recognize this place?
Bold #watercolour drawing of a dark #stables interior at 'Hadley's Farm', dated 'Sep[tember] 29[th] [18]85', bought today at an antiques fair.
Some of today's art haul from #ArdinglyAntiquesFair. Lots of fun research to do on new (to me) artists; lots of favourite artists as well to add to the collection.
Fairly regular (June, July, September, November each for 2 days) and the largest in the UK. There are lots of others, too. www.iacf.co.uk/ardingly/
At #Ardingly, in full sun, buying heavy pieces of art. Birket Foster, Robert Goff, fine 19thc etchings, some lovely watercolour studies and drawings. This is how everyday *should* be...
In short: Ministers, take some responsibility. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ministe...
Cf. 'Dot com boom'...
When did this 'pass' thing start - as in 'When did your aunt pass?' I know people used to say 'pass away' or (older) 'pass over', but...'pass'? Every time I hear it I imagine the loved one mentioned crossing the ball to the centre forward in the six yard box.
Assuming these days that #EdwardLear wrote this about me.
A little bit of (I guess) William Payne. It's laundry day at the country cottage.
Such a lovely green, open campus at @uniofreading.bsky.social . If only it needed a knowledge exchange lead still! This is how campuses should feel: walkable, spacious, a community asset. Glorious in the sunshine.
What on earth do 38% find to like? He's ballooning the deficit, making affordable healthcare harder, closing research, making America risable again abroad and generally being incompetent. Are over a thirdvof Americans with him just for the hate?
'Or'? Surely you mean 'and'?
A little bit of considered, measured, skillful musical genius just departed. Leaving us with Lady Gaga... www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...
Here we go again... search.app/FSHbq Shared via the Google App
All #news - all of it - is currently dominated by hate. Unreasoning #hate, cultivated, aimed and fired by people determined to so occupy us with hate we'll never notice their heist. Let's call out the hate, call out the heist.
Four 20th century drawings.
'In due course'.
Unpaid #tax liabilities due to #HMRC >£44bn. Covid contracts open to clawback on grounds of corruption >£15bn. Tax underpaid by foreign #corporations, only a little less. The #PAC in January said 'HMRC is likely to have underestimated the scale of evasion.'
How are things in higher education? This is how things are in higher education. We're watching one of Britain's top performing sectors die. qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...
#America, here's William Moore in 1776 - a Brit pro-revolution supporter - reminding you of some home truths about people like #Trump.
We also have a neighbourhood dog that barks three times at precisely (or thereabouts) 6pm, every working day. No barks on Saturday or Sunday. Beginning to think animals are professionals...
Next door's #cat. Generally arrives in the garden at 0830. Disappears between 1pm and 2pm. Then stays until 1830, when she gets up and leaves. I wasn't home today, so I assume the invariable pattern repeated. But she stayed tonight until 1932. Do cats have 'overtime'?
The cuts>course closures> morale collapse>more staff departures>recruitment income shortfall >further cuts>course closures...cycle in full force here. Leaders think they're being 'determined, focused'. Nobody asks 'will what's left work?' www.walesonline.co.uk/news/educati...
A long time aficionado of #BargainHunt (I download the day's episode on iPlayer to watch on the train going home), it is beginning to pall. So I'm awarding myself points from BH bingo instead.
Corners of my garden this morning.
Amid all the noise, clamour, misery, self-aggrandisement, pomposity and hatred in the world, there's this. However we pervert it, the world still contains simple beauty.
#America, this isn't going anywhere else but internment camps and oaths of allegiance to Trump.
#20thc watercolour of the #Clyde, #Glasgow.
Feeling 'nausaged' by it, actually.
Bored with this now. You clearly are not understanding the elementary point that the coverage of Reform UK is disproportionate. It has nothing to do with you, your career or the price of fish.
In the context of an argument about the frequency of coverage, yes. Show me evidence that a party with 5 MPs *isn't* getting wildly disproportionate coverage. Your years in broadcasting have no effect whatever on that question.