Surveillance cat.

Dawn Penn ‘Performing mega hit ‘No, No, No’ & all the other hits’. ? I feel tremendously out of the loop.

It came back.

Fearless fox just now.

Well I learned a tremenous fact this evening: hill farmers on the South Island of New Zealand round up their sheep with drones that bark.

Yet another reason to love inner city South London: people greeting each other in the street with ‘alright darlin’…’

It’s Genevieve time again.

It’s Tawny Pipit night tonight. Who can resist its shout line: ‘A picture that will make you feel better about everything!’

I slid out to the Fish Lounge on Brixton Hill for supper. Numerous member of a Colombian family were tucking into cod and chips, their small daughters all dressed as witches. It was a joyous, pluriversal scene. F*** you, Elon Musk and your clickbait prophesy of civil war.

The postbox on the corner of where Bonham meets Lambert Rd off Brixton Hill is like the National Gallery of crochet. @regretteruane.bsky.social

Some years ago at Halloween I met our neighbour Jerry Dammers out trick or treating with a gaggle of children dressed as ghouls. I resisted the temptation to say ‘This town is coming like a ghost town’ because he was probably fed up of hearing it quoted to him every 31st October.

“If you see this, post four female characters you love.”

Quite possibly the best painting of plum jam ever. (Felu Elias, The Service, 1936)

Thought of you both here at the Palau Maricel, Sitges @southlondongirl.bsky.social @hassinator.bsky.social

If you have ever wondered what became of Andrew Graham-Dixon, he’s now a novice in a Spanish monastery.

A dog by Joseph Wright of Derby at Frieze Masters.

Lucia Fontana’s brilliantly creative transformation of polystyrene ceiling panels.

Touchingly inept dove at Frieze Masters. @regretteruane.bsky.social

Define your music taste in eight artists: The Beatles The Velvet Underground Family Pentangle Patti Smith The Skatalites P J Harvey Howard Skempton

The Glory of the Garden.

In the 1960s this was the poster boy for Corsican honey.

There must be a German word for the pleasing effect of well-worn vinyl tiles.

Discussing childhood impishness on a walk round Brockwell Park this morning, D. confessed to having popped half a dozen tomatoes into the petrol tank of his father’s car. What crimes did you commit in your pre-teen years? @regretteruane.bsky.social @danmud.bsky.social @jamesbarr.bsky.social

Unsolicited Rick pic.

@londonopia.bsky.social Very enjoyable piece about Sunday markets. 👍👍👍

It used to be a real treat to get my hair cut in the basement of Austin Reed on Regent’s St in a circular salon designed in part by Joseph Emberton, architect of Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The space is now given over to heat tech pants and raincoats too short to be useful.

The pathos of the everyday.

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media? Yes, I have had coffee irl with two of my favourite correspondents on here, @southlondongirl.bsky.social and @jamesewand.bsky.social

On the short drive between John Ruskin St off the Walworth Road and Brixton Hill I heard Paul Gambaccini play Concrete + Clay and Purple Haze, two of my all time favourites. Old man Sunday night heaven.

Why does seemingly every post on NextDoor begin ‘Absolutely disgusting...’ It lacks a live and let live algorithm.

Alert for @osaumarezsmith.bsky.social tea towels in Herne Hill market featuring modernist buildings.

So what’s going on here? We’re picking insects (20 ladybirds - babies and bigg’uns - so far) from our dried fennel seeds. #Prepping

“Excuse me, but would that be First Folio? I’m afraid I have an intolerance to any other kind.” @lordbonkers.bsky.social

Age yourself with a film you saw in the cinema as a kid.

A wodwo guarding the font at St Bartholomew’s in Orford.

Wild peas on the beach at Shingle Sreet.

Finished!

It’s so difficult we’ve had to resort to the scholarship to work out where the black pieces go.

The last of our aubergines.

Here’s an apothogem for Thursday night: you can’t say you know a painting well until you’ve done the jigsaw of it. @lordbonkers.bsky.social

A Brixton pavement short story for this Sunday afternoon.

Art history in jigsaw puzzles: which other great painting features an aerialiste?

The quintessence of fu parking.

Herne Hill wall as ECM album cover.

Do you remember in Ye Olden Days when the staff at Sainsbury’s would take you to the shelf you were looking for? Now all you get is a derisory flick of the wrist in the direction of North London.

I have just hard someone on Radio 6 refer to Notting Hill Carnival goers as ‘Carni. heads’ and now I’m going to have to lie in a darkened room to recover.

I was telling one of the park keepers about the opera concert yesterday on the lawn in front of Brockwell Park. “There wasn’t much litter,” he remarked approvingly, “ and it was posh litter. Hummus, champagne bottles…”.

The Brixton Chamber Orcestra and Pegasus Opera performing extracts from operas - here Porgy and Bess. Q

A completely wonderful figure from Burra’s Landscape, Cornwall, with Figures and Tin Mine (1975)

The crowd at a bullfight in Spain - detail from Edward Burra’s Bullfight (1933).