The first residential of the Clore Fellowship 2025-26 is done. For the first time in years I feel excited about the prospect of (my) leadership. What a privilege to be in the company of these people who aim to lead with care and bravery for their communities and the wider world. I am full up.

Zelensky got the tape didn’t he

So google maps updated some satellite footage, here’s one single Ukrainian village. One out of thousands

Day 8 of my Clore Fellowship. Last week I just had tiny embers. This week there is a small flame. I am starting to feel like a big roaring fire is possible again.

‘This work is not for the weak of heart’ Words to inspire ending the first week of my Clore Fellowship.

Slava

Art is even at the Kyiv railway station. Lesia Khomenko, Motion, 2025. 21 × 12 meters.

Learning - slowly - that the first couple of weeks back in the UK after working in Ukraine are rough for me. Lots of emotions. Empty, guilty, lost, sad, disconnected. The only thing to do is hibernate and be still and be quiet and cuddle cats.

On the same day in the Telegraph:

Last week during a missile attack a train was destroyed in Kyiv but a few hours later all services were up and running in and out of the capital and they were all on time. I know because I got on one. 7 days later I can’t get a train from Manchester to Bradford that isn’t an hour delayed. Welp.

My car insurance has gone down by £2 annually so I am buying TWO Greggs sausage rolls to celebrate

What is this film??? It’s not WH that’s for damn sure

Good night, dear friends. It’s 00:30 in Ukraine. I hope tonight will be peaceful. In Kyiv, rescue workers saved a cat from the rubble after a russian missile strike. Because in Ukraine, every life matters.

Actual proper journalism from @manchestermill.bsky.social on recent rise of flags being raised on lampposts in the city centre The most baffling bit, one of the leaders of this endeavour was previously convicted for people smuggling 🙄🤯 Well worth a read! manchestermill.co.uk/manchester-f...

Amazing story: one of the organisers of the group putting Union Flags up around Manchester previously did time for being part of a people smuggling gang. manchestermill.co.uk/manchester-f...

On Wednesday we had our Ukraine premiere of our film and then we took the young people out for pizza and fun. Later that night missile alarms sounded across the city and we rushed to the shelter where I sat and watched the news from Kyiv as one young person was killed. Then a second. Then a third.

Cardi!!!!

Poland to Ukraine to Hungary. My little Eastern European heart is full of love this late summer.

What the fuck is this

Solidarity with our friends at the British Council in Ukraine always

People are trapped under the rubble of their apartment building in Kyiv, calling for help as a new batch of russian missiles approaches their city‼️

Oh fuck off Hungary

More than numbers. At night, russia attacked Ukraine with 598 drones and 31 missiles. 12 people were killed in Kyiv - among them three children, aged 2, 14, and 17. More than numbers.

It's morning, but the air raid siren still sounds in almost every city in my country. Hundreds of russian drones all night, dozens of missiles in the early morning. Again destroyed residential buildings, there are dead, wounded... Kyiv suffered the most, photo.

It’s gonna be a long night in Ukraine 😢

Kyiv right now ‼️

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift should get married for the Super Bowl halftime show like a WWE wedding

In Lviv a man in the street ran up to me and offered me some Putin toilet paper which I happily accepted 🚽 🚮 🧻

Bucket hats and border towns. Hello Ukraine I missed you x

Last thing before bed: I will never get over how perfect this show is

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, UKRAINE 🇺🇦 34 years ago, we chose us. All of us - East and West, Lviv and Kharkiv, Crimea and Donbas. We chose each other. Not division. We chose unity, identity, and the promise of a shared future. 1/3

And I’ve watched every one of them

My beautiful Lviv. Next week I will see you again 💛💙

Hardly the most important issue or most significant factor, but something I think Sally Rooney (and in different ways Kneecap) shows us is how in Britain, successful Irish artists can be patronisingly adopted as a product of our own cultural sphere, until they're not. inews.co.uk/news/bbc-und...

I was in Porto last week and it looked like this and it was great

I had 20 of my nearest and dearest people in a private room for a big gorgeous birthday meal on Friday night and not one picture was taken. NOT ONE. Ridiculous.

It’s jarring watching Starmer welcome Zelenskyy with open arms and proclaim ‘we will always stand with Ukraine’ when he can’t even stand with his own people peacefully protesting a genocide

Lidl what have you done…?!

🇺🇦🐈 A combat cat is giving a massage to our soldier.

Happy international cat day to two my besties.

After three of the worst years of my life I am sat on a rooftop in Porto under a big bright moon celebrating a Clore Fellowship, turning (almost) 40, continuing working in Ukraine… and all of this on a day that would have been my Grandads 100th birthday. Best man I ever knew innit

I’m gonna be a Clore Fellow babyyyyyy Delighted. Beaming. Currently celebrating on a rooftop in Porto September let’s go ❤️🩷 www.cloreleadership.org/news-events/...

"It's just fields and fields of gray ash." www.instagram.com/reel/DM8H5L2...

‘I often think of the bestseller and booker prize winners we will never read, simply because they were too busy working three jobs and trying to feed their kids’ Yes Salma! 💔

🕯️ Journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, killed in captivity, posthumously awarded Order of Freedom

🇺🇦President Zelenskyy: In October 2024, we learned of a painful and unjust loss: Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna died in Russian captivity. Today, we honor Viktoriia Roshchyna posthumously. 1/2

I have watched this 20 times and counting

God, the number of people who were willing to believe that the South Yorkshire police were too woke to prosecute sexual abuse cases, when in fact the police force was itself an instrument of patriarchal sexual violence. It’s like a case study in the worst excesses of the British press.

Her name was Diana. She was 23 years old and 7 months pregnant. Russia murdered her today in an attack on the maternity hospital in Kamyanske.