Immigration is part of what makes UK a functioning state. Turning it into a punishment system, is like nailing up your doors and windows to deter burglars.

Or, after Brexit, it was the country that got small.

Everyone on the celeb circuit will feature in the Epstein emails for fifteen minutes.

‘There has been a meaningful price to pay—a preservationist’s premium, let’s call it—for the switch from museum to auction-house headquarters.’

Edward Hopper Adobes and Shed, New Mexico, 1925 Watercolor with graphite pencil on paper Whitney Museum of American Art

John Lahr on Walter Murch’s edit of ‘Apocalypse Now’ ‘Murch and his team got the film down from 236 hours to 2 hours and 27 minutes.’ @lrb.co.uk 23 October.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan on why the Far Right lie about London crime: “They don’t want our modern, multicultural, progressive metropolis to succeed because they can’t stomach the truth. London is a place where people of every creed, colour and culture live together in peace and mutual respect.”

Quinn Slobodian on ‘Libertarian Eugenics’ in @ftweekend.com

Had a flashback to an Andrew Neil speech in favour of Brexit where he said that trade barriers would no longer matter because the 4th industrial revolution would mean we'd all zap weightless intellectual property to each other and just locally 3d print everything solid that we needed.

The murder rate in London is now the lowest in decades, perhaps centuries. (The Times)

‘We could face the very real threat of Trump getting to choose the next Dr Who.’

We are in the MidCentury Modern show in Dulwich College. I just bought a poster for a William Scott exhibition.

Interesting to see so many great British patriots right now begging an American president to bankrupt one of Britain’s last remaining truly national institutions.

Ah well I suppose I will have to vote Green.

Perhaps the most apt comparison for Farage is not a frog, but a mole.

I would be quite happy if they just made the TV version of ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ in to the state religion of UK.

Radio 3 just played the ‘Nunc Dimittis’ from Tinker Tailor. Unfortunately, they then committed heresy by praising the film version.

In a radical move, the Daily Mail has become an American newspaper.

Sofonisba Anguissola, Italian Renaissance artist, admired by Vasari, appointed court painter to Philip II of Spain, painted in 1624 by the young Anthony van Dyck; died in Palermo #OTD 1625. #Quatercentenary Self-portrait c 1556 Łańcut Castle, Poland | Elizabeth de Valois c 1565 Museo del Prado

Neither the existing nor the new policy will cause any additional refugees to leave the UK. But prolonged “temporary” status will make it harder for refugees to get on in life here, with bad effects for them, their children, our society and our economy.

‘There has been a meaningful price to pay—a preservationist’s premium, let’s call it—for the switch from museum to auction-house headquarters.’

Everyone on the celeb circuit will feature in the Epstein emails for fifteen minutes.

Quinn Slobodian on ‘Libertarian Eugenics’ in @ftweekend.com

Labour's fear of Reform, 'the election is tomorrow' attitude means that they are completely incapable of going 'okay, but what are *actually* the consequences of refugee and asylum policy that people don't like?'

I’m very happy to have a profile on one of my favourite artists, Christopher Williams, in this weekend’s FT Magazine. Thanks to Griselda Murray Brown for commissioning and editing it. @financialtimes.com

❤️❤️❤️

A reminder of what happens when you opt for the politics of divide and rule.

On the delusions of ethnonationalism.

When asylum seekers are demonised I feel the need to point out that people like me are the children of asylum seekers (in my case my father came to England on the Kindertransport and my mother’s family fled pograms in Poland and Ukraine). Go home when safe? Hmmmmmmm….

Van Gogh’s ‘Field with Poppies’ was painted from an elevated viewpoint during his stay in Saint-Paul Asylum. Its acquisition in 1911 by a German gallery was criticised as being part of a perceived “foreign infiltration of German art” by French paintings (Kunsthalle Bremen, 1889)

A lot of the anti-BBC commentary this week has omitted to mention that: a) Trump himself lost a defamation suit (against E. Jean Carroll) b) Trump was fined in 2023 for bringing a frivolous claim against his political enemies on.ft.com/3XA1qnW

In the past 36 hrs I've seen clips of Rogan & Musk rethinking the assassination attempt on Trump; Nick Fuentes claiming MAGA is dead; Tucker Carlson saying Massie is an honorable man who lives more by MAGA values than Trump; & MTG saying she doesn't worship DJT. She's America first. 👇🏼 Dominoes!

The Epstein emails are a chance to see what happens when you make the world safe for billionaires.

Farage, Boris Johnson & Rees-Mogg apparently plotting assaults on UK democracy with Bannon, who was reporting back to Epstein. Nothing to see here, newspaper folk… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"The era of permanent protection is over" Is this Labour government really saying it was wrong in principle to let these refugees of the last 75 years to stay, settle and become British - and they believe that should NEVER happen again in principle or practice? www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiuR...

In @ftweekend.com, @marinaoloughlin.bsky.social has a piece in praise of small restaurants that mentions Andrew Edmunds in Soho. One day at the close of the twentieth century, it was the ideal place for an excellent but very dazed lunch after we received the news that we were going to be parents.

Home Office claims changes proposed on Monday are "the most significant shift in the treatment of refugees since the second world war" These changes are unlikely to significantly shift flows or deliver control. The language used is questionable in principle - and v likely to be untrue in practice

William Herschel, German-born British astronomer, born #OTD 1738; discovered planet Uranus in 1781, pioneered use of astronomical spectrophotometry, discovered infrared radiation; Fellow Royal Society, first President Royal Astronomical Society. Portrait by Abbott 1785, NPG London Herschel Museum

Reform is the party that lives and dies by the polls, so it is hardly surprising that their support is as shallow as a puddle.

The Epstein emails are a chance to see what happens when you make the world safe for billionaires.

I had forgotten that music had a year off in 1998 #totp

The beautiful richter exhibition

The @designcouncil.bsky.social is looking for a new CEO. They are focused on using the design economy to help address the climate crisis and achieve net zero. £130k www.designcouncil.org.uk/who-we-are/j...

Well now we know how presidents are made.

Read 'em and weep. (www.nber.org/system/files...)

If you are in NI, you should remember 1690 and forget about 1921. If you are in another part of UK, just forget about NI.

NI has always been off the edge of the map as far as the rest of UK is concerned.

Not to mention that part of UK was a war zone in 1975.

Saki thou shouldst be living at this hour.