Two major omissions from Blair's essay: decline in UK manufacturing, and house price inflation. Both were happening when he was PM, and explain many of our problems today. He has no solution for it now, because he let it happen then.

I wrote for the Art Newspaper on why charging 'foreigners' for museum entry can't practically work. www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/05/27/c...

Began work today on the paperback of The Invention of British Art.

What did you think of the recent 'AI identifies Anne Boleyn' story? The claim (in a new Nature article, link in 🧵) is that the drawing on the left is wrongly labelled as Anne, and the drawing on the right is more likely her, based on AI and facial recognition. 1/

Me and my big mouth. #ifyouseeitsayit

Amazing price for this fragment of an Artemisia Gentileschi at Dorotheum - €837,500. If you’ve got the missing bit, ‘come on down…’

A fine example of the North Eastern Railway tile maps of c.1910. Then, you could steam to Berwick-upon-Tweed from London in about 7 hours. Today (thanks to recent LNER timetable changes) it’s about 3hr50 mins, taking us back to journey times last seen in the late 1970s.

If Trump’s now fine with Iran charging for access to the Straits of Hormuz, perhaps we could get in on the action with the Strait of Dover. A little toll booth on the Goodwin Sands.

Happy Easter everyone. Snowing here.

This week we discuss the ‘De Ganay’ version of the Salvator Mundi - Leonardo, or just workshop? podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w...

Andrew Graham-Dixon and yours truly talking art at Words by the Water in the Lake District. (Andrew’s book on Vermeer by the way is superb and well worth an order).

If you ever need a word to shake money out of tech VCs, try 'pyschographic'.

The ‘de Brecy Tondo’, once hailed by AI as an undoubted Raphael, has been quietly (and correctly) sold at auction as a later copy for £13k.

I wrote this about art restoration for the FT. www.ft.com/content/bfa0...

Next Thursday, 19th March, I'm talking at the King's Lynn festival, on The Invention of British Art. See you there! www.kingslynnfestival.org.uk/whats-on/tal...

My main conclusion from Gorton and Denton so far is that the punditocracy has little idea of what’s going on. They are as invested in, and connected to, the old system as the old parties.

Suspect the chance that something odiously fatal to the PM is found in the Mandelson documents have increased this morning. (And sacking the Cabinet Secretary responsible for handing the papers over might not have been too clever either).

Deep, deep joy that Goodwin isn’t an MP.

Our national embarrassments come thick and fast these days, but today I think Blair’s performance at Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ was even more cringe than the arrest of Mr M-W.

Wish I'd heard this before visiting Tate Turner Constable exh. Brilliant discussion of Constable which makes you look at his work with fresh eyes

If you wanted to argue Britain is becoming an un-developing country, flying from Zurich Airport (runs like a Rolex, part state-owned) into Edinburgh Airport (grim, filthy, owned by BlackRock) would be a good place to start.

Goodness I feel sorry for all those figure skaters taking a tumble tonight. What pressure they must have been under. (And wasn’t the marking for Ilia a bit harsh? 15th??)

This week on the podcast; what made John Constable great? I discuss with Susan Owens, author of the excellent new book, ‘Constable’s Seasons’. *(Waldy and Bendy’s Adventures in Art, on all the usual platforms.)

The accepted wisdom seems to be that it was McSweeney who got Mandelson in. I wonder if it was, ultimately, Blair. Who, perhaps not unrelatedly, seems these days to spend much of his time shilling for US tech firms.

$27.2m for Michelangelo’s foot at Christie’s. That’s $1.15m per square inch.

Today on the podcast, I take a deep dive into Turner's extraordinary painting, 'The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16 1834'. And I ask, is it the beginning of modern art? Link in next post. 1/2

Anybody else finding Google Books has stopped working? I can't get a thing!

Would any of this Mandelson stuff matter a jot for the PM, if he'd had his own ideas about what to do in power? He tried to be Blair 2.0, and here we are.

Just a few seats left for this at Keswick on 12th March. I'll be talking about British landscape painting, the Lakes and Wordsworth. www.theatrebythelake.com/event/bendor...

This week's podcast is on the Wilton Diptych; what it's all about and who may have painted it. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w...

We tried The Mastermind but didn’t last long. It’s going straight into my top five worst films about art. Anyone make it to the end? (Though I’ll always be a massive Josh O’Connor fan).

Have a good Burns Night everyone. The first in which we can see him through the eyes of one of Scotland's greatest painters, Henry Raeburn.

Visiting the Old Master sales and Tate's Turner & Constable show... my Diary piece for The Art Newspaper. www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/01/22/c...

Here’s the beginning of our film about Raeburn’s rediscovered portrait of Robert Burns. Watch the whole film at blackiehouse.org

This week on the podcast* I discuss the magic of art restoration with Simon Gillespie, including some of his triumphs from the BBC series Britain's Lost Masterpieces. *(Waldy and Bendy's Adventures in Art, available on all the usual platforms).

There's a wonderful short film made by Ishbel Grosvenor all about the portrait and its discovery here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=StBu...

Some breaking art historical news for you - a lost portrait of Robert Burns by Sir Henry Raeburn was unveiled today at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. It’s been missing for more than 200 years. 1/3

An extra special episode of Waldy & Bendy’s Adventures in Art this week, as we take a deep dive on Holbein’s Ambassadors. Available now on all the usual platforms. (Who needs Holbein when you’ve got ChatGPT?)

Our producer, Thea, is putting the finishing touches to our deep dive on Holbein's Ambassadors. We solve its mysteries - finally! Out Thursday.

What an amazing survival (from the Sint Janskerk in Gouda).

There seems to be an inverse correlation between the amount of time someone holds one of the great offices of state and their brazen lack of shame afterwards.

“Could be cleared within a decade” seems not much of a boast in return for trashing people’s right to jury trial

Priceless.

Pleased to learn today the origin of, 'know which side your bread is buttered on'. I thought it was something archaic and literal, but it's in a poem about an arguing couple from John Heywood's 1562 'Epigrams & Proverbs'. The man says his wife can't tell who's bad or good for her, and she says:

Constantly amazed at the lobbying he's allowed to get away with.

The ICE agent who killed her was also filming the whole thing. Chances we'll ever see that footage?

Today is Epiphany, when Western Christianity celebrates the three kings' visit to the infant Christ. Peter Bruegel the Elder's 'Adoration of the Kings' [National Gallery] is one of my favourite imaginings of that moment. It's also full of mystery. Quick Epiphany 🧵

Edinburgh airport; cash-cow for a French company, and an embarrassment to Scotland.

I am amazed at the number of foreign policy analysts and pundits who’ve taken US action in Venezuela at face value, and in isolation.

Spineless, hopeless. (It was Mike Tapp, but can’t imagine the PM doing different).