Uh oh, @guardian, you should take a hint from a lesson @npr learned years ago. If you're going to use a "historical" image in a piece, make sure it actually relates to the history you're talking about. Your Black Death (plague) image is actually leprosy! www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a... 🗃️

Thank you @profannagreenwood.bsky.social for this fantastic review of Outcast in The Lancet. So many of the historic 'culture wars' over the disease and its stigma were played out in the pages of the journal, so its particularly touching to see it covered there.

☺️

“The psyche is miraculous,” Ghersi says. “Over the course of time we fragment and fracture through trauma, and hopefully somehow recombine and stay steady enough to survive and, if you’re lucky, reach a point where it’s safe to unpack those experiences.” Great interview and quote from her.

Spoke to the musician Arca about her post-burnout painting (and Venezuela) www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

"The climate is not neutral... disaster is a political choice." Sad and urgently needed despatch from the flooding in my adopted home state. Worth running though translate if you don't read Portuguese. vozdascomunidades.com.br/destaques/op...

This is the nub of it (cf AI being used in criticism, book writing etc.) You'd be a fool to do this for the money, but if you can get by with the pay, then you're doing the most fun work possible. Why would you ask a machine to take that away from you?

Thanks for everyone who bid on this, shared etc, the organisers say they raised over £5k. The hub is great: providing for those unhoused or in emergency housing for whatever reason. You can also donate furniture, electricals, tents, etc here lewishamdonationhub.org#SupportOurWork

There's an online auction ending today, which various friends have contributed to, as well as local artists, all in aid of the brilliant Lewisham Hub, an excellent "everything bank", providing all the resources to set up a home in the borough. www.ebay.co.uk/usr/lewisham...

It's insanely cringe: and I've done it all and will do it again.

So everyone thinks kids should be able to go to pubs and mess around, but when I turn up drunk and shouting at the soft play zone, that's a problem.

In which I suggest the greatest work of 21st century war art has come out of Ukraine's queer anarchist techno scene (Went to Lviv to see an exhibition)

Clear example of absolutely terrible school leadership. Truly pernicious stupidity that makes you think the harm they inflicted on the library must be the least of it. At the same time, wow, the librarian sounds incredible. What a job she was doing!

Thank you @profannagreenwood.bsky.social for this fantastic review of Outcast in The Lancet. So many of the historic 'culture wars' over the disease and its stigma were played out in the pages of the journal, so its particularly touching to see it covered there.

This is exciting but, if you are able and keen, it needs support!

FCDO travel advice is the stupidest thing. And laughable when you read how little the foreign office actually does for British people in trouble abroad. I ignore it with glee (and before people squeak about travel insurance – not ad, but there's Battleface. www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-...

Said I'd give a talk about leprosy and the book at my mothers' church (tomorrow!) Turns out she's made flyers and they're all over the village.

As informed by @luketurner.bsky.social, Matt Goodwin is also from St Albans, and the same age as me. Different schools, mine the Catholic comp, Goodwin's the boys' school. I had friends at his school, but there was definitely a certain *type* there, so that he is who he is now, doesn't surprise.

@kirkdalebooks.bsky.social Might you have any Jaan Kross lying around?

Eddy Frankel's Tracey Emin review for the Guardian has left me quite teary. A masterclass of the form. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Tomorrow lunchtime, online and IRL in London!

Ban AirBnb, reason number 1001. In São Paulo, BBC Brasil finds that hundreds of apartments, built as much-needed social housing, have ending up on the site: more money flowing from the state to a few people in Silicon Valley.

Rob Arcane posted the opening of David F Noble's In Defense of Luddism (1993) and damn it's like it was written and hour ago.

Or, like Brazil, take it out of the commercial banking system altogether, and build a government-backed instant payment system allowing for fee-free transfers. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Slightly overawed that Outcast will be published in the USA by the legends at @graywolfpress.bsky.social. Preorders, to give the book its best possible American life, very welcome. Released 7 July! www.graywolfpress.org/books/outcast

Philippe Gaulier, the French master of clowning, has died. A decade ago, @lewisgoodall.com bravely did this piece from Gaulier's school where students were (lovingly) told they were boring and banged off with a drum. His impact on theatre and film is massive. RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD4Y...

I did not like this (information, I liked the article).

From the worst to the best: 1. Universities (I can't be bothered with the follow up any more) 2. "Trendy" magazines (thankfully these days are behind me) 3. Germans and Swiss 4. Newspapers (5 stars, fully automated) 5. Small mag run by one person that you did because its fun (pay within an hour)

I almost didn't post this. I thought it would be too niche. But it's really taken off. It's about what happened when John Carey attacked Elizabeth Smart & George Barker in a review – and it's greatly enlivened by two of GB's children posting in the comments! mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-critic...

This aside reminds me of the time I was left gaping in a conversation with a US art curator after she casually referred to herself as a public intellectual.

hey train perverts wanna see the shinkansen cloaca

How did I not know this. I got slightly obsessive over Hunger when I read it.

For *reasons*, I'm on the Wikipedia page of the Central Cemetery of Bogotá. It took me more moments that it should for me to realise this list of presidents buried there was not ordered by political inclination.

Quite iconic

1200 words on post-Zelensky wartime leader fashion please.

Getting in before that trade embargo www.artnews.com/list/art-new...

Shrinkflation. A slim Stepanova is better than none though.

Béla Tarr, the Hungarian filmmaker and master of slow cinema, responsible for the likes of Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) and The Turin Horse (2011), died aged 70 in hospital in Budapest. In a new essay for ArtReview, Michael Brooke reflects on his legacy: artreview.com/an-ode-to-be...

On epigraphs: given they're often £100 a pop to license, this is a sure-fire way to never break even.

Off to take a dead whale to a small town. So long, Béla Tarr.

Ideal.

Can anyone recommend a good book on Estonia / Baltic 20th century history? Not Anne Applebaum

Walking 20k a day in Christmas lead up. Weather is... variable

I spent five years researching colonial necropolitics and medical maleficence, kind of with the idea it was history, and while I knew it wasn't, this is still astonishing.

@artreview.bsky.social's 2025 lookbacks have been excellent (more to come). No listicle slop: Amber Hussein on the Year in Eating, @martinherbert.bsky.social on AI, Rebecca Liu on the death of dialogue in film. Great commissioning from @alexanderleissle.bsky.social. artreview.com/category/the...

Excellent interviewee, excellent interviewer @edwinheathcote.bsky.social. Lamb sounds pretty good too. I'm really excited for Kéré's Rio library. www.ft.com/content/a286...

Two weeks after the devastating fire in Tai Po, it’s clear the fault lies beyond Hong Kong’s iconic plant artreview.com/on-bamboo-bl...

Do this if you can, social clubs are vital and seem a dying breed. If you donate by midday the amount will be matched.