The worst radioactive accident outside of a nuclear power plant happened in Goiânia (Brazil) one year after Chernobyl. Radioactive Emergency (miniseries now on Netflix, essential viewing) shows the efforts to contain contamination & help the victims + the institutional errors leading to the tragedy

I started thinking about the Windham-Campbell Prize and anxiety when the poet Natalie Scenters-Zapico was selected in 2021. She’s always been open about the weight of this feeling on her creative and professional life 1/5

Time

Shaw House

Happy Rabbit Season

St John Passion, St George’s Hanover Square (Bach in Handel’s church)

‘First in Space’ — a pal is visiting Transnistria and I cannot get enough of this virtual, strangely topical ride.

3D particle life running on browser using WebGPU/WGSL - najarro.science/pl

Lenten shrouds (Our Lady of Assumption & St Gregory)

Text mining before the age of LLM training.

‘squashed as though someone had tried resizing him in a Word document and forgot to lock the aspect ratio’ (or, the superior quality of alt text for owls)

A Hand to Hold — hilarious, horrific, hard-to-let-go short film. Frank Bourke is great as the doctor.

‘organisations adopt quantitative rules not because numbers are more accurate but because they are more defensible. Judgment is politically vulnerable. Rules are not. The procedure exists to make discretion disappear, or seem to’

fag ends & veg

If asked to draw a person's portrait, many people would say “I cannot draw.” Why is observational drawing so hard? In a new paper, @judithfan.bsky.social and I answer: it's the limitations of human vision. Learning to draw is learning skills to overcome them. aaronhertzmann.com/2026/03/23/d... 1/

Hazelnut Leaf and Pure Colour (Rose Wylie, 2017, and Sheila Heti/Ellsworth Kelly, 2022/1964-5)

snail

Meanwhile, in Beirut: ‘He asks if we can help him get insulin. He’s been 10 days without it despite being a type 2 diabetic’

Small, but perfectly formed show — the last of the Encounters series pairing Giacometti and a contemporary visual artist. Nearly missed the concert I was going to afterwards.

Friday 13th

infiltration

to the grey skies (an offering, occasional series)

blues

time is a dagger

Killing children, attacking schools has been normalised www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...

Monday mood (Harold Offeh snaps like a diva) @kettlesyard.bsky.social

Abstraction @kettlesyard.bsky.social

Happy Cakeday!

As Tintoretto intended. Some Peter Schade magic this morning on my way to collect a special cake — and I had the room to myself! Love the new octagonal frame @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social

The 2020-21 Model Art Gallery is one of 3 miniature art galleries inside Pallant House. Inspired by the 34 Gallery (a 1934 show with artworks deliberately made on a small scale) and prompted by the first coronavirus lockdown, it includes an homage to Khadija Saye.

The many faces of Pallant House Gallery. To no one’s surprise, I didn’t want to leave. Also a joy to chat to Melanie irl for a change.

"This is vibes-based policy making, not evidence-based policy making" — me talking on BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast just now about the MPs pushing for a social media ban for under 16s.

A (literally) dark scene in The Secret Agent starts with a glimpse of sth that turns out to be a capybara. It’s the beginning of a brief fantastic/cheap-horror-film-like segment. Capybaras as harbingers of doom, playing against type — a few arresting seconds in a fab 2h40m film.

Mission accomplished! Found a preview (bus replacement service a small price to pay) 🍿

Adam Phillips by candlelight — the “significant difference between a possessive, acquisitive individualism & a collective political project (the phrase ‘the life I want’ implies a stability & a degree of certainty in myself; the idea of the life I want fixes the flux of myself)”

More Mamdanis, please

a side of beef, a shoulder of mutton, a haunch of venison

Very good insights by @eryk.bsky.social on the UK Skills Hub — especially on how the division of users between ‘AI workers’ and ‘AI leaders’ affects content 🧵

Light (4:30pm)

every cloud etc.

Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, post the second sentence. Page 42: <Egon Schiele’s Frau mit Spiegel>

yellow monday

shadowland

Thrilled that THE SECRET AGENT won the Critics Choice award for Best International Film but so disheartened and angry at how it happened. Mendonça Filho and producer Emilie Lesclaux were ambushed on the red carpet, no briefing, no chance of giving a speech, the whole thing an insulting disaster.

Last oil barrel (Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, Caracas, 1972)

A Simple Maze, Suzanne Treister (a painting for today, occasional series) @modernartoxford.bsky.social

About 6 months ago, Helen de Cruz, one of my favorite philosophers, died from a bruising battle with cancer, which they faced with insight and courage. This is a good time to note that the fund set up to support their children is within $2,000 of being fully funded.

Prep for 2026’s arrival (before and after)

(In)organic [detail of Cathie Pilkington’s installation at the Freud Museum & sea slug that can cut its head off and regenerate its own body]

The Conversations was my introduction to Murch. Ways of seeing, hearing, creating — fascinating stuff, really generative. Hadn’t watched The Conversation 😳, but finally did after coming across a Radio 3 Sound of Cinema ep (still available) where Murch is interviewed.