UK #Art fans: #BBC4 is repeating Robert Hughes's landmark series "American Visions", last seen in 2001. Highly recommended. First episode: BBC4 Monday 25/05 at 22:00. American Visions, part 1: The Republic of Virtue

And it’s got one of the very best closing lines.

Oh, Merlin. Can I ever trust you again?

Big Bokassa vibes.

Alternatives to work #1: Film4 has This Gun for Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942) at 11am – the film that brought Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake together. Graham Greene's novel is softened and prettified No!), but it's surprising how well San Francisco works as a substitute for London.

What’s the betting this doesn’t happen by the end of the year? theonion.com/trump-reques...

On the train and just heard someone say “Private property and the capitalist class are the root cause.”

On Vexations, written for today’s performance by Andrew Brixey-Williams in Ealing:

Streeting announces resignation, which is coincidentally the main emotion I'm experiencing.

#Reform has suspended new Sheffield councillor Nathaniel Menday, after further social media posts were uncovered which included a huge photo of a Nazi flag with a swastika on it and a photo of Hitler's Mein Kamf.

As everyone is talking about Labour MP Wes Streeting, a reminder he thinks people cycling only need protecting for 2 hours a day (Mon-Fri). With magic bollards. And if you're a weekend visitor to London, none at all. And insurance, obvs. www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/2019/08...

I have likely missed the serious discourse on this. I'm a big fan of Jess Philips, but the technology does not exist to stop children taking naked pictures of themselves. Or, in so far as it does, the technology is "not letting children have cameras".

"The desire not to have an argument means we rarely make an argument."

Headline on Radio 4 news, "Two more ministers have resigned from the Labour Party." FFS.

If only someone had told me this earlier.

My god, I had forgotten how much I loathe Conversations from a Long Marriage.

Excellent archive Andy Kershaw feature on Radio 3 just now (start of a series of four): www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Oh my. This is spectacular. sinceyouarrived.world/taken

The Camera Man www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/se... Happy birthday to a gracious correspondent and a loving son

Ultimately, if your inheritance is an A&E department in a state of crisis, which both literally and metaphorically Labour's was, going 'I must do what's popular' is a dead end, because triage is never popular.

@cbuckthorn.bsky.social Just occurred to me that this is right up your street (son of a friend. I'm sure he's marvellous): visit-burystedmunds.co.uk/events/boile...

In case people haven’t spotted it this appears to be an attempt to block the annual Kinder trespass event next year. Screenshots sent to me today by a concerned local who wants to remain anonymous. @righttoroam.bsky.social @jon-moses.bsky.social @guyshrubsole.bsky.social

If you like quite long editions of Play For Today about industrial strife in the north of England in 1970, may I recommend "Leeds United!" by Colin Welland, which is available on Talking Pictures TV's streaming platform, Encore.

My grandson’s class were shown some Basquiat and asked to do their own versions, and he came up with this. NB He’s 6.

Polanski, knockers … this stuff writes itself

Leaflet for local Green candidate leads with “has made collages”. Dangerous populism.

“They [bikes] turn humans into this hyperefficient terrestrial locomotor because they make being on land more like swimming.” The most efficient traveller is you on a bike. #UrbanTruth A classic worth repeating, via Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social. #UrbanScience

This sounds fantastic.

Thank the Lord.

Ooh

Why would you even try?

I’ve been hearing so much anger and disappointment from frontline workers about the BBC investigation into fraudulent asylum claims. One of the most damning responses has come from one of the experts they interviewed, solicitor Ana Gonzalez. It’s really worth reading her response in full:

I am absolutely shite at recognising when someone is flirting with me. Like, comically bad at it. My mates would mock me about it. But something happened today that made me so happy. 1/?

I've now come to the view that Starmer has to go, not because he's in the Mandelson business (though he is) but because I can't see how else we're going to arrive in a world where I never have to hear about all this crap again.

Enjoyed the film The Promised Land, but can’t shake the suspicion that the English title fails to capture the nuances of the original Danish.

Very sad. I've always wondered how far his mental health problems were a product of his trip to Rwanda after the massacres – I have a memory of him on the Today programme talking about finding a well full of corpses, and sounding as if he was on the edge of a breakdown.

Cambridge Water's website won't accept the password I have stored, or allow me to use a new one. Looks like I'll have to follow their advice and phone them. What was that number again?

Here is an easy solution: Food stains are humiliating, as they suggest you're a little baby who can't feed themselves. Oil stains, such as those you'd get from working on your car, suggest you're tough, independent, and skilled. Thus, simply cover your food stains with used motor oil.

which is why we all have gills, right? fucking dipshit

It's so funny to me that right-wingers love to pretend to love the Middle Ages and the Crusades and all that and then complain that the Pope shouldn't get involved in politics.

Depressing on two levels: 1/ Tibor Fischer is, or used to be, a pretty good novelist - I had no idea he’d fallen so low. 2/ None of the responses to this betrays any awareness of that.

Niche complaint: Words and Music, Radio 3's Sunday night themed compilation of readings and records, has managed to feature exactly the same extract from The Wind in the Willows – the bit about the piper at the gates of dawn – in successive weeks, supposedly exemplifying entirely different themes.

I was thinking yesterday about the contrast between the apparent kindness and sanity of my neighbours and the rage and bigotry I see unleashed on nextdoor.com

Kennedy canceled $500 million in mRNA research and announced no new mRNA projects will ever be initiated—killing the technology that produced the fastest vaccine rollout in human history.

Listening – more fool me – to the latest episode of The Rest Is Politics, and startled to hear Dominic Sandbrook make the bizarre claim that Keir Starmer talks about Britain going into the EU

A fine for an offence you have committed with out any inducement or deception is not a sting. But too many drivers think parking rules, like speed limits, are pointless and unfair.

Wondering where this Henry Treece novel is taking me

Big ‘China appointing the Panchen Lama’ vibes.