I am falling a little bit more in love with Jude Bellingham every day.

eternally cool www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ju...

3 am swim: there are stars in the sea again, and the water is as warm as a bath. I might as well swim down the Channel and out to the Azores.

leaf blowers

I would prefer not to. Herman Melville, Bartleby

this time of year it forgets to get dark and I forget who I am in the sea

am hugely flattered

blue whale skeleton in Pisa's museum of natural history, displayed in a 17th century monastic barn, ready for Ishmael to tattoo its measurements on his arms... photograph: Jeroen Hoekendijk

Dürer's Melencolia I, for sale at Christies One of the most cryptic images in all of Western art Blake kept his print of it to the end, hanging on his wall, overlooking the Thames And so it passed on, virally, into our world, the ungendered angel, smiling enigmatically at the fate of the artist

excited for the Spanish edition of William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love, due out 21 September

the sea the sea

'He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury’s hat quivering in the fresh wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries."

happy solstice! the grey seals of Sandycove will be hanging out

William Blake's owl looking forward to the solstice @nationalgalleryirl.bsky.social

another fine day at the Forty Foot there were eight grey seals in the water who ate all the jellyfish? hmmm...

the snot-green, scrotum-tightening sea happy Bloomsday

sea fret over the Forty Foot

Loved the new Michael Bracewell, a further journey around the ghosts of lost London and an obsession

pic via @jonsavage.bsky.social

David Hockney visits Stephen Tennant photograph: Cecil Beaton, 1971

time leaks out of the sea photograph: Peter Wilson

spectacular, if quite random: Blake's mosaic Tyger rescued from the streets of Lambeth and rehomed in Surbiton station...

at swim photograph: Peter Wilson

'But the devices, which use specialized software on buoys and autonomous gliders to detect the calls of right whales, only work if the whales are calling. Mothers with calves, arguably the most important whales to protect, are known to be especially quiet.' wish we were

So, the whole story sounds preposterous, but, as @philiphoare.bsky.social puts it “wartime jingoism looked suspiciously on any work of art that might be regarded as modern, foreign or decadent”. In other words, Pemberton-Billing had the zeitgeist* on his side

it's my birthday

thanks so much!

we saw a tawny owl chick in a windy willow

my mum's birthday today, born 1921 she loved the sea

ruthlessly jumping on the birthday bandwagon to recall the fantastic reading from Moby-Dick that Sir David Attenborough did for us... www.mobydickbigread.com/chapter-105-...

John Waters and Nick Rossi, on a visit to SO THIS IS REAL LIFE, photographed by curator, Philip Hoare. We are entering the last week of the exhibition. Join @philiphoare.bsky.social for a final tour of SO THIS IS REAL LIFE on Sat. 9 May at 3pm to help close out the show >>> jhg.art/events/so-th...

John Waters and Nick Rossi on a visit to So This Is Real Life: punk-post-punk, 1975-1985 @johnhansardgallery.bsky.social honoured to have the godfather of punk call on the last week of the show

Derek Jarman's short film, 'Jordan's Dance', 1977, now showing at jhg.art/events/so-th... final week - closes Saturday 9 May

I'll be talking about William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love at Ulster University, Belfast @ulsteruni.bsky.social Tues 5 May at 7 pm, part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival @cqaf.bsky.social do call in if you're feeling feral or transcendent www.ulster.ac.uk/ulsterpresen...

one week left to catch my punk-post-punk show at jhg.art/events/so-th...

EVENT ALERT! 🚨 In Conversation: Punk-post-punk Friday 1 May, 6pm Join @philiphoare.bsky.social, co-curator of SO THIS IS REAL LIFE, discussing punk-post-punk w/ Michael Bracewell, renowned author & curator, who will be reading from his new novella, The Smiths. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1985722992...

my idea of home

Forty Foot this morning

graffiti at Sandycove, Dublin. 'Your phone makes the real world less satisfactory. It's designed to do that.'

me versus the Tyger @nationalgalleryirl.bsky.social not sure who won photo @seamusmoran.bsky.social

The Forty Foot this morning

a great big happy birthday to this charming man, and all eight decades of his filthy behaviour

strange how we have turned our conurbations into constellations, an artificial microcosm of our galaxy

I once looked out of my window on Cape Cod and saw this I thought I was imagining it