No one should pay to see this movie until Disney stops censoring employees who say things disagreeable to the regime. That will be no great sacrifice as this movie will be dull as rocks. www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

What a beautifully written article that made me feel the heat of Egypt. 😱 I have always dreamed of going there, to see the pyramids and other wonders. We should never forget the ancient artists that left their mark on the walls and ceilings. Thank you for sharing your journey!

Baalbek

I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. ~Charles Bukowski #Quote #Booksky #CharlesBukowski #Writer #Poet

1. Just so we’re clear, this is the clip that got Jimmy Kimmel’s show shelved by ABC. If I’m missing any other clips please let me know.

This is from that wonderful piece by @lauracummingart.bsky.social in the Observer re the upcoming Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition on Ancient Egyptian artists - a painting I've never seen before of a monkey scratching a woman’s nose, believed to be a parody of the Opening of the Mouth ceremony

Read and be transported.

The most significant trip I've ever taken in terms of a new history of art. Ancient Egypt as we've never seen it before! @theobserveruk.bsky.social @nealspencer.bsky.social @timadamswrites.bsky.social rhttps://observer.co.uk/culture/art/article/face-to-face-with-the-pharaohs-tomb-artists

Dot to dot art, my review of fabulous National Gallery show 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 observer.co.uk/culture/art/...

Four new pairs of shoes a week: Marie Antoinette - vacuous spendthrift or style icon? Find out soon... Meanwhile, my verdict...@V_and_A observer.co.uk/culture/art/...

Four new pairs of shoes a week: Marie Antoinette - vacuous spendthrift or style icon? Find out soon... Meanwhile, my verdict...@V_and_A observer.co.uk/culture/art/...

Happiest of publication days to my husband. Out now! American Roundhead, MP, double-dealer, spy for Cromwell, spy for the King...Huge congratulations to him and @atlanticbooks.bsky.social

Absolutely delighted that Dan Briggs, son of the BBC's first official historian Asa Briggs, has written to The Observer supporting the need for on-request vetting to re-instated at the BBC Written Archives Centre (p.29; not I think online). Letter's wording is in the .alt element. #waccampaign

At the Cafe-Concert

We're enjoying some time off. Listening to @lauracummingart.bsky.social's Speed of Light this morning 📷 BBC Radio 4 - Speed of Light by Laura Cumming share.google/TvhBpJmGasGZ...

Also @theobserveruk.bsky.social

The quasi-dream states of night-waking and how they relate to creativity are so fascinating, as @lauracummingart.bsky.social shows observer.co.uk/culture/art/...

Late for work, fire in the theatre, no ink in the pen at exams: anxiety dreams haven’t changed in centuries!https://observer.co.uk/culture/art/article/can-we-paint-our-dreams

This month I feature @zoeyunker.bsky.social, @thetyee.ca, @theguardian.com, @darakerr.bsky.social, @markstoll.bsky.social, @theobserveruk.bsky.social, @lauracummingart.bsky.social, and more! #envhist

Late for work, fire in the theatre, no ink in the pen at exams: anxiety dreams haven’t changed in centuries!https://observer.co.uk/culture/art/article/can-we-paint-our-dreams

New episode of @theobserveruk.bsky.social podcast The Lab Detective is now available. In Athens we investigate another potential miscarriage of justice where a mother accused of murdering her children is still in jail. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

How to liberate 450 schoolgirls from the Taliban. For more than a decade, writer Bella Pollen helped her friend support a pioneering school in Afghanistan. When US forces withdrew, that became a life-and-death commitment. Read more:

The shameless lives of the Duke and Duchess of York The most damning royal takedown since Spare paints Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson as venal, grifting and obsessed by sex.

@ericawgnr.bsky.social says it!

My piece on the golden Millet @nationalgalleryuk.bsky.social in The Observer New Review @observernews.bsky.social

One perspective is often missing from research about why children spend so much time on screens: the kids’. So Lenore Skenazy, Zach Rausch, and Jonathan Haidt polled 500 children, who explained how childhood is changing—and how to make it better. https://theatln.tc/e3BU9tWg

Really enjoyed this on Andy Goldsworthy from @lauracummingart.bsky.social. Think Edinburgh is too great a trek to see the exhibition unfortunately observer.co.uk/culture/art/...

Nadar’s great rotating self-portrait! Last in my series Speed of Light at 11.45am today @BBCRadio4 and on @BBCSounds forever

A piece I wrote last year about a painting that has enchanted me since I was a teenager. Contains a fair bit about ladders. mathewlyons.substack.com/p/ladders-of...

Thank you for Burglar Bill, The Jolly Postman and the rest ❤️ www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

Yesterday, Mayall, today Bertillon and tomorrow Nadar!

Alphonse Bertillon, inventor of le portrait parle, who will change the face of crime forever. Next up pn my series Speed of Light at 11.45am on BBC Radio 4 @bbcsounds.bsky.social

Today’s episode (Weds) just now stopped me in my tracks, so moved was I by your description of the Sargeant’s photograph with his daughter, Mayall giving him ‘his best shot.’ Beautifully done, thank you.

Fabulous from @lauracummingart.bsky.social on the almost-forgotten master photographer William Notman, who left Scotland for fame and fortune in Canada: observer.co.uk/culture/phot...

"His great invention is the composite, where all the different elements – figures, props, painted backdrops, painted negatives – are united in one collage, and then rephotographed to make the great image. Now far-flung families could all be in the same room ...." I was Photoshopped into a team pic

The Bear! On BBC Radio 4 this morning at 11.45am, and all week at the same time: my series, Speed of Light, about these genius NINETEENTH century photographers! @bbcsounds.bsky.social

My series on these amazing 19th century photography pioneers starts today at 11.45am on BBC Radio 4 and runs all week, also on @bbcsounds.bsky.social . Join me!

Wow! He has the same kind of wild energy as Peter Freuchen. A brilliant piece 🙏

The Scot from Paisley who photographed The Bear - way back in the 1880s! My bit on the great William Notman @markcousinsfilm.bsky.social @timadamswrites.bsky.social @englishsettlement.bsky.social @allanjenkins21.bsky.social observer.co.uk/culture/phot...

The Scot from Paisley who photographed The Bear - way back in the 1880s! My bit on the great William Notman @markcousinsfilm.bsky.social @timadamswrites.bsky.social @englishsettlement.bsky.social @allanjenkins21.bsky.social observer.co.uk/culture/phot...

It’s a crying shame Michael Portillo hasn’t featured the Herne Hill Gates to Brockwell Lido excursion on Great British Train Journeys.

I can’t think of greater praise than that my book should be for anyone interested in life. Heartfelt gratitude!

Such a beautiful love letter to The Dutch Golden Age, to Carel Fabritius and to all our fathers. Great timing as well: Exactly when I was thinking about my future and judging my past. I might return and re-read this book after ten years or so and see how I would feel... @lauracummingart.bsky.social

various revelations are fascinating. Despite the terrible events/long kept secrets, it is wonderful that some people lived long enough to pass on memories (to say nothing of vocal records/the final heartbreaking handwritten message.) A truly amazing, beautifully written memoir-cum-detective story4/4

good on elucidating artworks by Brueghel, Degas, Ghirlandaio etc 'We need images, quite apart form anything else, when we have no words.' It is amazingly perceptive on photographs. 'these fragments of time held intact down the century in tiny sepia rectangles, so public and yet so intimate.' The 3/4

loved this much more. At times the pictures + combination of memoir with uncovering the history of another life reminded me of Alexander Masters' books, but the fact that in this instance the person involved was related to the author created a subtly different dynamic. The book is unsurprisingly 2/4

Read @lauracummingart.bsky.social's "On Chapel Sands". Had wrongly assumed that an investigation into the tale of 'a young girl kidnapped from a beach' found 5 days later with no memory of the experience would be a grim dark revelation. Had enjoyed "The Vanishing Man" when I read it last year, I 1/4

How a title can ruin a picture’s future. Obsessed with this portrait for decades, elated to see a whole ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️show centring upon it, curated by fellow obsessive Fiona Tan observer.co.uk/culture/art/...

#BookSky Definitely worth reading…..

🎧 PODCAST 🎧 In this week’s podcast, Tariq Ali is in conversation with Oliver Eagleton about his life lived flamboyantly and magnificently on the Left, as told in his latest memoir YOU CAN’T PLEASE ALL, the follow-up to his seminal 1987 book STREET-FIGHTING YEARS Listen here: lrb.me/d63