It's the very process of looking at something that makes it beautiful.
- David Hockney
Saddened to hear that he has passed away. We need more artists to see & reveal the beauty in this broken world.
Opinion: You might have thought the world’s richest man had enough on his plate teeing up history’s biggest IPO. Yet he has been devoting many of his waking hours to stoking up racial hatred in Britain on his social media site. https://t.co/1C09ebAgPg
Most of the obituaries and tributes to David Hockney will, I imagine, focus primarily on his extraordinary craft and brilliance as an artist. Perhaps they might also mention his brilliance as a communicator (he was such a fine writer and speaker).
But there was something else rather unique about him too. He was also strikingly honest about the tricks/techniques artists use and used to paint. His book Secret Knowledge is a rather wonderful detective work into how renaissance and Dutch golden age painters used glass and mirrors to help them master perspective.
It's a pretty compelling case (see this video clip from a BBC doc he made alongside the book👇) though I'm sure some art historians will raise their eyebrows. Many will be aghast at the notion that greats like Vermeer might have been using lenses and camera obscuras to help them draw and paint. As if it were in some way "cheating". But Hockney was so self-evidently brilliant he was one of the few people who could document this without anyone gainsaying his own talent.
There are very few artists, living or dead, who have this degree of self-confidence. Not just to know their craft, but to be bracingly honest about how it works. One other who comes to mind is Paul Simon: not just an extraordinary musician but is also an extraordinary communicator about the tricks and techniques of how to write and perform music.
For many great artists, the temptation is to cloak their crafts in mystery, like a member of the magic circle. Hockney wasn't having any of it. So yes, he was a legend in all the obvious ways. But also in a few other less obvious ways as well. RIP.
The next war won't be won by armies, navies or air forces alone.
It'll be won by the country whose 19 year olds can code, whose factories can build drones in weeks not years, and whose grid stays on when someone tries to switch it off.
Industry. Society. Economy. That's the fight now.
We're not ready. And we're not being honest about what getting ready will cost.
I must confess to being a bit emotional this morning at the news of a knighthood for Kevin Sinfield.
I’ve always called him ‘Sir Kev’ and it’s hard to think of a man more deserving. He showed us all what it is to be a friend. What it means to step up when people need you and he did it all for his mate ❤️
After he carried Rob across the line in the Leeds marathon someone sent me this poem anonymously and I kept it on my phone. They called it ‘Arise Sir Kev’…
When shadows gathered, and hearts would break
Kev knew it was time to take…
One step, another, through wind and rain,
Carrying hope, despite the pain.
He never stopped, mile after mile,
Driven by loyalty, strength… a smile.
For Rob, his friend, he aim was true
Showing us all, what friendship can do.
Not measured in trophies, applause, or fame…
But turning up, again and again.
And in every mile he chose to run,
He showed us how friendship is truly done.
Your car is German. Your pizza is Italian. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Brazilian. Your movies American. Your shirt is Indian. Your electronic Chinese. Your numbers Arabic. Your letters are Latin. And you complain your neighbor is an immigrant! Pull yourself together.
Hilary Benn is spot on: Peaceful protest is one thing, but masked thugs stopping cars to check skin colour and burning families out their homes?
“This is RACIST THUGGERY. There is no question about it at all.”
Caroline Lucas: "We need to recognise that what happened on the streets of Belfast was being orchestrated by the far right, by Elon Musk, by a network of people who actually want this to happen, so it wasn't quite as spontaneous as it looked.. and that has to be stopped"
My brilliant friend @bbclysedoucet has won the Women’s Prize for non-fiction. I am bursting with pride and excitement! Her book ‘The Finest Hotel in Kabul’ is wonderful. https://t.co/04jKKks6A3
New York Times investigative journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman are this generation's Woodward and Bernstein.
This story is Trump's Watergate and it's about to EXPLODE:
Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, White House Counsel David Warrington, FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and former Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich converted the hallowed Situation Room — America's nerve center for real threats and decisive action — into a pedophile protection racket, where top officials huddled to cover-up the Epstein files scandal and protect a president who used to rape children for fun.
"Very poor white people” are being convinced that “very poor, hard-working brown or Black people” are responsible for the “problems caused by billionaire white men”, Allison Morris, Crime Correspondent at the Belfast Telegraph, says in the wake of the riots that spread through the capital of Northern Ireland overnight.
"30 women were murdered… not one road was closed, not one protest. What was the connection? They were murdered by white locals."
Belfast resident Mark gives @BenKentish a stark picture of the riots unfolding in his city.
In my dealings with him, John has always been a man of firm moral courage and utterly loyal to the PM. If he sees fit to resign, then Starmer is officially cooked.
The nuke veterans who were relying on John to push his records review to conclusion by recess will be devastated.
This is possibly the saddest thing I've seen in a long time..an immigrant nurse talking about fleeing her home..she saved her UNIFORM. So she could still WORK for our communities.
I'd fill this country with a thousand of this woman than one of those good for nothing thugs.
God help this poor woman.