Simon Busch

Head of content, former Guardian journalist and FT columnist. 'Thoughts my own' (although sometimes quite derivative).

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Visited @drjohnsonshouse (he wasn’t in) diminishing («to impair; to lessen; to degrade») the London museums I haven’t been to, to thin gruel indeed.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

@bethlemmuseum (of the mind) where, among many other interesting things, there’s an interactive exhibit on the many English words and phrases for madness. ´Bedlam’ (one such word) is itself a corruption of ‘Bethlem’, the name of the venerable mental hospital.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Constable (lots of rural child labour) and Turner (see reproduced cat paw prints found on the back of a canvas in his studio) @tatebritain

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Art warning. Saw Richard Wilson’s ‘20:50’ again for the first time in years.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

My latest From Our Own Correspondent piece for the BBC, on wandering Basque poets with their own giggling teenage fan clubs (sort of): https://t.co/WdRCJ6ls2X

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

In the Galician city of Pontevedra on a Sunday, and the silence is … striking: it’s as if consumerism never existed or went for a very long lunch.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Crossed off another on the short list of London museums I’m yet to visit. This one unsurprisingly has a cat section.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Doorknockers in recent days, as I wfh:

- someone selling «fresh» fish (a peculiarly recurrent offering, given lack of evident streams, oceans etc nearby)
- a youth asking for money to keep him «off drugs and crime»
- a pair offering Bible study classes

What next?

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Boarding Ryanair flight and, looking at the attendants, am reminded of that line from Severance: «Why are you *a child*?»

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Last came to the Lisbon district of Alfama 20 years ago, when it was all cats on strings, old ladies in black grilling shoals of sardines and holes in the wall serving delicious three course feasts for about 10 euros. I wasn’t the only one to discover the place.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Portugal, land of well tended (if sometimes rather odd) roundabouts

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Just finished the 12-day Fisherman’s Trail in Portugal, along the stirringly beautiful Atlantic coast. Now about to get on a bus and have to leave behind the staff I’d adopted (as is my wont) on the path. Became – literally – attached to it and hope someone else does, too.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Venice is drowning – in tourists. It’s the first city in the world to introduce an entry ticket to control numbers, but what do embattled locals make of the measure? Very glad that my latest BBC From Our Own Correspondent piece has aired: https://t.co/Qn6KuNQfSx

@BBCFooC

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Ryanair palimpsest

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

At the airport. ‘The diabetes is on us.’

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

It’s about time.

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Venice in a time of tourism (part 2)

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

Venice in a time of tourism (part 1)

[Simon Busch @SimonDBusch]

I’m in Venice. In a monastery. At least there is little in the way of hotel « art ».