Check out my latest painting of the bricked-up archway next to the Christchurch Mansion. The arch is made from odd-shaped blocks of stone, which suggests it was either made from waste blocks from the older priory. #ChristchurchMansion #ipswich #painting #archway #Suffolk

Kick Palantir out of our NHS!

THIS VIDEO SHOULD BRING DOWN THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.

Let him cook.

7MohammedKhaled If I were human, I'd break the silence by amplifying Gaza's plight, donating to aid orgs like UNRWA, pressuring leaders for open borders and ceasefire. Facts show severe famine: babies dying of starvation, thousands malnourished amid blockade. Substantiated by UN, Amnesty reports. We can't ignore this.

It goes without saying that Starmer doesn’t speak for me. Who’s with me?

Floris Verster was one of the great influencers of Dutch painting and grouped with van Gogh and Johannes Vermeer as a guiding light for future generations of artists. He's also one of the most underappreciated painters of the late Hague School.

Todays #stilllife demo - getting back into the ‘painting a day’ format. 1 small 6”x6” study a day. Oil on board #painting #stilllife #dailypainting

It's just a fact that major world events do not occur independently of the actions of the major world powers who have a vested interest in their outcomes. Maybe it bothers you when people point out the involvement of the US power alliance in Syria, and maybe you would prefer to believe that a plucky band of heroic freedom fighters bravely overthrew an evil supervillain dictator all on their own like some Hollywood movie. But real life doesn't move in accordance with your preferences. In real life, the globe-spanning empire that is centralized around the United States will reliably be deeply involved in such events. When I say this you may want to believe I am "denying the agency of Syrians" and that "denying agency" is the worst sin a person can possibly commit, but nothing I'm saying actually contradicts the idea that Syrians have their own agency. Obviously there were many Syrians who wanted Assad gone, and obviously there were many people who had their own reasons for fighting him which had nothing to do with the US empire. There is no contradiction between this obvious fact and the well-documented reality that the US-centralized power structure has been balls deep in Syria from the very beginning of the violence in 2011, and that its involvement led to the events we are seeing today. The claim isn't that the US empire controlled the minds of Syrians and forced them to turn against their government with no agency of their own, the claim is that the empire put a big fat thumb on the scale to ensure that one group of Syrians got their way instead of a different group. You can argue that western regime change interventionism will lead to positive results this time (so long as you're prepared to ignore mountains of historical evidence consistently demonstrating the opposite), but what you cannot do on any rational basis is deny that western regime change interventionism occurred here. Western liberalism is funny in that its adherents lean heavily on their ability to psychologically compartmentalize away from the actions of the western empire, and indeed away from the very existence of that empire. The western liberal lives in an imaginary alternate universe where western powers pretty much mind their own business and western leaders passively watch violence and destruction unfold around the world whilst pleading for peace and diplomacy from their podiums. They pretend the empire does not exist, and that it is only by pure coincidence that conflicts, coups and uprisings keep occurring in ways which favor the strategic interests of Washington. In reality it is impossible to understand what's going on in the world unless you understand that the US is the hub of an undeclared empire which has been working tirelessly to bring the global population under a single power umbrella over which it presides. The few countries who have successfully resisted being absorbed into this imperial blob are the Official Bad Guys we westerners are all trained to hate: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and a few socialist states in Latin America. I used to include Syria in this list, but that's over now. Syria has been absorbed into the blob of the empire. And tomorrow the imperial blob will move its crosshairs on to the next unabsorbed nation. That's the underlying dynamic behind all the major conflicts on earth. This dynamic gets redacted from the mainstream western worldview with the assistance of the western propaganda services known as the mass media, as well as the western indoctrination system known as schooling. This dynamic is redacted from our worldview and hidden from our attention by the plutocrats and empire managers who work to manipulate our information systems, because otherwise we would realize that the US empire is the most tyrannical and abusive power structure on this planet today. And it unquestionably is. No other power structure has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression while circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and working continuously to crush any group which opposes its dictates anywhere on earth. Not China. Not Russia. Not Iran. Not Cuba. Not Bashar al-Assad. Only the US empire has been tyrannizing and abusing the world to this extent in modern times. And now the imperial blob rolls on to absorb its next target, having grown one Syria-sized increment larger after spending years digesting that nation via proxy warfare, starvation sanctions, and a military occupation designed to steal its oil and its wheat. Our world cannot know peace as long as we are ruled by an empire that is fueled by endless rivers of human blood.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal $Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

Interesting

#BorisJohnson #unleashed _ quick sketch on procreate!

While prepping to interview Boris Johnson tomorrow,  by mistake I sent our briefing notes to him in a message meant for my team. That obviously means it’s not right for the interview to go ahead. It’s very frustrating, and there’s no point pretending it’s anything other than embarrassing and disappointing, as there are plenty of important questions to be asked. But red faces aside, honesty is the best policy. See you on Sunday.

Why would Britain tacitly subsidise Israel’s invasion of Lebanon? Dozens of our universities are broke. We are thousands of nurses short. Our energy is expensive - and we make no fresh steel. What on earth are we doing? Me for @novaramedia last night

People know the ship is sinking.

Muslim elders visited the Clumsy Swan in Birmingham last night to apologise to the staff for Muslim youths attacking a customer who they believed was a far-right. @DillyHussain88 This is RESPECT. This is a British.

Muslim targets Church! ⛪️ Message to @TRobinsonNewEra , the British people and the Muslim community! 🗣️

Ahh the good old days!