David Hockney: On deafness 'I never liked background music. Music for me has to be in the foreground. I never play music when I paint or draw. I did enjoy going to concerts and the opera because it had a non-electronic sound. I used to play music in my car, the last one having eight speakers, but if passengers wanted to talk, I turned it off. The drive from London to Bridlington takes about four hours and we would play a Georg Solti recording of “Tannhäuser” — marvellous for going 80 miles an hour on the motorway. I can recommend it. The one good thing about my deafness is it has made me perceive space quite differently. A blind man gets around with his hearing and so why shouldn’t a deaf person perceive space differently. Of course you might only detect this if you are an artist. And since I am deeply interested in perception and depiction, of course I’ve noticed this...' Read his piece on noise, hearing aids and solitude: buff.ly/y1gavZv

Belfast after the 'beheading', by Aris Roussinos (@arisroussinos) The nightmare scenario for Sinn Féin would have been Catholics rioting against immigrants. That did not happen: instead, working-class Catholics merely turned out to watch their Protestant neighbours riot with an anthropological detachment newly devoid of open contempt. I have never until now heard working-class Catholics, from devoutly Republican areas, talking about the coming together of the ‘Orange and the Green’ with anything other than derision. At Ardoyne Roundabout, one of North Belfast’s most volatile sectarian interface areas, protestors from both communities shook hands and declared amity in scenes that were genuinely startling. Read more below ⬇️ buff.ly/pZILUkj