Nice bit of Bruegel blended with Hopper today from CWS:

I think this is the Bruegel? The Blind Leading the Blind

Has CWS gone too far with this one? He's doctored an old photo of der Führer and El Duce, adding our very own El Farage banging his pot for the NHSS. 

Hitler: "Mein Gott, it is that Britisher idiot again. Look the other way, Benito - pretend you haven't seen him."

Gollum has a new "precious" in this Berlin mural;

Ukrainian quarantine advice poster:

Trike, I wanted to say that the Ukrainian Christ was a lady, but after enlarging the picture and also the real one and after comparing I saw that it was the same Christ but with a "mouth mask?".
After all if the ladies aren't "prepared" as some do, they are not that different of men in my humble opinion...at least when one
limits to the "face"...I think no wink needed?...

Kind regards, Paul.

Could it be a reference to nosferatu?


This does look to me like Cummings .

Or is he really the Grand Mekon?



Seriously though has anyone actually seen him since he scuttled out of No.10 about a month ago about the time Al Johnson supposedly when down with a bit of the flu'?

Some of the current challenges doing the rounds to recreate artworks at home using whatever is to hand are beginning to produce some notable attempts.















The next one's cheating as it was actually an entry in a similar pre-apocalypse challenge from a few years ago, but it's enjoying a new lease of meme life at the moment. I like it:

Good ones, nord...
Corona isolation creates a spark of creativity...
Regards, Paul.

Another from Cold War Steve, based on Quack by Jan Steen:

This is England.

I think our Steve is brilliant.

This is another one from a couple of days ago:
Would barber Adolf be asking Nigel if he would like a parting on the right ??

Good one Trike. where do you find them all. Keep them coming...
Kind regards from Paul.

CWS's latest offering. Hogarth's Gin Lane, (has he been reading Res H ??)

I wonder if he is getting dangerously close the Amin effect. Alan Coren stopped writing his "Idi Amin" column, reportedly, because he felt by making him a figure of fun, he was glossing over the fact that the man was a genuine copper-bottomed monster.

Possibly Gil, though personally I think it is a good form of criticism of Government and its' policies.


Anyway, here is the latest CWS:

Trike, I guess everybody in the Anglo-Saxon world will know it. But who is the guy with the Fray Benton plate? Kind regards, Paul.

It's Sam Allardyce, one time manager of the English National Football Team, who left the job after allegations of malpractice.

English football scandal



He was born in the Midlands, so that may be why CWS put him in the picture.

I didn't get that it was Allardyce - too thin by current Big Sam standards. It's a less than recent photo that CSW has used obviously (and who's the guy in the foreground?).

I certainly don't get the "2". The numbers for the other two show ongoing Covid-19 death tolls in their respective countries. Has Allardyce responsibility for deaths in the "midlands"? Have only two people died under his watch? Obviously some news story that never made it out of the UK - or maybe even into the newpapers.

All very esoteric (though I can sort of understand Shipman's inclusion) ... and if there's humour there it's whooshed way over this viewer's head for one.

Speaking of no sense of humour .... in China the authorities are getting very hot under the collar about images such as this one that have been doing the meme rounds locally. All very innocent looking, and even might be seen as salutary and respectful reminders shared between members of the public simply to remember to use basic PPE and curtail the spread of the virus. The individuals portrayed aren't even important - they are not people of cultural, historical or political note, just anonymous and generic illustrations of members of the public themselves in most cases. But they are painted in a style strongly associated with the cultural revolution, so what is offending the authorities isn't so much that face masks have been slapped on particular individuals the regime does not wish to be lampooned, even slightly, but that it is an "offence" against the ethos of Chinese communism itself. Scary thinking, when you think about it ....

I don't get the "2" either. The guy in the foreground is actor Steve McFadden, Phil Mitchell in "Eastenders". CWS puts him into his pictures on a regular basis.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Trike, I guess everybody in the Anglo-Saxon world will know it. But who is the guy with the Fray Benton plate? Kind regards, Paul.

Fray Bentos. It's a pie that comes in a tin. Easily stored, easily cooked. Proper Covid-19 food.

Your explanation of the references has now qualified the clarity of the satire to "mud" status. Still a long way to go though ...

I've had that problem with a few of the earlier CSW images too - I can appreciate sometimes when he has cleverly adapted a famous painting and inserted arbitrary characters (the "guess the painting game" is enjoyable to play), but when it comes to the significance of his alterations in every case there are many that go straight over my head, and I assume each time that I'm just not familiar enough with the current affairs particulars to "understand" the reference, though UK people of course would get the joke immediately.

But now I'm wondering about that too. I think CSW might have everything sorted in his own head and he really believes he's producing fantastically sharp and astute political/social satire. But without an audience on exactly the same wavelength he's certainly "hit and miss" satire-wise, and without the human tendency to pretend to "get" jokes for fear of appearing stupid to others who in truth are equally baffled, I'm not sure his current popularity is as deserved as all that. There must be others doing better examples of this out there - but who simply haven't got the "traction" (as they say these days) that CSW has fortuitously benefited from on social media?

I disagree with the above post; and I believe it is a mistake to dismiss this artist's work so readily.

CWS's political/social satires have touched many a nerve here - and that, surely, is the hallmark of the effective satirist. The man has certainly made me stop and think more carefully about the state of our nation, and in a way that many "cleverer" and perhaps more "intellectual" commentators have not. He gets to our hearts too, not just our heads, and that indicates we are dealing with a serious artist. I can't comment on technique, because I do not understand enough about such things, but something is happening when I look at stuff such as CWS's latest work, the picture produced below. It is a unearthly, haunting, dreamlike image, one which immediately made me think of WWI - the war poets... And that's not me trying to show anyone I "get" it, or me trying to display some kind of false/fake, Pseuds' Corner, "appropriate" reaction. The ghosts passing through the bluebells disturb and unsettle me - distressingly so. Shades - literally - of Wilfred Owen: what passing bluebells for these who have died as cattle?  As for the grinning Shipman - more shades are conjured up by this man's apposite presence, this time those ghosts from the nightmare camps where the efficient Nazi Doctor Death (his real name escapes me) practised his profession.

But perhaps, as suggested above, it is just another stupid UK thing - again, I don't know - but I defy anyone who has lived through the past few days here, culminating yesterday, not in a northern bluebell wood, but in a London rose garden, not to be moved - and horribly disturbed - by all this. We witnessed a man, a eugenics expert, seated bizarrely at a desk in the sunshine, surrounded by flowers and horrified journalists, a man who informed us all coldly, without a trace of emotion (except contempt), that he regretted nothing. It was a chilling spectacle. 

Thank God for artists like CWS: we need them as never before.

PS


CWS's work may be viewed here: Twitter or not, it's well worth a look.


https://twitter.com/Coldwar_Steve


His take on Thomas Rowlandson's The Sad Discovery of the Graceless Apprentice:

Temperance wrote:

I disagree with the above post; and I believe it is a mistake to dismiss this artist's work so readily.

CWS's political/social satires have touched many a nerve here - and that, surely, is the hallmark of the effective satirist. The man has certainly made me stop and think more carefully about the state of our nation, and in a way that many "cleverer" and perhaps more "intellectual" commentators have not. He gets to our hearts too, not just our heads, and that indicates we are dealing with a serious artist. I can't comment on technique, because I do not understand enough about such things, but something is happening when I look at stuff such as CWS's latest work, the picture produced below. It is a unearthly, haunting, dreamlike image, one which immediately made me think of WWI - the war poets... And that's not me trying to show anyone I "get" it, or me trying to display some kind of false/fake, Pseuds' Corner, "appropriate" reaction. The ghosts passing through the bluebells disturb and unsettle me - distressingly so. Shades - literally - of Wilfred Owen: what passing bluebells for these who have died as cattle?  As for the grinning Shipman - more shades are conjured up by this man's apposite presence, this time those ghosts from the nightmare camps where the efficient Nazi Doctor Death (his real name escapes me) practised his profession.

But perhaps, as suggested above, it is just another stupid UK thing - again, I don't know - but I defy anyone who has lived through the past few days here, culminating yesterday, not in a northern bluebell wood, but in a London rose garden, not to be moved - and horribly disturbed - by all this. We witnessed a man, a eugenics expert, seated bizarrely at a desk in the sunshine, surrounded by flowers and horrified journalists, a man who informed us all coldly, without a trace of emotion (except contempt), that he regretted nothing. It was a chilling spectacle. 

Thank God for artists like CWS: we need them as never before.

Temperance, 




On the "keep calm and sing thread" in my latest message I had a bit that in mind too:
"It seems to be a bit everywhere in the world that that far right wing parties doing the same and having the same reaction?
If you see for instance a Trump backed I suppose by a big part of the Republican party? Or a Bolsonaro from Bresil?
First the economy? Then the lives of especially poor or coloured poor people? A bit the neo-darwinism of for instance a British Sir Galton in the time?
My question: How is it in France (MM has perhaps more inside information?)? On the first sight I don't hear that much Marine Le Pen for the moment?
I found what I heard about Spain in the news: here:
https://fox23maine.com/news/coronavirus/spains-leader-asks-parliament-for-2-more-weeks-of-lockdown
and it belongs to FOX news ..."

But first about the art...
I was also moved by the picture (now not a painting from a renowned artist?). It moved me too, but not by the bluebells, but by the long trees wood and the elderly people wading through it...
Perhaps because I am moved by expressionist art ???


I had to look for Wilfred Owen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen
And frankly, you don't believe it perhaps, but I only learned about Siegfried Sassoon on our ex BBC messageboard...
and a Harold Shipman I had also never heard from...

You said:
"We witnessed a man, a eugenics expert, seated bizarrely at a desk in the sunshine, surrounded by flowers and horrified journalists, a man who informed us all coldly, without a trace of emotion (except contempt), that he regretted nothing. It was a chilling spectacle."
Can you expand on that?

Temperance, perhaps it is only a view from outside the UK, and I said it already to Triceratops, for me from the outside the handling of Covid 19 in the UK is not that very different as from instance in Belgium. In the daily statistic from the BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105
They are in line with France and Italy...I have the impression that they are whining a bit over the Channel...or is it the populist press?...in Belgium too in the beginning there was less attention for the care homes, but they have closed the care homes rapidly for the family. But as the caretakers were in the beginning also exposed to Covid 19 outside, they brought it in the care homes and some became a hotbed of the pandemy and when endly the reaction came, with closer follow up, there were already many deaths. It is up to now nearly fifty fifty with the hospital deaths. Even in Sweden they now see that there were more deaths in the care homes because they had not followed the other European countries in their rigid lockdown...

That said: I was perhaps in my above comments a bit overreacting too. The left wing populist tour? :
"It seems to be a bit everywhere in the world that that far right wing parties doing the same and having the same reaction?
If you see for instance a Trump backed I suppose by a big part of the Republican party? Or a Bolsonaro from Bresil?
First the economy? Then the lives of especially poor or coloured poor people? A bit the neo-darwinism of for instance a British Sir Galton in the time?"


About CWS's work...from over the Channel it seems to me a bit local British satire, not understandable by a world public, or at least a so-called "Western" public. His work with recognisable world figures I found better, at least for a foreign world public...

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul wrote:

Can you expand on that?

Where to begin any "expansion"? And this art topic is not the place - perhaps Priscilla's "Advisers" thread would be more appropriate. But is it worth the effort to try to explain? That, sadly, is a sign of the times. This is all about Dominic Cummings, Paul, who - non-elected - is now one of the most powerful men in the UK. Some consider him to be more powerful than the Prime Minister. He addressed the nation - and a bunch of stunned journalists - from the rose garden of Number 10 earlier this week, an interview the like of which I have never seen before. This disturbing man, considered to be the architect of Brexit and of Johnson's success in the December 2019 election here, is not a moral man. Please note I use moral in the old Roman sense, nothing to do with religion. The Guardian article - link below - may  help you understand a little better. However, it is, as you say, an English problem, and probably of no interest to people who do not live here. Here's a bit of Cicero I copied from Wiki:

O tempora, o mores! Senatus haec intellegit, Consul videt; hic tamen vivit. vivit? immo vero etiam in Senatum venit, fit publici consili particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum! O times! O morals! The Senate understands these things, the Consul sees them; yet this man still lives. He lives? Indeed, he even comes into the Senate, he takes part in public debate, he notes and marks out with his eyes each one of us for slaughter!



I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Remember Michael Flanders' rendering of "O tempora, o mores" as "O Times, O Daily Mirror"?
I wonder if a modern entertainer (or author, though Terry Pratchett did get pretty close) would use a Latin tag and expect a considerable portion of the audience to "get" it?

Triceratops wrote:

I don't get the "2" either. The guy in the foreground is actor Steve McFadden, Phil Mitchell in "Eastenders". CWS puts him into his pictures on a regular basis.

I didn't either - I know nothing about football. But I have had it explained by someone who thinks it is to do with corruption. Apparently this Big Sam person was twice investigated on corruption charges - fairly or not, I have no idea. I suppose "2" (not literally two dead, but two charges that need investigation), as opposed to a hundred thousand/forty thousand (today's figures, more or less), is the point???  but I honestly have no idea whether this is the correct explanation or not. You are dead right about Fray Bentos pies being good Covid 19 food, Trike. CWS has himself confirmed this when asked - but it first appeared in his earlier Brexit pictures. Fray Bentos was considered suitable food to stockpile for the post-Brexit-apocalypse world. Lord, how we long for all that now. What was Brexit exactly? I've forgotten.


PS His latest is a sort of Luncheon on the Grass - at Barnard Castle. Another very dark comment from our Steve.

PPS Phil Mitchell looks on all the time, doesn't he? I suppose he represents the Common Man. Standing there bewildered, like us all.

Honestly. this govt does not think things through. does it? Does anyone? Local park and water front attracting now open and attracting many to the several areas for walk, play and blank gawping at the water but no toilets have been opened so better watch where you walk we are told, whilst also looking for someone to blame or scape goat for the assorted miseries of assorted heaps piling onto our assorted lives. Best not go into govt and try to do things for 60 plus million people, I have decided as a life choice.

Priscilla wrote:

Honestly. ... Best not go into govt and try to do things for 60 plus million people, I have decided as a life choice.

I wouldn't even do it for the less than 6 million people in this country.

Priscilla wrote:

Honestly. this govt does not think things through. does it? Does anyone? Local park and water front attracting now open and attracting many to the several areas for walk, play and blank gawping at the water but no toilets have been opened so better watch where you walk we are told, whilst also looking for someone to blame or scape goat for the assorted miseries of assorted heaps piling onto our assorted lives. Best not go into govt and try to do things for 60 plus million people, I have decided as a life choice.

But if you do decide you have the vision and competence to do the job - and are paid a ministerial (or special adviser) salary plus perks - you should make a better stab at it than some of our betters are doing at the moment. That is not scapegoating anyone for our own failures/ miseries, just a performance review. If you are in a high position and mess up, resignation was always considered to be the honourable thing to do. Those privileged people who have studied literae humaniores (or Ancient and Modern history for that matter) at Oxford should understand that better than the uneducated herd (with or without immunity). But no one falls on his or her sword these days, do they; it's simply not the "done" thing?

Perhaps we should revive the Roman tradition (at least from the early empire) of sending someone a dagger as a broad hint .......

PS The Sistine Chapel pic - in "The Last Hero", Paul Kidby's vision of this, as painted by Leonard of Quirm, has Cohen the Barbarian (the eponymous "last hero") giving Blind Io the finger.

I assume that those who sign Govt Secrets papers when given a job are also Key Workers. And all those  that I know of did or could put their children in school or made other arrangements for them  - and at the time the PM fell ill 25th March people were still getting this sorted.
 I'd say that many in Govt were key workers - trying to keep stuff going and bearing awesome responsibility and many, do not forget,are key workers in areas privy to info and work they cannot divulge but are vital to their communities well being. 

Scotland that seems to have stuff sorted only  has two thirds of  the population of London so     perhaps is why. Over 60 million is one big load of problems. 

Nah  - best not get cocky and think you can do a job that covers health, economy, defence, law and order and well being for 60 million people in any weather fair or foul. I guess the very, very clever people  who can only pick holes have a different sort of vanity.

 In Massalia 2500 years or so ago. once a year on a feast day someone who had broken the law was forced and stoned out to sea where the sins and ills  and misfortunes   of the many might also be washed away in the sacrifice of that life. Frustration with circumstances often needs  a fall guy. 

However,  those that stupidly chose  to wear the political cloak of responsibility  should   not have a family lest they might sometimes cloud their judgment. And that is all too easy.

Best by far become a critic and point out all the errors and weaknesses until the proud ones  fall and another takes their place. And what a lot we have of critics we have. It takes strength to stand firm against the barrage of media giants and many who may well be right in their opinion; some might argue that it is an evil strength.  If a  good grovel is what people want then give it to them,

If Churchill- who was no saint by far - had crumbled in the face of the appraisal of much of his earlier history then the Appeasers would have won   The trouble is   that nowadays even that is not possible  It is harder to appease a disease - and now anyone with less  than half knowledge has opinion and a place to vent it.  
Why on earth do people ever want to lead? It is such a lonely place.

I think we are talking about two different things here.

I don't want a "grovel" from anyone, but an honest admission that he had panicked, and then messed up by flouting his own guidelines (several times), followed by some semblance of a sincere apology from Dominic Cummings would - possibly - have sufficed. He might even have been forgiven by the public. But no - he displayed the perverse "honesty" of the narcissist: no apology needed/offered because - as he and his boss have repeatedly told us - he had done nothing wrong. There had been no transgression. The whole unfortunate matter, as we have been informed today by Downing St., is now officially "closed". Their explanations and excuses remind me of something Elizabeth I is reputed to have said when ministers tried to lie to her about an obvious cover-up: "Rank as stale fish!" The smell of this bad business will, I fear, only get worse.

Machiavelli noted that one may judge a leader by observing the calibre of the men with whom he surrounds himself - the advisers and officials. Did Churchill ever appoint such a man - the sort Cummings is revealing himself to be?

I am reminded also of something my father used to say: that a good officer will never ask his men to do what he himself is not prepared to do. We need good officers desperately in this country: as I have observed before, we are led these days, not so much by donkeys, but by hyenas. I am sorry to disagree with you, Priscilla, but I really do think it is time to admit that we do not have a Churchill in Johnson; and what we seem to have in Cummings frankly terrifies me.

A recent example. The District council toook a decision to charge for a previously free service (a decision I profoundly disgreed with). Someone posted the name of the Cabinet member responsible on Facebook, with the suggestion that his electorate remember who to blame at the next election. Fair enough, you may say, (however he was returned unopposed so there was no alternative they could have voted for), but then others added his address etc, and a suggestion that direct action against him was a good idea. I'm not surprised that the existing veteran members are talked into standing long after they should really have stood down in everyone's interests (not least their own) because no new candidates come forward.

Re Boris - I rate him marginally below Lord Avon in effectiveness, and below Lloyd George in integrity.

Temperance wrote:

... we do not have a Churchill in Johnson; and what we seem to have in Cummings frankly terrifies me.

On their own, neither Johnson nor Cummings would seem to have the makings of a dictator. But in symbiosis, the composite Johnson-Cummings creature might well have. Without Cummings, Johnson would be bereft of strategy - without Johnson, Cummings would have no access to power. Johnson is at least as important as Cummings in this relationship, even if he is arrogant, lazy and inadequate. Johnson is totally wedded to dominance, as witness, among other things, his appointment of a cabinet of servile nonentities, but on his own has little idea of strategy nor the patience for the necessary attention to detail and hard work. Nevertheless for all his laziness, inadequacies, lies and duplicity, Johnson is not a buffoon and he has proven to be remarkably effective in getting what he wants: London mayor, foreign secretary (very bad, but May never felt able to sack him), Tory party leader, general election winner and now PM. That is quite a record and he did not have Cummings at his side for all of it. Cummings is certainly good at strategy and would appear to have neither limits nor scruples, but on his own he would have no access to power. However Johnson and Cummings together are a very dangerous combination.

Temperance wrote:

Paul wrote:

Can you expand on that?

Where to begin any "expansion"? And this art topic is not the place - perhaps Priscilla's "Advisers" thread would be more appropriate. But it is worth the effort? That, sadly, is a sign of the times. This is all about Dominic Cummings, Paul, who - non-elected - is now one of the most powerful men in the UK. Some consider him to be more powerful than the Prime Minister. He addressed the nation - and a bunch of stunned journalists - from the rose garden of Number 10 earlier this week, an interview the like of which I have never seen before. This disturbing man, considered to be the architect of Brexit and of Johnson's success in the December 2019 election here, is not a moral man. Please note I use moral in the old Roman sense, nothing to do with religion. The Guardian article - link below - may  help you understand a little better. However, it is, as you say, an English problem, and probably of no interest to people who do not live here. Here's a bit of Cicero I copied from Wiki:
O tempora, o mores! Senatus haec intellegit, Consul videt; hic tamen vivit. vivit? immo vero etiam in Senatum venit, fit publici consili particeps, notat et designat oculis ad caedem unum quemque nostrum! O times! O morals! The Senate understands these things, the Consul sees them; yet this man still lives. He lives? Indeed, he even comes into the Senate, he takes part in public debate, he notes and marks out with his eyes each one of us for slaughter!
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Temperance, thank you very much for this explanation.
Kind regards, Paul.

This Guardian article (link below) echoes your sentiments, MM. John Crace is actually using the word "dictator" of our jovial Prime Minister now - and not just in the jokey sense of a Charlie Chaplin Great Dictator buffoon. Yesterday's Daily Briefing (or Daily Bollocks, as the nation is now calling it) left me stunned yet again. The muting of everyone - journalists and scientists - was shocking, and after it finished I found myself speechless too. Crace, interestingly, considers Johnson to be "dim" (see quote). But it is possible, as you point out, to be emotionally and morally stupid, but nevertheless be politically very cunning indeed. Low cunning is not wisdom: it's the hallmark of a criminal mentality. Johnson is getting more egregious - and bolder - with every passing day. I rather agree with your assessment: the man is revealing himself to be is as calculating and cold as Cummings. Both are "clever" - Cummings intellectually brilliant if his tutor at Oxford is to be believed - but they are both shady characters, and I see little real wisdom - and no moral integrity -  in either. I would not buy a second-hand car - or bike even - from Johnson or his adviser.  I had hoped our witty Classics scholar would prove his critics wrong, but I fear I have been sadly deceived, not least by myself.

Where is the Praetorian Guard when needed? (I speak metaphorically and advocate no real daggers.) All on the beach having a barbecue, I suppose - probably been doing that for weeks now, while the rest of us did our civic duty and stayed home.

Here's an extract from the Guardian about yesterday's performance - it's worth a read:



Yet to save what now passes for his career, Boris went out of his way to trash the reputations of both the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser. Just as unbelievably, a plainly terrified Whitty and Vallance just stood there and took it. If either had a smidgeon of self worth, both would have walked out once the questions began.

It seems that many people have been making simple category errors with Boris. They have assumed that Dominic Cummings’s understudy has an intelligence and morality to compromise. That’s why more than 70% of the country had said that Johnson should do the right thing and sack his special adviser for breaking the guidelines and undermining the government’s public health message.


Yet the evidence all points to something more disturbing. That beyond an ability to recite the odd Latin phrase, Boris is actually quite dim. Worse still he is totally amoral. So the very idea of him doing the right thing is a complete non-starter.

Right from the start of the briefing, Boris set out to gaslight the entire nation...



Dim Dom or Classic Boris?



PS Apologies to Trike - all this started off about art, but we have wandered about a bit, rather like Cummings' London/Durham/Barnard Castle round trip, but at least there is a discussion going again. And my eyesight - like Cummings' dodgy vision - is being thoroughly tested. It hasn't been good lately.

John Crace's articles are supposed to be satirical sketches but increasingly he just has to describe the day's events as they occurred and let the - very black - humour speak for itself. Yesterday's briefing with Johnson, Whittey and Vaillance was indeed unlike the usual ones (Handcock's Half-Hour, I call them, even when the health secretary does not appear) and it was seriously disturbing to view.

Where is the modern equivalent of Cassius Chaerea, or Brutus and his chums? Even Julius Caesar, dictator that he was in both title and manner, took pains to distance himself from any scandal attached to a colleague, unlike Johnson who seems so wedded to Cummings that he is either blind, dim or just contemptuous, of any suggestion that Cummings is blatantly lying and taking us all for fools. As a classicist Johnson should know Suetonius' comment, uxorem Caesaris tam suspicione quam crimine carere oportet (Caesar's wife should be free from suspicion, as well as from accusation), from when Caesar divorced his wife, Pompeia, after her name became linked with that of Clodius Pulcher, who had only planned but never actually succeeded in seducing her ... a bit rough on the entirely loyal and innocent Pompeia but it meant Caesar remained squeaky clean. Johnson probably wasn't paying attention in Latin class that day.

To what end do   you reckon all this scurrilous talent is to be directed? is it  for personal gain in a corruptive manner, power to  project a small faction of society? Manage the economy with dark intent? Take the country into a hideous theatre of domination? Just curious because when the hull of the ship is dicey and the crew unable to work it needs a firm hand or two to get it safely to port through the reefs and waves of adversity. I have always marvelled that the East coastal Lee Boarders - know to you as London Barges - only needed two people to get full loads along ports of the North Sea coasts of adverse mud shoals and tides in all weathers.  I knew many of the old timer masters and crew  - tough and come to think it now, people were wary of them and did not cross them. 

Perhaps that is not a very good analogy but when has a role in power all manner of strengths are of use. One of which is keep counsel on sensitive matters to  which one is privy and which cannot be openly shared but are of importance and for which one must tell the tale of the old iron pot to avoid revealing. Leadership is a very complex affair

When the master is a sociopathic despot with a dubious IQ.

Priscilla wrote:

To what end do   you reckon all this scurrilous talent is to be directed?

I'm wondering about that too. In Johnson's case it doesn't seem to be out of any sense of public duty for the betterment of the country and its people as he doesn't seem to actually want to do the job: critical meetings skipped, deadlines missed, holidays taken when crises loom, PMQ only reluctantly attended, important briefings to the nation delegated to others, and by his own words "doesn't work weekends", and, as at yesterday's health briefing, just bluster, distraction and confusion, sacrificing people's health for the short-term benefit of deflecting scrutiny. I suspect what Johnson originally wanted was the badge, the title and honours of being PM - a bit like wanting to be head boy, or winning an Oxford debate - especially when his old university chum, Cameron, had already acheived it and secured his place in the history books. It's probably all just a game for him, boosted by the underlying arrogance and sense of privelidged entitlement of someone who has never had to do any actual work to get where he is ... yet still believes he is somehow destined for the role, however incompetent he might actually be. But I really don't know. I certainly wouldn't want to be in his position, even if there weren't a pandemic, massive unemployment looming and the country facing the sort of social and financial difficulties that rarely occur outside of major wars. Maybe Johnson actually doesn't want the position now either ... but it was his choice and the rough times are a necessary part of the job. But at the end of the day Johnson is very wealthy in his own right so could quite happily live without ever working again ... and so, unlike the rest of us, he will not be particularly inconvenienced by any fallout resulting from his disasterous and incompetent (in)action.

As to what (or who - where is that report about illegal Russian influence in the 2016 referendum?) Cummings is working for ... well who can say? I don't think he actually shares much Tory idealogy (he's not a Conservative Party member) but I doubt that really bothers him. I suspect for Cummings it's an interesting, intellectual exercise to see whether he really can subvert democratic process and deliver whatever result is asked of him. He seems to have no morals (in Temp's meaning of the word), no scruples and few limits. He too is wealthy (and his wife is genuine upper crust being the daughter of a baronet) but I don't think the prime driving force is just the aquisition of yet more money. Does anyone really know what's driving them? ... And that in itself is worrying.

On a side note, I see that Cumming's son - whose welfare was so important that it might yet bring down a government - is autistic. I wonder if Dominic is the same? It might explain some things - and I most certainly do not mean that pejoratively.

Not spoof art, as such, but belongs here all the same:



McHugh is a fine artist - have fun browsing his site here.

Well done for getting us back on topic, Nord.

Thanks to that pic, I've now noticed just how much those covid viruses do resemble old sea mines. Very apt imagery: deadly things, stuck in place, quietly sitting in the way as we go about our usual business; not actively aggressive but just there, lurking. But who's the bloke in the bed?

Jonathan was asked to illustrate a Financial Times opinion article a few weeks ago about those most vulnerable in the current crisis and duly obliged. Then the opinion writer submitted her piece which concentrated totally on obesity as a potentially fatal co-morbidity. But they published his picture with her piece anyway. Modern journalism, I suppose ...

On the Johnson subject (which belongs over on the relevant thread) I'm of the mind now that what he represents has already long gone beyond the point where parody or satire is worthwhile. His passing of a death sentence on untold thousands yesterday while flanked by those who ostensibly are there because they know the best way to avoid any unnecessary death was gruesome. I can see Priscilla's point about how difficult it is to legislate for 60m people etc, especially if one is a sociopathic moron with the moral compass of a Mengele, but if I had to choose between living in his country of 60m and any other of comparable size at the moment I'm pretty sure which one I would avoid.

Green George wrote:

PS The Sistine Chapel pic - in "The Last Hero", Paul Kidby's vision of this, as painted by Leonard of Quirm, has Cohen the Barbarian (the eponymous "last hero") giving Blind Io the finger.

Paul Kidby's illustration of "The Night Watch" for the Discworld novel of the same name. Kidby has painted his predecessor of Discworld illustration, Josh Kirby, into the same spot that Rembrandt van Rijn sneaked himself into.

btw, the name came about because of the varnish used to coat the painting, giving the impression that it is a night scene when it is in fact daylight.

Temperance wrote:

PS Apologies to Trike - all this started off about art, but we have wandered about a bit, rather like Cummings' London/Durham/Barnard Castle round trip, but at least there is a discussion going again. And my eyesight - like Cummings' dodgy vision - is being thoroughly tested. It hasn't been good lately.

Don't fret, Temp. Threads have a way of meandering off on their own.

A 30 mile drive should be OK for checking your eyesight.

This is a chilling image I saw in the Guardian - it is like  a cover from an Orwell novel. Cummings' portrait is well scary, as the kids would say.

MM, I should like to use something from your recent message here, and post it over on the Adviser thread. Do I have your permission to do that? We were having such an interesting discussion, but, as I noted - and as nord has confirmed - this Art thread is not the appropriate place for these exchanges. I actually wondered if the management could transfer all the relevant posts, but am loathe to ask in case to do so would cause an awful lot of work - especially if the Boss is still not too well?

The problems of effective leadership and the role of the adviser - really good topic.

Temperance wrote:

MM, I should like to use something from your recent message here, and post it over on the Adviser thread. Do I have your permission to do that?

Bien sûr ma chérie. Like you, and Priscilla and Nordmann, I realised we were on the wrong thread, but for comprehension it seemed easier just to continue along the same meandering path ... and Trike doesn't seem to have minded: thanks Trike. I was about to post some more musings - nothing terribly erudite, just more random thoughts - but held back as we were getting away from the OP. So by all means Temp, and Nordmann, Priscilla and Trike ... move or repost whatever you want (though you might want to correct some of my atrocious spelling).

This is from another artist in the CWS mould called wefail: