April 26-May 2, 2025
SATURDAY 26 According to an article in the new Tortoise-owned Observer (a profile of Labour peer Maurice Glasman), the on-trend thinkers in the Labour Party are much closer to Donald Trump’s method madness than traditional Labour people would like to think they are.
In a weird way, Trump is behaving like a Marxist. Of course he has no idea he’s executing a Bennite policy, but that is what he’s doing.
📌 In a gripping game, Crystal Palace beat Aston Villa 3-0 to reach the final of the FA Cup. Our friend Sue was in the crowd and with every goal scored we basked in her joy.
SUNDAY 27 After half an hour at a spectacularly uneventful and poorly attended community meeting we decanted to the British Museum for a sneak preview of the Hiroshige exhibition that will open on May 1. These are images, mainly woodcut prints, you could happily stare at all day long. Even static elements appear to sway gently with the movement of the moment.
📌 At my wife’s instigation I now own a pair of Skechers, the old people’s cushion-soled walking shoes.
📌 Liverpool beat Tottenham Hotspur 5-1 to become Premier League champions. It was a scintillating one-sided game and the scenes afterwards were ecstatic.
MONDAY 28 I returned from the shops deep in thought and walked straight past our front door. My wife, indoors, saw me do it through the window and called me back from my trance. When she asked me what thought had made me forget where I live I told her that I was trying to work out the pros and cons if ever our local pub, The Shakespeare, were to become a Wetherspoons (it won’t), and whether one of the pros would be greater community engagement.
TUESDAY 29 Nowhere can I find out what caused the nationwide electricity failures in Spain and Portugal. Speculation ranges from orchestrated cyber attacks to a freak incidence of hot weather.
📌 RIP Mike Peters, 66. We had a long chat in the Philharmonic pub a long time ago. He dressed in double denim, wore an overpowering scent and expressed a secret fondness for Rhyl.
WEDNESDAY 30 I’m still trying to make up my mind if the new Tortoise ownership of the Observer is worth continuing my subscription. I subscribed initially to Tortoise because of its content, mainly its daily Sensemaker newsletter (see elements below) and for its investigative podcasts via the Tortoise app. Now, as a subscriber, I am daily bombarded additionally with Observer content, most of which is exactly the same, and as bland, as it was when it was free under the ownership of the Guardian. If at any point the price goes up, I will regretfully decline to renew.
📌 Sue P is in the Greek islands doing a sailing exam. If she passes she will be allowed to skipper a vessel. She says it’s all very stressful. I can’t honestly imagine why she ever wanted to do it.
THURSDAY 1 Michelle again went into a whirlwind of action on the diagrams I had prepared for the Dayroom project with Vital Arts. I was glad because it enabled us to put together some plans to show Carmel before Michelle goes away for three weeks. It makes it look like we’re doing something when in reality we are stalling it for a while and keeping the ideas in the back of our minds
📌 Someone decided the Bra Bank needed some additional signage.
FRIDAY 2
📌 We’re still reeling from a meeting last night at which our landlord, the City of London Corporation, revealed that it had failed to register our building for a special safety-compliance permit, and therefore work to replace our windows and repair the roof will not start on our block until 2030, and will likely cost us up to £100,000. There is no opt-out, we were told. We went to the pub afterwards and joked that many of our neighbours will be dead before then and the City of London extortion racket will be passed on to their next of kin.
📌 Chris is about to start a six-month art residency at a church in Hackney, so we blagged our way onto the guest list for the launch party, grabbed some food and wine, then listened to the artists droning on about their work.
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