In the capital

+In London for a couple of days for British Humanist Association events, one of which was a reception at the U.S. Embassy in honour of World Humanist Day. It felt a little incongruous celebrating that in such a venue (with an attendant Gaza Peace protest opposite) but the US is a country of many faces - and not a few of them are humanist to the core. So, rather patronisingly perhaps we should never forget that. The second event was the 'Voltaire Lecture' with Daniel Chandler, addressing the subject of what would create a free and equal society. Daniel's philosophical guide is John Rawls. Many ideas presented have floated around for some time. My question to him was, given the existential and pressing climate change crisis, how much time do we have to properly democratise society? Not least when there will be strong anti-democratic forces at work? He didn't have a direct answer on timing, but suggested that if humanity navigates the climate crisis, it will be in need of positive ideas. The question is, will those ideas capture the public's mood, or will negativity reign supreme when quite possibility everyone is going to be a lot worse off? Having said which, a relatively short, catastrophic crisis, the Second World War led to the NHS, nationalisation of essential industries and a greater welfare state. Our current political leadership hasn't the imagination to replicate that transformation, wedded as it is to its centrist nostrums.

+Two paintings by John Singer Sargent are currently available to see in separate London galleries. The Imperial War Museum has 'Gassed' (1919) which shows a line of First World War troops staggering blindfolded to some possible location of relief. It is one of the most iconic paintings of the war. It is painted on a historic scale. Then at the National Portrait Gallery is Sargent's 'Generals of World War 1' (1922). On a similar scale, it portrays the leading culprits behind so many needless deaths in the futile trench fighting of the time. In similar muted colours the generals generally stare blankly from the canvas. These two pictures should be exhibited together. The generals' ribbons, medals and braid would contrast sharply with the blindfolds of the gassed soldiers. I illustrate one Field Marshall's physog below. This is Field Marshall Lord Plumer. He could be a later stage Colonel Blimp, although he has a look of condescension which I doubt Blimp was capable of.

+My entry to the Turner Prize this year was sadly refused. My work consisted of approaching a black curtain and included the following dialogue: [Attendant, seated] 'It's closed. That's why the curtain is there.' [Protagonist, peeking] 'Sometimes you have to walk through a black curtain in an art gallery.' [Attendant, standing up] 'Well it's closed.' [Shuffling noise of curtain on rail] If asked, the title of this work, so redolent of my emerging practice is 'The Sound of one hand clapping.'

+Whilst in London I found a book Attack Warning Red: How Britain Prepared for Nuclear War by Julie McDowell (Vintage, 2024). This details the horrifying inadequacy of government preparedness to deal with the impacts of nuclear war on the UK population in the period from the start of the Cold War in the 1940s to the mid-1980s. It was in the last years of the Cold War, up to the fall of the Berlin Wall which saw the demise of traditional pretences of 'civil defence.' I wonder if the author proposes a follow up - what do governments post 1990 and into the 21st century consider the best way to protect people (the stock answer of course is 'deterrence')? But nowadays, post the Putin aggression, there is more talk of the likelihood of some nuclear engagement. If the West allows its weapons to be used against Russian territory, will the criminal in the Kremlin show restraint? The Doomsday Clock has never been closer to midnight. If the UK government wishes to place all its eggs in the nuclear deterrence basket, and the basket fails, it must surely have a Plan B. I'm willing to bet it will sacrifice the general population in order to protect a hard core. That's one of the inevitable consequences of austerity - shrink the margins, make everything 'just in time' (a new twist on that vaunted principle of trade economics). McDowell exposes what a sham civil defence in the nuclear age really was. Perhaps it's for the best that the foolish pretence has been abandoned - just as we all will be should the 'balloon go up.' Definitely an area for some further research.