Link via Quentin and, earlier, Ian Yorston.
Original source is That Mitchell & Webb Look – Series 1 DVD (2007)
Daily Archives: July 5, 2009
A Yorkshire genius
We’ve been watching a terrific BBC film (in Alan Yentob’s Imagine series) about David Hockney’s return to his Yorkshire roots. It’s an entrancing movie (still on iPlayer here.) It’s complemented by this nice Spectator piece, A Yorkshire genius in love with his iPhone.
Landscape and nature dominate Hockney’s life these days. In mid-May, I arranged to call in with my wife to see him for lunch. The exact timing was decided only after a lengthy conversation by text, the point to be determined being when the hawthorn would come into blossom. As soon as it was out, he would want to be painting it all day, every day. So a definite invitation could only be made after the progress of buds in the local hedgerows was examined. Day after day for several years, in summer heat and freezing winter winds, Hockney has set up a canvas beside some quiet road. The film catches him at work, putting on the paint. At one point a local driver stops to remark to Jean-Pierre — in Yorkshire so broad that the BBC has resorted to subtitles — ‘Tell him when he’s finished we’ve got some decorating needs doing at t’pub.’ Hockney himself is as unmoved as Van Gogh was when heckled by the youth of Arles. He carries on calmly depicting the rolling fields…
Thanks to Gerard for spotting the Spectator piece.
MI6 boss adjusts his FaceBook profile
Now this really is something you couldn’t make up.
Details about the personal life of the next head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, have been removed from Facebook.
The Mail on Sunday says his wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, put details about their children and the location of their flat on the social networking site.
The details, which also included holiday photographs, were removed after the paper contacted the Foreign Office…
FaceBook doesn’t reveal, though, how he likes his Martinis.
Free Thinking
This morning’s Observer column.
The reception accorded to Free has been markedly different from the respectful audience for the Long Tail. The opening salvo came from Malcolm Gladwell, the New Yorker writer who is himself a virtuoso of the Big Idea, as expressed in books such as The Tipping Point and Outliers. He was particularly enraged by Anderson’s recommendation that journalists would have to get used to a world in which most content was free and more and more people worked for non-monetary rewards.
“Does he mean that the New York Times should be staffed by volunteers, like Meals on Wheels?” Gladwell asked icily…
The Gladwell piece is here, by the way.