Not very still life

Brilliant day. Where to begin?

Our first session was Brexit and the end of empire, ostensibly a Sally Tomlinson and Danny Dorling co-production but he is the showman and she is the academic partner so it was mostly his presentation. Main thesis: culturally we haven’t got over the end of empire and Brexit is a desperate attempt to bring back an idealised past that never existed. On the plus side it has bought out the real class divisions in our society i.e. The Bullingdon Club vs images of Grenfell. A real tour de force and suitably scathing about the likes of Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson. 8/10.

I went to see Simon Schama talking about Rembrandt which was brilliant. I love learning about great art and great artists and Schama’s visceral description was a literal eye opener. I particularly liked the description of Rembrandt as a "knobbly nosed thinking machine". 8/10.

TSM and I then did Naomi Wolf talking about sex and censorship. Annoying delivery but really interesting, and she is genuinely passionate about her subject. Her research into the life of John Addington Symonds led her to write a whole book which bought to light the way in which the Victorian establishment drove gay men underground through use of legislation. Interestingly lesbianism was never illegal; in a patriarchal society, if it didn’t involve a penis it wasn’t important. 6/10.

We then spent a few hours wandering around Hay itself. The atmosphere was lovely. Lots of music, food, imbibing, and talking to strangers. Met a lovely couple from Sheffield, so TSM got to do her nostalgia trip for the city where she did her degree (pubs and nightclubs rather than culture). Also found a beautiful place which was part cafe, part clothes, part homeware, and all round just beautifully presented stuff

https://oldelectric.co.uk/

- really lovely. That was where I took the picture. It was just too nice a tableau to pass by and in some ways told the story of our day. Also I suspect Rembrandt would have approved.

Finally after more eating and meeting more fellow festival goers we saw Kier Starmer. Impressive. Would make a good labour leader although I’m not sure he would want the job. His tales of working with Theresa May both non-politically as Director of Public Prosecutions and then politically as an MP and labour’s Brexit lead were fascinating. She is clearly not a bad person although capable of doing bad things (Starmer was particularly scathing about the vans telling illegal immigrants to turn themselves in that she was responsible for as Home Secretary); her main faults are inflexibility and failing to engage. 8/10.

Went back to the cottage and popped to the village pub for a drink before bedtime. The landlady was very friendly and they have a cat called Michael, a lovely ginger Tom who likes to have his tummy tickled.

Fantastic day. Truly fantastic.