Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 09/09/2026As Peter Cook famoudly observed, satire and invective don’t tend to alter world affairs or stop despots in their tracks, but it’s still balm for the nervous system to read Trump’s foulness being summed up with such relish. acgrayling.substack.com/p/date-zero?...acgrayling.substack.comDate ZeroChapeau to South America (South Park as was). 000
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 05/09/2026This is, objectively, the funniest UK media headline I’ve ever seen. Utterly glorious. The dog ate his homework too. 020
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 05/08/2026Zurbaran at the @nationalgalleryuk.bsky.social Astonishing. 140
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 04/08/2026I’ve given lectures in a really wide range of venues over the decades, from damp, asbestos-riddled village halls to swish American museums; I think today’s, at Chester’s Picturehouse, has the biggest screen I’ve ever worked with. Debo writ very very large. 020
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 03/07/2026Anyone can pre-book time in the print room at the @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social in Oxford. Today, with a group as part of my work, we had access to get up close with works on paper by John Ruskin. Astonishing drawings/watercolours. 1153
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 05/06/2026Every word of this. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...theguardian.comWhen does Nigel Farage 'speak for the nation'? When it suits him | Marina HydeCompare his response, or lack of, to three murders over the past decade – Jo Cox, Sarah Everard and Henry Nowak, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde 061
Reposted by Simon SeligmanJanine Gibson @janinegibson.ft.com · 28/05/2026It’s a stupidly high bar but I believe this to be Craig Brown’s finest work 521183358
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 09/05/2026OTD 200 years ago today, Joseph Paxton arrived for his first day’s work at Chatsworth, aged 23. It was the start of an extraordinary career that changed the face of horticulture and architecture forever, his Crystal Palace of 1851 being, in Norman Foster’s words, ‘the birth of modern architecture’. 040
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 06/04/2026My sister Tarisha is offering this extraordinary online course exploring, based on her own ongoing 16 year journey with cancer, how song can be both medicine and friend, and give us access to our own inner healer youtu.be/gN0AvnK0SUs?...youtu.beSinging Your Way Through Cancer – A Conversation with Tarisha | Healing, Voice & WellnessYouTube video by Singing Mamas Org 010
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 12/03/2026The way both these two men/fathers, James Hunt of ‘Stories about Autism’, and @johnharris1969.bsky.social talk about their autistic sons, and their experience of parenting these precious beings, is so beautiful and dignified and helpful. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...theguardian.comLife with my autistic sons: ‘How do you explain all the worries, the sleepless nights?’When James Hunt began posting about his boys online, it was a way to describe the emotions and experiences of their extraordinary lives. In sharing his family’s joy and struggles, he realised they wer... 140
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 19/02/2026Brilliant piece by @richardjmurphy.bsky.social on the ever-more-pressing relevance of the term ‘illth’, coined by John Ruskin, which perfectly describes the unfettered & rapacious Trumpian age we are living in. www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/02...taxresearch.org.ukEconomic questions: the John Ruskin questionThis is one of a series of posts that will ask what the most pertinent question raised by a prominent influencer of political economy might have been, and what the relevance of that question might be ... 062
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 17/02/2026Very grateful to The Arts Society for inviting me to be one of their monthly 'instant experts', sharing my admiration for the life & work of one of my lecture subjects, the C19th genius Joseph Paxton, the man who put the world under glass in his Crystal Palace of 1851. mailchi.mp/4e5ebf6ff131...mailchi.mpBecome an instant expert on Sir Joseph Paxton 010
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 12/02/2026Lecturing today for The Arts Society Loughborough, on life & work of my old boss, mentor & friend Debo Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, who did so much to transform Chatsworth over 54 yrs. Topical again with popularity of TV dramatisation of her sisterhood’s pre-war life & a future Ch4 doc to come. 010
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 11/02/2026A dream of a job for the right person, in a dream of a place. #chatsworth 110
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 09/02/2026Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of John Ruskin, that complex, far-seeing C19th critic of the dehumanising impacts of industrial capitalism, the man who coined the term 'ILLTH' to describe hoarding, rapacious, extractive & selfish greed/behaviour, the opposite of...1/2 162
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 30/01/2026A lovely Substack from Louis Weinstock about time, to which I contribute, both as a man approaching 60, and as my zoom avatar, cunning fox. open.substack.com/pub/louiswei... 010
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 29/01/2026Never ceases to amaze me that with 30 mins free before or after a train journey from St Pancras, you can drop into the @britishlibrary.bsky.social permanent gallery of treasures, for free, & be quietly communing with the Lindisfarne Gospels, Magna Carta, Jane Austen, Beethoven & many other wonders. 092
Reposted by Simon SeligmanMark Thomas @markthomasinfo.bsky.social · 26/01/2026Don’t Reform leaflets legally have to say *May contain Tories 813527
Reposted by Simon SeligmanStephen King @stephenking.bsky.social · 23/01/2026You know who”stayed a little back” in VIetnam? DJT. 30896512085
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 13/01/2026For anyone with any skin in the SEND game, directly or indirectly, bracing yourselves for the ugly reset (& accompanying lies & demonisation coming from Reform/Daily Mail types) that appears to be on its way, this is a really wonderful resource. @johnharris1969.bsky.social knows whereof he speaks. 099
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 25/12/2025On our Christmas Day stroll to the pond today, Sophie unwittingly recreated, albeit it with rather more clothes on, Rembrandt’s beautiful painting of A Woman Bathing in the National Gallery. 010
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 16/12/2025Wonderful essay, weaving Arcadian thoughts around Austen, Stoppard and Chatsworth. 010
Reposted by Simon SeligmanBloodaxe Books @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social · 06/11/2025In tribute to the late Tony Harrison, BBC Radio 4 will be rebroadcasting this 2013 feature on v., his controversial long poem. Tony Harrison read the poem in full, and writer Blake Morrison discussed the poem's impact. Tune in at 11pm tonight, 6 Nov, or listen later. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...bbc.co.ukBBC Radio 4 - Artworks, v. by Tony HarrisonThe controversial poem by Tony Harrison, to mark his death. 075
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 31/10/2025I carved this pumpkin in 2020, when America was making its first (and last?) attempt to be rid of the putrefying orange menace. It turns out that rotting carcasses can regenerate after all. 010
Reposted by Simon SeligmanStephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 31/10/2025If you're a National Trust member, it's that time of year again: Midnight tonight is the deadline. It's a shame people have to keep doing this to keep a toehold on historical truth in this country, but here we are. Voting link: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/a... 381550797
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 21/10/2025I found this a wonderful read. Fantasy vs Disappointment: a dispatch from the fence. open.substack.com/pub/louiswei...open.substack.comFantasy vs Disappointment: a dispatch from the fence.1. Sometimes the world feels juicier, more full of possibility, when it’s playing as a private showreel in the cinema of my own mind. 100
Simon Seligman @oybat.bsky.social · 20/10/2025They’re worse than ‘traditionalists’, some of the Restore Trust folk. They’re highly political, opaquely funded, regressive, entitled whingers, afraid of the rich, complex diversity of our heritage & history. They wish the @nationaltrust.org.uk nothing but malice, and this Life Member rejects them. 000
Reposted by Simon SeligmanGeorgia Harper @mindtheflap.bsky.social · 23/09/2025"There are no proven therapies or drugs that ‘cure’ autism. Most autistic people and families want research to focus on better understanding and support." Joint statement from the major UK autism charities: www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk/about-us/med...ambitiousaboutautism.org.ukOur joint statement on the US government’s autism announcementAmbitious about Autism is the national charity for autistic children and young people. We stand with autistic children, young people and their families to champion rights, campaign for change and crea... 3334101