Ewww… get your politics out of my art! 🫨

What is up?

I guess every job comes with its dangers, right? So this week I discovered “trigger finger”, which has basically reduced the little finger on my right hand to having one of two positions (on or off)… it’s also quite unsettling to switch modes.

If you use a trackpad, make sure you know what your pinky’s up to. That’s my advice for this week.

Anyhoo, you’re not here for medical updates. You’re here to read about a minute in recent podcast audio that defines what “good” sounds like. Right? Right!

Last week I started listening to The Rest is Entertainment. It’s hosted by TV legend Richard Osman, along with Marina Hyde whose business is being professionally wrong about pop culture for the Guardian.

In this clip, which starts at around 29:25 in my copy, Marina begins the descent on a wonderful rant about the separation of art and politics – or rather the lack thereof – in the wake of boycott threats to a literary festival here in the UK.

The ins-and-outs aren’t that important – and to be honest, they slid off my brain without gaining any traction – but what this piece points to is, to my mind, a tricky moment we’re having in society where a sort of all-or-nothing mentality is causing people to cut their nose off to spite their face.

I’m here for a world in which we hold big businesses – and the other businesses that support them – to account if they’re doing terrible things. But boycotting a festival and refusing to turn out for artists and creatives because somewhere up the stack someone’s taking money for something shady… is dumb.

Anyway, that’s my piece.

What I liked about Marina’s let’s-not-call-it-a-rant is that she’s highly articulate and her obvious passion comes through without the bluster or fluster I know I can communicate. I’d love to be able to eviscerate someone – or an argument – in the way Marina can.

This episode in general also shows the wisdom behind the pairing of Osman and Hyde. As Richard says in this episode, “I will never see a fence without wanting to sit on it”. This makes him the perfect counterpart to Hyde.

The comments are open if you want to talk about the clip or if, like me, you want to be the next old man yelling at clouds.

In the meantime, take excellent care of yourself. And up the arts! ✊

You’re brilliant,
-Mark x