'Idiot politicians are leading us into futile, totally worthless, unnecessary wars.' 'Nobody wins a war! This is what they've got to get into their thick heads.' Ahead of the 80th VE Day, 100-year-old veteran Dorothea Barron speaks to Ben Kentish.

Freedom in the Arts in today’s The Times and The Sunday Times “The arts world is petrified about tackling controversial subjects because ­creative people are scared to speak their mind, according to a survey that outlines a dramatic decline in artistic freedom over the past five years”

Not everyone liked this recital, but it was fascinating - and Lucas Debargue's feel for Fauré is something very special. inews.co.uk/culture/arts/l…

Quick reminder that tonight at 7pm UK time I'm doing an online talk about Dame Myra Hess and the National Gallery Concerts on Lockdown University - free to all, everywhere. Easily discoverable via a search, and I've posted the link before.

BEN AND IMO | Production Trailer ★★★★★ “Highly intimate and poignant” – musicOMH ★★★★ “An enthralling gem” – The Standard 📅 Playing until 17 May 🎥Shade Luma

Dame Myra Hess ❤️🎶🎹

So how's the Cliburn? Semifinalists all seem mightily impressive (though it's disappointing they've ended up with an all-male final). Any hot-tip favourites?

Enjoying the streaming from the The Cliburn - especially happy to discover that Chaeyoung Park played Myra Hess's 'Jesu Joy' transcription to open her semifinal recital. Sadly she's not in the finals. But the standard seems pretty astronomic all round.

“Modern pop music is anathema to me. It tortures me in shops, cafés and as it blares from passing cars,” writes Sheila Hancock. prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/lives/70…

Join us at lunchtime today in #Pinner for 600 years of musical wonder - yes, really 😊 - as early music group Sounds Historical guide us from Hildegard to Haydn pinnermusicfestival.co.uk/sounds-histori… Some tickets available on the door.

In praise of music shops! Chimes Music 🎶 SW7 - lovely window display incl. Jessica Duchen ✍️🎶 Susan Tomes Ian Leslie Melanie Spanswick Barenreiter BBC Proms ABRSM CLARA RODRIGUEZ Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Sighted at the National Gallery shop! I think Myra would love to see her biography rubbing shoulders with books on the Surrealists, the Occult and, most of all, The Militant Muse.

A very welcome sight in the Financial Times ! Thank you! 🎹🎶❤️🙏🙏🙏

Quick ahem that if you want to get a signed copy of Myra Hess - National Treasure, I’ll be doing some tomorrow, Thurs, at Sheen Bookshop on Upper Richmond Road, SW14, between 12.30 and 2.30pm. 📚🎹🎶❤️🙏

Myra makes the Top 10! Read Jessica Duchen ✍️🎶's new highly-acclaimed biography. 'Best summer books of 2025' - FTWeekend Ten Greatest Women Pianists of All Time: interlude.hk/?p=137521

Thrilled and extremely grateful to find Myra Hess in the FT's Summer Books choice this weekend! Kahn & Averill

And next weekend I'm off to talk about Myra at the Felixstowe Book Festival... ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/felix…

The hugely high stamp duty imposed by Osborne and then Reeves has created a crisis of “never moving” in the U.K. housing market. High prices are not a good thing, but a vibrant, fluid market is essential for a healthy economy and we now have a totally stagnant property market.

Commentators pretending to believe that Glyndebourne's wind turbine is at fault for failing to compensate for multiple power cuts on Saturday. We rely on the grid to operate. The turbine keeps the bills down. One adds: "you could not make it up". Reader, they made it up.

Inspiration from Pablo Neruda (b otd 1904): "You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming." "Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread." “To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.”