Jacob Badcock

Sean Jacobs | Fela Kuti and the Nigerian Left Recent major exhibitions, one in Paris in 2022 and another in Lagos in December 2025, as well as a Lifetime Achievement...

‘These were also the themes animating Fela’s music during this period: the denunciation of military tyranny, exposure of class predation and an insistence that Nigeria’s crisis was structural rather than merely moral.’

Sean Jacobs on Fela Kuti and the Nigerian left.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

p.s. just realised his name is spelt “Rubin”, like Dave and Rick but not at all like the sandwich

not so hot take: Ruben Colwill is very good at football

hot take: confused by shouts of McGregor for POTM, he looked rusty to me and didn’t seem to be moving well, especially in the first half, when he was all at sea. granted, he improved in the second half

POTM has to be Princewill - he’s fast, strong, has quick feet, and ran his socks off… honestly can’t remember the last time i was this excited by a debut performance

first half was characteristic of our season so far: shapeless, aimless, ineffective

second half was more like we want to be: determined and resilient with smatterings of quality

good morning @maxrushden.bsky.social, long time @footballweekly.bsky.social listener here. i don’t “skeet” often, but i just came here to gloat. your boat rowers took one hell of a beating yesterday. i fear that Ryan Loft may need some of Mrs Holloway’s sage if you are to reach your lofty ambitions

well, football never really went away did it? a dog darn shame about the result though

Aritz Aduriz, surely?

didn’t Wilson lose the 1970 election on the back of Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” and outwardly racist anti immigration sentiment?

Soup and sunflowers: the unwilling role of art history in climate activism This seminar session explores the role that art history might play in understanding the targeting of works of art as a form of protest.

Please do come along if you find yourself in London.

Sign up below 👇🏻

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/soup-and-s...

Next Thursday (6-7pm) I’ll be chairing an important discussion between Esme Garlake and Dr John Paul Stonard on art history and climate activism. The event is being hosted by @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social and promises to be a fascinating discussion.

To the Vatican with Red Flags In 2014, Pope Francis met Alexis Tsipras and Walter Baier, representatives of the European Left, along with Franz Kronreif of the Christian Focolare movement. With Bergoglio’s agreement, a process of ...

On 10 January 2024, Pope Francis received a private audience with a delegation of people who had been participating for several years in a dialogue between Marxists and Christians. Michael Löwy, who was in attendance, recounts the experience in detail.

Birmingham bin strike latest: Army experts called in to help The government says office-based military experts will help because of the

the securitisation of waste… a reality in Lagos, Accra, Dar es Salaam, and now Birmingham

solidarity with striking bin workers

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

very grateful for the wonderful contributions to “Burning Matters” @forarthistory.org.uk, papers addressing contemporary Canadian art and indigenous rituals of fire, Piero di Cosimo’s wildfire paintings, Steve McQueen and the Grenfell Fire disaster, and photography and forged wildfire narratives

Benjamin Mehigan, Royal College of Art

“Forging Wildfire Narratives”

Esme Garlake, University College London

“Representing fire with animals: Piero di Cosimo’s The Forest Fire (c.1505)”

Hope to see you there!

Speakers:

Joëlle Dubé, Concordia University

“Burnt Matches and the Performed Refusal of Audie Murray in Token Generosity (2024)”

Clara de Massol, Kings College London

“Slow Violence and Toxic Geographies: Commemoration, Hauntings and Grief in Grenfell by Steve McQueen (2023)”

These papers will address modern and contemporary or historical topics including but not limited to the aesthetic politics of fire, fire and non-human agency, fire and environmental politics, fire and conflict, the language of fire and burning, and burnt matter as art and/or testimony.”

What does studying burnt matter and fire-affected objects reveal about the wider social causes of disaster, both contemporary and historical, and what challenges do they present to the art historical method?

How do artworks conflict with and appease the boundaries of representation? Is it possible for burning to be a generative and transformative process, as well as a destructive one?

This panel considers the role of representation in a “world on fire.” When the flames abate, they leave behind a world changed, but this change needs nuance. How are images of fire deployed in art and media and what are the limits of these images in representing this new reality?

(…) crucial to understanding a world caught in the throes of environmental crisis and unrest.

“In the context of rising global temperatures, raging wildfires, blazing conflict in the Middle East, and ever more incendiary political speech in Western liberal democracies, the politics and aesthetics of fire have become an increasingly important area of study (…)

if you’re coming to the @forarthistory.org.uk conference in York this week do join Elsa Perryman Owens and I for “Burning Matters: The Limits of the Image in a World on Fire” (9 April) where we’ll be discussing the role of art history in grappling with present day and historical fire disasters

likewise Eva! was a pleasure

wrote this short essay on sanitation, urban space, and state violence in Accra for The Polyphony, a really neat platform for research in the critical medical humanities based out of @durhamimh.bsky.social. check it out 👇🏻

Agbogbloshie: Resonances in the Colonial Archive Jacob Badcock elucidates the parallels between 19th century colonial notions of sanitation and urban space and the recent demolition of an e-waste scrapyard in Accra (Ghana).

Jacob Badcock elucidates the parallels between 19th century colonial notions of sanitation and urban space and the recent demolition of an e-waste scrapyard in Accra (Ghana).

thepolyphony.org/2025/04/03/a...

Quakers condemn police raid on Westminster Meeting House Police broke into a Quaker Meeting House last night (27 March) and arrested six young people holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza.

You think the arbitrary arrest of political dissenters cannot happen in the UK? It already does. www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Where’s Half Man Half Biscuit when you need them?

turgid. Kilkenny for MOTM as he looked like the only player on the pitch who wanted to play a game resembling football. sad to say, but i think i’ve finally given up on Glatzel