I can’t remember what made me read We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper. It was a recommendation by either Peter Mandler or Dan Hicks on twitter, or perhaps both. It is about the politics of academic archaeology at Harvard and the Peabody Museum in the late 1960s – incredibly well written, researched and deeply, alarmingly engrossing in the way that it brings out the characteristics of campus hierarchies, personalities and injustices, particularly Harvard’s, so powerfully. Very good summer holiday reading ! So, I’m grateful for the recommendation.

Our favourite antique shop in Beaumaris, an Aladdin’s Cave of interesting Welsh furniture – chairs, tiles, treen – we are unable to go in without buying something – has acquired a new van. Actually, it’s an old van, but very magnificent nonetheless:-

I was pleased to read the obituary of Nicholas Goodison, available for those who have a subscription. It uses the word cerebral, which is true: strongly analytical, he had thought of being a don and was indeed somewhat donnish. The obituary omits that he chaired National Life Stories, very much supported it, and was interviewed on multiple occasions, providing a cool and very analytical account of life in the City (there are 46 episodes).

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2021/07/13/sir-nicholas-goodison-magisterial-stock-exchange-chairman-oversaw/

After a year of lockdowns, it’s unexpectedly exhilarating to swim in the Irish Sea, warmer than expected and deeply therapeutic:-

I was very sad to hear only yesterday of the death of Nicholas Goodison, who has in his many different roles been such a big figure in the arts, as well as the City: as an author of books on barometers and ormolu and, I think, one of the founders of the Furniture History Society; he was one of the small group of people who gave advice on the establishment of the Royal Academy Trust in the early 1980s, was a long-standing chairman of the National Art-Collection Fund, chairman of the Crafts Council and author of the Goodison Review, an admirably wide-ranging report on the functioning and financing of museums with the support of the private sector – and this only scratches the surface of the multiplicity of his public roles. I’m surprised that there isn’t more information about him online (where are the obituaries ?), not least because I have always understood that he more than anyone was responsible for Big Bang, drawing up the regulatory framework when he was chairman of the Stock Exchange which led to the deregulation of the City in 1986, which presumably has done more than anything to change the character and operation of the City and the takeover of old City institutions by the American banks. It’s hard to imagine that anyone in the future could be as prominent both in the City and, at the same time, in the running of the arts.

I see from the paper this morning that North Wales has for the first time overtaken Devon and Cornwall as the most popular holiday destination. Not surprising. It’s obvious from the size of the cars, its proximity to the cities of the north west, the long queues to the beach, and a subtle change in atmosphere from deep 1950s unfashionability to poshness:-

There was mist on the fields tonight after the sun had gone down. A clear night:-

It’s a great relief to be out of London, where there was an increasing sense of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, there is a premature sense of celebration that the government has somehow beaten the virus through its vaccination programme, so that we can all celebrate Freedom Day and victory at football by abandoning any precautions, including social distancing and the wearing of masks; and, on the other, watching the statistics of rapidly increasing infection, the closure of local shops and restaurants ‘due to unforeseen circumstances’, and the fact that so many people are having to self isolate, particularly those with children at school and university. I suppose it is a calculated risk not to have to remain in any form of lockdown, but it may not be seen to have been such a great idea to those who get Long Covid, who may look back on the jubilation of the Tory backbenchers without quite the same enthusiasm, particularly once we have 100,000 cases a day as predicted.