Sharing the Haring

Thanks very much for all the love for my Bob Dylan birthday picture, and apologies for not having got round to thank everyone individually. It’s been a bit of a weird week with various worries and stresses to contend with, and I’ve simultaneously tried to cut my screen time down fairly drastically. After 2 and a half months of working from home I’m really feeling the need to step away from the combination of laptop, iPad, personal phone and work phone which were threatening to take over my life! 

Needless to say, I’m still very concerned about the state of the world. Here in England, today sees the ‘official’ beginning of another significant easing of lockdown restrictions - not least the return to school of some primary pupils - whilst ‘the science’ that the government claims to be following really doesn’t seem to sufficiently support this easing, at least not to my mind. However, the damage had already been done by the Prime Minister’s ‘excusing’ of the appalling Dominic Cummings and the carte blanche this appears to have given people who no longer even feel the need to pay lip service to the concept of social distancing. I fear another significant surge in Covid  cases and deaths in the next few weeks - meanwhile, we still have amongst the highest death rates per capita of anywhere in the world.

Over in the USA, the situation gets ever more frightening. I’m appalled by the President’s response to the death of George Floyd and I absolutely support the groundswell of resistance to the killing of unarmed black people by the police. But, again, I fear that the demonstrations across the States, and in this country, will lead to widespread virus transmission and further loss of life, often within communities which are already the hardest hit. 

I’m genuinely at a loss as to how best to respond but I know that as a white person I need to do more than simply wring my hands and say how terrible it is. At the very least I can donate money to a range of organisations www.independent.co.uk/life-style/black-lives-matter-protest-support-george-floyd-donate-petition-a9542576.html

I’ve no doubt that the great artist and activist Keith Haring would have been very vocal about all of this, had he still been with us. Sadly, he died in 1990 of AIDS-related complications but he remained active in support of HIV/AIDS, LGBT and anti-racist issues right up to the end. 

So, today’s Blip is my tribute to him, and to a Polaroid self-portrait he made in the early 1980s. You can see the original here www.artsy.net/artwork/keith-haring-keith-haring-self-portrait 

Today’s song is ‘Hit the Ground Running’ by Tim Finn, which was written in memory of Keith Haring www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtW9rosjJlI