Mark Gray
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markgray.bsky.social
Mark Gray
@markgray.bsky.social
Deaf, cochlear implant user, annoyed liberal centrist. 18th/19thc art collecting/researching + academic/consultant/government economist. Lots of art.

DMs=block.

#arthistory #19thc #18thc #Britishart #knowledgeexchange
I know #quietquitting is a thing in the workplace these days, but our #innovation system's doing it. See the UK slide further down the #GlobalInnovationIndex in 2025.
November 28, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Art in galleries doesn't need 'contextual notes' beside it.
November 23, 2025 at 6:52 AM
Re #CovidInquiry, by the way, somebody needs to say it: thank you Baroness Hallett for digesting and synthesizing so much evidence and so many submissions, and producing a thorough 800 page report. The UK needed this, and you delivered for us.
November 20, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Coming up on the 25th in France is this sober portrait by Boilly.

www.interencheres.com/en/art-decor...
November 18, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Revelling in #HaymansWay from #STV - stunning, stirring north of #Scotland landscapes that leave you in awe and wonder. Genuinely beautiful television.
November 14, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Let me just say here how very, very much I loathe, hate, oppose and detest the #ASDA Christmas advert.

Message ends...
November 8, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Watching #TomHanks in #AManCalledOtto - which I missed when it first came out - and it is just brilliant, isn't it? The man's a brilliant actor.
November 8, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Received with a bundle of minor prints was this tired old election poster from 1859 from one Thonas Hawkins. The line 'I smote the dogs of faction dumb' is wonderful.
November 7, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Go to the BBC website - the big buddies of #Reform - and search for stories about the party. This is what you get. I haven't edited out anything.

It isn't a party. It's a bad joke.
November 5, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Any thoughts on who signed a pastel drawing like this in 1927? Struggling to read the name - likely a French artist or resident in France.
November 2, 2025 at 1:54 PM
October 31, 2025 at 11:08 AM
The old 'keep them guessing' game - showing 'delayed' at the station but *actually* 'cancelled'.

#Train companies, just stop lying.
October 25, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Col. Robert Goff...but did Robert Goff *really* make etchings of peacocks?
October 14, 2025 at 8:07 PM
#Watercolour sketch with a tiny amount of pencil underdrawing attributed to #WilliamLeightonLeitch (1804-1883).
October 13, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Victorian #watercolour by #AndrewBrandishHolte (1829-1907)
October 13, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Annoys me every time I see it: 'While stocks last' or 'While stock lasts' but 'While stock last' is...grrrrr!
October 13, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Poster on a British train.

#NewYork, I admire your gumption but 'Everything you love' for most of us doesn't include raiding our phones in case we've said naughty things about an ageing orange blob with a liar reflex.

Brits are not going to the #BigApple until that thing goes.
October 11, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The rape of the #countryside around #Wokingham continues as councils pursue the all too obvious plan of creating a massive Wokingham - #Bracknell conurbation. Horrid.
October 5, 2025 at 11:27 AM
The most unnerving thing found lying about in my bathroom this morning...
October 5, 2025 at 6:13 AM
If #Lemsip made #icecream. @benandjerrys.bsky.social, this is a big thumbs down.
October 4, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Certifiably insane. We all have to buy US chairs now?

Look, I know he'll back down, forget, change it to 'tariffs on Sweden only' or go off on another mad 'invade X!' rant, but #America, you gave us this idiot. It's your job to get rid of him.
September 29, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reading 'Sketches by Boz' again for the first time in years and finding #CharlesDickens is an insufferable pr**k. He scoffs at everyone, the pathetic little twerp. Creations based on real people, invented to make that pipsqueak look good. Yes, by gum he can write - but he's still a stuck up pr**k.
September 27, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Watching #TheChelseaDetective: 'There's a pub where deaf people hangout...'.

What, all of us?
September 26, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.
September 17, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Intrigued: 2 portraits, presumably copies of extant #ThomasLawrence original paintings, coming up for auction in France. Who made them? French admirer artist?
www.interencheres.com/en//maitres-...
September 16, 2025 at 8:06 AM