Well, it's been far too long since I last wrote - all the excitement of the election, and the discovery that we have another baby on the way (due 3 October!) has clearly been a distraction.

But today arrived 15 spanking new copies of A Crisis of Brilliance in paperback, set to be launched upon a now suspecting world on the 1st June. Nothing quite compares to that feeling of first seeing a large pile of your book, crisp and clean and lovely-looking. A strange sort of avarice and satisfaction - recalling the feeling of being about 19, and thinking that could not be many things finer in life than having your very own book in a bookshop ...

I will write soon of other things - politics, and reflections on our new government.

Paul Nash show opened at Dulwich on the 9 February - very well attended, despite the heavy snow that evening, and almost a crush to get to see the work. Great to see some works I've never seen or known about before, and others that I'd only seen illustrated in books. The arrangement of rooms interesting too - though I would say that, having been in the arrangement idea early on, with the curator, David Fraser Jenkins. Interesting to see just how popular Nash is. This time of year always reminds me of his work - the browns of the late winter landscape, waiting for spring to burst out upon it.

Wandered through Mayfair on the way over to Victoria station - what contrast to the countryside! But how wonderful London is by dark - the narrow streets and pubs, light bursting out from them, the people wandering. Perfect times.

Am reading Sue Gee's 'Earth & Heaven' - her rendition of the Slade, post-war, and her Stanley Spencer inspired artist, Walter Cox. It's really very good.

A lunctime browse through the papers, searching for the Wotton Bassett story and the banning of the Islamic party that ...   more »

Before Christmas I managed to make it to the Wallace Collection for the first time in my life - a place that's been on my 'to do list' for a long time. It was an interesting experience - tho not for the reasons probably intended. I did not like it, and it was interesting to examine why not. Mostly, though, I knew straight away why not - I hate the baroque. The best room was that filled with the early Renaissance collection - and perhaps for the first time I really saw what the PreRaphaelites and the NeoPrimitives were reacting against, and trying to get back to - an earlier, more innocent, more honest and more plainly spiritual style of art. One much less about grandeur, show and ostentation.

At the same time I saw there the exhibition of recent paintings by Damien Hirst - which was largely rubbish. There was ONE work there that was excellent - the rest was a substandard impersonation of Francis Bacon. One was left wondering why he'd bothered...

The results are in from Copenhagen, and it seems that it's Humankind 1, The Planet 0. But the wise money was probably always on a bum result. Where now? I'm note sure - it never struck me as likely that politicians - a mass of them, together, from such different cultures, countries, perspectives - would broker some kind of meaningful deal.

But we've been destroying our beautiful world - ever so slow, but ever so surely - for the past 5 centuries or more, ever since Columbus tripped over America, for sure. I wonder about the world my son will grow up in, compared to the one in which I did. Already so much has changed; on a quite simple level, I miss the snow. What astounds me is the number of people who seem to think it does not matter - or seem to think they know better than the vast majority of scientists, and somehow doubg the truth of what is going on in our world - as if they'd doubt the law of gravity, or evolution.

I've changed the way we live - it seems, now, really to be down to individual actions, and individual conciounces.

On a different note, 'Start the Week' on Radio 4 was fun last Monday morning, and has been another great boost for 'Crisis of Brilliance' ....

No, it's not about children's books (or the movie), but the Epstein/Gill/Gaudier show at the Royal Academy, which I managed ...   more »

First weeks' sales figures have come in for "Crisis", and my publisher phoned to say that they're going to reprint the hardbook, which is great news...

But on more mundane matters, after a 2 year hiatus, we rejoined Abel & Cole, and our first delivery arrived yesterday morning in 3 cardboard boxes; Nathaniel and I emptied them together with glee, and filled the downstairs with fruits and vegetables, tucking in straight off to the bananas and oranges - fantastic! Felt like Christmas come early - and then I cooked up sausage caserole with lentils and kale for dinner, with organic wine.

These things really matter to me - food, agriculture, land, the way we live and eat. Read Ronald Blythe's 'Akenfield' over the summer, and so fascinating to see the changing relationship with the land over the 20th century. People ask me what my next book will be - I'd like to write something that would really change the way people live their lives and think about the world. But then, do we need another book about that? - or do we need just some way of making people really think and relate to their world, to the soil and the atmosphere, the seasons and the weather and the climate .... I would love it if I could do that somehow.

After last week's middling Metro review, an absolute delight to read Jenny Uglow's long review of Crisis in The Guardian on Saturday. Her call at the end for an exhibition of these artists is exactly what I want to do, and now the book is out - official launch at Daunt Books in Chelsea on Thursday evening, excellently done - that's what I aim to do next.

Am really looking forward to getting the chance to see the Royal Academy show of Eric Gill, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Jacob Epstein. All of them appear in Crisis, and such major talents each. Almost no-one other than Schiele quite does sex - real sex - like Gill does. Even if his own sex life was too weird and ugly to comprehend, there's a real beauty to his sculpture and drawings.

Over to London for the launch of "Crisis of Brilliance" at Daunt Books in Chelsea. Like a wedding, there were lots of friends there, but only a few moments to really talk to any of them. Chief guest was Mark Gertler's son, Luke - and Nathaniel and Susannah, of course, the dedicatees. What a lot of people! My mind still seems empty, my body hung over - not home until 2am, and up with Nat at 6am. I should save this entry for another day ... I wanted - and forgot - to mention John Currie, who murdered his mistress in Chelsea, and then shot himself. Gertler has a wonderful record of visiting his dying friend in hospital ... one of the key - and ugliest - moments in the book.

Lecture last night in Cookham went very well, everyone (including me!) seemed to enjoy themselves. To the Bel and Dragon with Chrissy Rosenthal afterwards - she did an excellent job organising it all.

First post-publication review of "A Crisis of Brilliance" appeared today - in "Metro". Only 3/5 stars, which is disappointing - not because I think the reviewer's right, and the book is only that good, but because I think she is wrong, and she seems to be the first person who's not really liked it - and why did it have to fall into her hands to review. Damn! The Metro no doubt gets 1,000 of readers, and something more positive would have been fantastic start.

I fear it's part of the problem of this period of English art - or even of most periods of English art; even the English don't seem to appreciate (or even like - or even know) their own artists, with the exceptions of Turner, Constable and the Pre-Raphaelites. Part of the aim of this book is to make these other English artists better known - as well known as their continental peers - and to break them out of what often seems the British provinciality in which they are considered.

This is my first blog - a sort of tester, so see how it goes, to fit with my new website, and my new book - A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War, which is officially launched this week.

To Cookham this evening, to give a talk on the book at the excellent Stanley Spencer Gallery. Cookham survives in so many of its buildings and features, its landscapes and bridges, as Spencer knew it through his life. But sadly (for me, at least) much of its ambiance has gone with the arrival of the motor car. It feels like an attractive but busy suburb of Maidenhead. I walk where Spencer walked, and hope to feel something of him there - an instance, a moment - the best place is inside the church, the churchyard, and down by the river, beneath the bridge. I took a photo last time - I will post that when I've worked out how to ...