Adrian Jacobs is the deceased writer on whose behalf his family seek justice for alleged plagiarism on the part of Christopher Little and Bloomsbury  – publishers of the Harry Potter word-spinning carousel beloved by the gullible. By all accounts it would indicate that the Harry Potter people were not able to even come up with their own fantasies. Zounds! We have little to say about any of this but to wish Mr. Jacobs ‘ people good luck from us whose position on this and related matters is well enough expressed on the main page of our blog.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the tourist season grinds to a close. Those competent artists among you who have something to express and know how to express it might consider showing at our illustrious gallery. During the summer season this is one of the most cosmopolitan and most visited galleries to be found anywhere in Ireland and elsewhere for that matter. It is funded entirely by ourselve and gets as much financial help in that regard as the upkeep of our murals. Zilch in other words. But then you have to understand the position of our council members. They cannot promote or market our murals without promoting us and to do that they would have to change overnight from game-playing biased ingrates to decent human beings. Hell will freeze over, as they say. We sail on regardless.

We are running a new exhibition at the gallery covering the Troubles. All are welcome. The gallery is now becoming a major art venue in Derry if not the North West and a landmark in the city. Situated right beside our People’s Gallery it is a must-visit for anybody interested in history, art, humanity, justice, freedom of expression and truth.

Art and the artist’s life

It is often asked of us, why we painted our murals and we have given an exhaustive account of why in our book  The People’s Gallery. In the excerpt below Solzhenitsyn throws a glaring light on the reason why artists cannot bow to violence whatever form it takes and why freedom of speech is the life and spirit of art and of a nation’s collective life.  Artistic expression is not just the voice of an individual but the voice of a people and the voice of mankind. He knew well enough, as do we , that the forces of violence against it and the truth it speaks emanate not from the ground up but from the political games-masters and bureaucratic functionaries who weild power ‘legally’ or otherwise from the top. Only when the media weed class privileges and affiliations out of its editorial policy and implant the democratic principles they are supposed to defend will we have freedom of speech proper. But that,  of course , is when the wheels fall off and truth takes over from media induces narcosis and collective hypnosis. And that too is when the oligarchs, the dictatorial executives and the incurable narcissists holding poitical office resort to what keeps them in power in the first place – the gun. Hear now from someone who paid dearly for what many among you striding meekly off to their places of work, swinging briefcases, trimly dressed and ever-so proud of their societal clout and Luciferian allegiances are hell-bent in preventing – your freedom to express – your creative birthright – your freedom of speech!

ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN

       “One Word of Truth…”

His Nobel Speech 1970

“But woe betide that nation whose literature is interrupted by the interference of force. This is not simply a violation of the ‘freedom of the press’; it is the locking up of the national heart, the carving up of the national memory. Such a nation does not remember itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and although its population supposedly have a common language, fellow countrymen suddenly stop understanding eachother. Mute generations live out their lives and die without telling either to their own or to a future generation. If such geniuses as Akhmatova or Zamyratin are walled up alive for the duration of their lives, if they are condemned to create in silence until the grave, without hearing any response to what they have written, then this is not just their personal misfortune but the deep tragedy of the whole nation – and too, a threat to the whole nation. And in certain cases it is a danger for the whole of mankind….when the whole of history ceases to be understood because of that silence.”