<![CDATA[Sean Bw Parker]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!t0MJ!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe4ca0d42-b433-4e50-89ff-d6e0b450369d_630x630.pngSean Bw Parkerhttps://seanbwparker.substack.comSubstackThu, 03 Sep 2026 13:31:37 GMT<![CDATA[New album Near You The Plus Signs Rave]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/new-album-near-you-the-plus-signshttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/new-album-near-you-the-plus-signsTue, 04 Aug 2026 09:29:32 GMTIn The Papers And On The News

Video by Jennifer Thetford-Kay

From my new (9th) album Near You The Plus Signs Rave, out now:

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]]><![CDATA[Glad To Be Gen X - Sean Bw Parker]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/glad-to-be-gen-x-sean-bw-parkerhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/glad-to-be-gen-x-sean-bw-parkerWed, 03 Jun 2026 19:16:26 GMTNew single from forthcoming album Near You The Plus Signs Rave

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]]><![CDATA[Post-Progressive Art ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/post-progressive-arthttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/post-progressive-artWed, 08 Apr 2026 18:58:07 GMTSince New Labour’s Cultural Revolution in 1997, art education in the UK has been firmly tilted towards ‘social progress’. I know this as my lecturer said as much in the introduction to my Fine Art degree the following year. This implied that, while PM Tony Blair wanted fifty percent of British youth to attend university, an arts education was only of us…

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]]><![CDATA[Hannah Spencer and the New UK Sectarianism ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/hannah-spencer-and-the-new-uk-sectarianismhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/hannah-spencer-and-the-new-uk-sectarianismThu, 05 Mar 2026 07:01:46 GMTFollowing the Gorton and Denton, Manchester election of Green Party candidate Hannah Spencer in February 2026, an old friend of mine on Instagram, not in the UK, celebrated her win as a victory for equality. I pointed out in comments that the win wouldn’t have happened were it not for sectarian voting; the cleverly coordinated, block family votes were t…

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]]><![CDATA[Sons of Alison Saunders]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/sons-of-alison-saundershttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/sons-of-alison-saundersMon, 09 Feb 2026 20:34:00 GMTFrom Panopticon, available on Close To The Bone Publishing here: https://www.close2thebone.co.uk/wp/books/panopticon/

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]]><![CDATA[BRITPOP - Robbie Williams- a review ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/britpop-robbie-williams-a-reviewhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/britpop-robbie-williams-a-reviewFri, 30 Jan 2026 21:26:44 GMTNoel Gallagher once called Robbie Williams ‘the fat dancer in Take That’, around the time Williams was extricating himself from his boyband past, determined to rock out. Then Angels and debut solo album Life Thru A Lens came along, and stole a by-then past-it Oasis’ Northern Ballad Anthem crown. That doesn’t stop Robbie channelling Liam Gallagher on BRI…

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]]><![CDATA[The Instagramification of Art ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/the-instagramification-of-arthttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/the-instagramification-of-artSun, 11 Jan 2026 07:01:47 GMTInstagram, part of Mark Zuckerburg’s Meta stable, has become the centrepoint of the art world, big and small. David Hockney is on there, as is probably your 13 year-old nephew sharing his proto-Manga studies. By a process of sharing new work, tagging, liking and typing ‘that’s great!’ before the piece scrolls by, some get big (not sure who they are), bu…

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]]><![CDATA[PANOPTICON out now]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/panopticon-out-nowhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/panopticon-out-nowFri, 12 Dec 2025 21:29:11 GMTHaving published my first poems in the Carmarthen Journal in 1995 aged twenty, thirty years later my debut poetry collection PANOPTICON is out now, in paperback and Kindle, via Close To The Bone Publishing.

Written between 2018 and 2025, these poems are snapshots of the 21st century British justice system in action. The title Panopticon refers to archite…

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]]><![CDATA[Music Paintings]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/music-paintingshttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/music-paintingsTue, 25 Nov 2025 22:46:11 GMTBauhaus-era artist and teacher Wasily Kandinsky’s best known paintings aren’t pure abstracts, though they look like that - they’re in fact his painting to music, or after being inspired by the experience of listening to and being moved by it.

I have also come to love this process, and while I sometimes paint the musicians themselves, I also try to captu…

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]]><![CDATA[West End Girl - Lily Allen - a review ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/west-end-girl-lily-allen-a-reviewhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/west-end-girl-lily-allen-a-reviewWed, 29 Oct 2025 20:00:20 GMT

Was Lily Allen looking to replace her Comic Strip-era father Keith in her four year marriage to actor David Harbour? If the Freudian confessionals on Allen’s new album West End Girl are anything to go by, we might reasonably conclude so.

But hang on, haven’t Sigmund Freud’s theories, such as the evergreen ‘penis envy’, been decried by the multi-generatio…

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]]><![CDATA[The Last Dinner Party - From The Pyre - review ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/the-last-dinner-party-from-the-pyrehttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/the-last-dinner-party-from-the-pyreFri, 17 Oct 2025 20:43:41 GMTDespite suspicions of contrivance, The Last Dinner Party released one of rock history’s greatest debut albums in 2024’s Prelude To Ecstasy. Queen crashed into Siouxsie and the Banshees in a joyfully flouncy celebration of Gen Zee-ness. But where to go from there? How would the band ever top anthemic sublimity like Portrait Of A Dead Girl and Nothing Mat…

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]]><![CDATA[CCRC Applicant Experience Report Presentation at the House of Commons ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/ccrc-applicant-experience-reporthttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/ccrc-applicant-experience-reportThu, 16 Oct 2025 19:37:54 GMTSince 2023 Drs Lucy Welsh and Amy Clarke at the universities of Sussex and Brighton respectively have been compiling their report into applicants’ experiences of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, or the CCRC. On a mid October evening in 2025, and along with representatives from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice, they prese…

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]]><![CDATA[Based in Kings Cross - Power & Intimacy Exhibition ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/based-in-kings-cross-power-and-intimacyhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/based-in-kings-cross-power-and-intimacyWed, 08 Oct 2025 06:01:06 GMTSitting outside the pub on the corner of the street near the pop-up gallery where the Power & Intimacy exhibition was held, one punter shouted at the barman to ‘f*ck off’ when he was told to leave due to drinking from his own bottle of spirit that he had in his bag.

Immediately that was resolved with the barman slinking off, an Asian security guard was d…

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]]><![CDATA[Cured - Lol Tolhurst - a review ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/cured-lol-tolhurst-a-reviewhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/cured-lol-tolhurst-a-reviewFri, 26 Sep 2025 21:19:32 GMTNine years late with this review, but since The Cure have been going since 1976 or so, who’s counting? I remember The Cure tantalising my teenage imagination with a pirate tape of their 1987 album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, The Cure In Orange concert film on Channel 4, their mid-eighties autobiography Ten Imaginary Years, and like many others, I remained …

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]]><![CDATA[You Had Me At 'Demonic']]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/you-had-me-at-demonichttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/you-had-me-at-demonicMon, 22 Sep 2025 21:15:46 GMTRight-leaning commentators will lose the support of the ‘disillusioned liberal’ class if they keep referring to culture war stories as ‘evil’ or ‘demonic’. Enlightenment thinking has dominated rational discourse for hundreds of years in the countries of Northern Europe for good reason. The logic and evidence base of science is an agreed term on which ev…

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]]><![CDATA[Throwing Muses at Chalk, Brighton, September 2025]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/throwing-muses-at-chalk-brightonhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/throwing-muses-at-chalk-brightonSun, 14 Sep 2025 19:07:59 GMT‘Thank you to my family band’ said Throwing Muses frontwoman Kristin Hersh at the end of her band’s Chalk, Brighton set in September, as the feedback from Bright Yellow Gun rang out around the venue. And they are indeed, with Hersh’s son Dylan doing a staunch, elastic job on bass, partner Fred Abong switching from (historical) bass duties to drums, and …

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]]><![CDATA[Ricky Jones, Lucy Connolly and Multi-Tiered Justice in the UK]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/ricky-jones-lucy-connolly-and-multihttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/ricky-jones-lucy-connolly-and-multiWed, 20 Aug 2025 10:26:45 GMT

In August 2025, Lucy Connolly was given a two year prison sentence following a social media post in the wake of the riots prompted by Axel Rudakabana’s murders of three young girls in Southport. She pleaded guilty in order to be home in time for Christmas. Connolly is the wife of a Conservative councillor. Nearly two years later, Labour councillor Ricky…

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]]><![CDATA[Invite your friends to read Sean Bw Parker]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/invite-your-friends-to-read-seanhttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/invite-your-friends-to-read-seanSun, 03 Aug 2025 17:34:32 GMT

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Thank you for reading Sean Bw Parker — your support allows me to keep doing this work.

If you enjoy Sean Bw Parker, it would mean the world to me if you invited friends to subscribe and read with us. If you refer friends, you will receive benefits that give you special access to Sean Bw Parker.

This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and s…

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]]><![CDATA[Systemic Injustice and Innocence Art]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/systemic-injustice-and-innocencehttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/systemic-injustice-and-innocenceFri, 11 Jul 2025 11:34:31 GMT

"Innocence Art is how the subconscious mind processes the experience of being flattened by the state machinery of a blithe justice industry, and turns it into something meaningful, communicable, ‘better than this’"

You’d imagine the arts would be a place of nurturing support and cathartic expression in a stressful world, wouldn’t you? But the reality is …

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]]><![CDATA[Art, Comedy and Catharsis ]]>https://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/art-comedy-and-catharsishttps://seanbwparker.substack.com/p/art-comedy-and-catharsisSat, 07 Jun 2025 12:15:29 GMTAt the end of May a man in Liverpool found himself trapped in his car amongst a crowd of football supporters, appeared to lose his temper, and drove out of the throng, injuring many. Thankfully no one was killed but several spent time in hospital. Shortly afterwards professional provocateur comedian Andrew Lawrence posted on X ‘no wonder he wanted to ge…

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