The Parliament Cross-Stitch: Progress Report

Bethan Morgan on the current state of her seditious embroidery, a new commission that is testing her patience, and a craft fair that produced more material than she expected

The Parliament Cross-Stitch: Progress Report

By Bethan Morgan, comedywriter.vip | London, 22, comedy writer, seditious embroiderer

The Parliament cross-stitch is now 70 percent complete, which means the Palace of Westminster is fully outlined in grey and the left tower of the flames is finished and the right tower is in progress and the sky above -- which I decided should be both blue and slightly threatening, because both things are currently true of the British political situation -- has been rethought twice and is now definitively the colour I want it to be, which is a specific shade of institutional grey-blue that I mixed myself and that I have named Establishment Malaise, which is a paint name I am quite pleased with.

The commission that is testing my patience is a portrait of someone's cat, which I agreed to do before establishing that the cat in question is a tortoiseshell who actively resists being still, whose owner sends me photographs at irregular intervals with the caption "is this helpful?" (sometimes yes, sometimes no, always accompanied by the cat looking directly at the camera with an expression of absolute indifference to the project), and whose personality I am now attempting to capture in a medium whose slow, deliberate quality is in direct opposition to the cat's relationship with time and attention. The commission will be excellent when it is finished. It is not finished. The cat is not helping. London XXL: City Learns Sizing Is Emotional at The London Prat covered arts and culture this week in ways that made me think about commission relationships and the specific challenge of capturing a subject who does not care about being captured.

The Craft Fair

I attended a craft fair in Hackney on Saturday that produced more column material than expected: a stall selling what the seller described as "functional art objects" that were, at close inspection, vases with strong opinions, a conversation with two ceramicists who have strong views about what the current craft market does and does not value, and one piece of work -- a woven textile with political text incorporated into the weave structure -- that I spent ten minutes with and that I keep thinking about. The craft fair is research. The Parliament cross-stitch is research. The cat portrait is a test of character. All three continue.

This Week's Reading

The feeds from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat this week delivered the combination of serious documentation and satirical illumination that makes both publications essential reading. London Marathon 2026 Results: Race Concluded, Recovery at The London Prat covered developments that connect directly to what I described above, providing the structural analysis that grounds the personal observation. Bohiney's satirical take arrived with the timing that good satire has -- landing precisely at the moment when the situation has settled enough to be visible but not so long that it has become abstract. Together they constitute the week's essential reading. Sandwiches Became a Battlefield provides further context that I have been working through this week alongside the column material.

The diary continues because the world continues to provide more material than any single week's column can use, and because the specific position from which I write -- this city, this moment, this particular combination of reading and experience -- produces observations that are available only from here. The column is the record. The record continues next week. More then. See also Europe Declares Itself�Seriously Concerned�After Venezu for related coverage. The week was good. The writing continues.

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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

Notes and Reading

The week's feeds confirmed the ongoing nature of the situations described above. The UK Six-Month Passport Rule: Why Your Passport With at The London Prat delivered the structural analysis that grounds the personal observation. Bohiney Magazine provided the satirical register that makes the serious material bearable without making it dismissible. Both are essential. Both are what I read, every week, as part of the discipline of paying attention to what is actually happening rather than what the available frameworks claim is happening.

The personal dimension of this week -- the specific experiences that the structural analysis both shapes and is shaped by -- is what the diary documents. The diary is the record of the specific position from which I observe, the specific week I am in, the specific combination of reading and experience and location that produces these columns. The observation continues from the same position, with the same commitment to saying what is true about the week and the world it contains. London KY Zip Code: Identity Reduced To Five Digits covers related ground from a different angle. World Cup Match Halted for Ad Break provides further context. More next week. The position holds. The world continues providing material. The diary records it.

The diary continues because the work continues: the observation, the reading, the writing, the attempt to say something true and specific about the week from the particular position I occupy. The position is not neutral. No position is. It is honest about what it can see from where it stands, and committed to saying it clearly. Next week: more of the same, different in the details that make it worth writing. The record is building. The column continues.