Two Just Stop Oil activists have been found guilty of criminal damage for hurling tomato soup at a Van Gogh painting in the National Gallery, damaging its antique frame. The Times has more.
Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, both 22, threw two tins of Heinz tomato soup at Sunflowers and then glued themselves to the wall in October 2022.
Although the painting, which was completed in 1888 and is worth up to £72.5 million, was protected by a glass cover, the 17th-century Italian frame was damaged by the soup, which acted like paint stripper, Southwark crown court was told. Prosecutors believe the soup may have caused £10,000 worth of damage to the frame.
The pair, who denied damaging property, showed no emotion as the jury announced its verdict after a four-day trial. Judge Christopher Hehir released them on bail before their sentencing on September 27th. Hehir told the activists to come to court “prepared in practical and emotional terms to go to prison on that date”.
The maximum sentence for the offence is ten years’ imprisonment. The bail conditions stipulate that they must not carry glue, paint or any adhesive substance in a public place and must not visit any galleries or museums.
The court was told that the pair had visited the museum a day before the incident to carry out reconnaissance and bought the tins of soup from a supermarket.
In a statement read to the jury, Isabella Kocum, a frame conservator, said she was “shocked and dismayed by the extent of corrosion this tomato soup” caused to the “exquisite antique frame”. …
Plummer and Holland said they were taking instructions from someone else in Just Stop Oil but refused to identify the person. …
In her closing speech, Plummer claimed that she was “sounding an alarm bell” on climate change and invoked the example of the suffragettes and the civil rights movement in the United States.
Worth reading in full.
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Let me get this straight. We (mankind) are not doing enough research into new antibiotics to combat existing bacterial infections. The only solution is to create a new* bug and research antibiotics against that? Looks like research funding is being misdirected again.
*Yes, I know the article is about an ‘old’ bacterium but if it’s new to science it’s ‘new’.
It’s like they’ve taken the lid off the Pandora gain-of-function sweety jar and simply don’t want to put it back on. Until we’re all dead.
It might be a good idea to put the money to better use and start filling in the thousands of potholes in the countries roads..
I don’t want my tax money filling in potholes in roads in any other countries, thanks.
Potholes in my own country’s roads, OK, maybe.
Well I was talking about the UKs.. what country are you talking about.. haha
I could name a good few things that might fill the potholes. We have them here too. If I was a conspiracy thinking type, I’d think that there is an agenda to run down the road system and damage the car stock…
Yes and we certainly don’t want to fill the potholes with money.
“Neanderthal bacteria” never went away. Neanderthals still exist. I mean this seriously, by the way, and not as a term of reproach for people like, say, Matt Hancock.
All I can say to these In Q Tel people is “please GOFROC yourself.”
It’s like suggesting that we move the planet into the path of all the planet-killing comets and asteroids out there to look at what killed off the dinosaurs.
Gawd, scientists are a pessimistic bunch aren’t they? Surely we have all bases covered nowadays in terms of antibiotics, antivirals, many other medications, nutraceuticals plus advanced medical technology and healthcare in general. We’re hardly going to fare as badly as in the Middle Ages when the Black Death ravaged the globe and people had basically nothing to fight it with, so I think the amount of expense and all round faff involved in this endeavour cannot be remotely justified. Scientists just like tinkering and generally mucking things up, which demonstrably results in a massive crapfest. Leave zombie viruses and bugs dormant and where they can do no harm…or safely in the fictitious plots of sci-fi books/movies.
Seconded Mogs.
Next step, digging up the bodies of Black Death victims to analyse the Black Death… just in case. Application to the Wuhan lab!
Now, now Dom, no giving Billy ideas.
Am I the only person who got the ‘take home message’ from the film ‘Jurassic Park’..?
Gingers are ginger because of the Neanderthal gene, allegedly. Explains a lot.
Dammit, that face is so intelligent! He’s got a knowing look about him that I could warm to, although he’s not blessed with conventional good looks.
I could do without his bugs, though.
There’s no antiviral in the world that would make it worth doing this stupid thing just to prove that they can. We’ve got plenty of drugs already – they just keep banning the things as soon as they go off-label.
I’m developing a strange interest in Barbara O’Neil’s old-wife remedies: I doubt you’d get serious side effects from sticking an onion poultice on your ear if it ached.
And have you seen her video about cayenne pepper? First aid in the event of heart attacks?