Elizabeth tells me Jannis Kounellis is dead. I already knew that, obviously. It demoted Putin and Trump to the second page of the National Enquirer. She wanted me to write a blog. Coz, you see, I like death. And Kounellis, who was alive, now isn’t.

In the Macquarie Point vision, David Walsh and Leigh Carmichael have started, among other things, a conversation about how a public space might appropriately refer to the history of Tasmanian Aboriginals, and the relationship of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.

Later, at 4.10am, her name comes to me unbidden – Shirley Jones. I feel strangely placated by my memory. I didn't like her on TV, but now her death and my poem make us kindred sufferers of the real.

The following is a conversation between David Walsh and Tim Jenison about Vermeer, Viagra, and the nature of genius. (Interviewed by Elizabeth Pearce, with a cameo appearance by Mona curator Jarrod Rawlins.)