Down with everything that's up! "Union Square" from the musical satire "Let 'em Eat Cake" by Gershwin, Gershwin, Kaufman and Ryskind: youtu.be/oc_DxICiK5k?...

Not the sort of letter committed to paper by a well man. "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"

If I were more savvy than I evidently am, on 20 November last year I would have celebrated the 10th anniversary of my honest-to-goodness actual article in the Guardian, all about Gilbert & Sullivan and all that jazz (the headline is less nuanced than the article) www.theguardian.com/music/2015/n...

In a properly organised universe, Will Pound would be the name of the percussionist.

If someone wanted to get to know George Herriman’s Krazy Kat cartoons better, is there a good single volume introduction to them that can be easily purchased, preferably in the UK, and preferably for a non-appalling price?

I see another celebrity has written, for a given value of the word "written", a cosy crime novel about their industry, and for some reason there pops into my head an image of Peter Cook in "Bedazzled" intoning, "You fill me with inertia."

I've just checked, and yep, it's still correct that... youtu.be/s1A7bJD3atk?...

One of my favourite little trivia nuggets is Hugh Fraser (Hastings in Poirot) co-wrote and played the theme to Rainbow, as part of the band Telltale.

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller January 15,1948

Submissions are now open for 2026 BBC National Short Story Awards with Cambridge University. Deadline Monday 16th March. The BBC National Short Story Award is open to published writers who are British citizens and/or resident in the UK www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a...

Now that even more people are joining Bluesky, here’s a reminder that I’ve written some books that some people think are quite good, including my little volume of fables called “Stupid Stories for Tough Times”… blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

'Escalate,' as in "tensions escalate," comes from the word 'escalator.' It first appeared in print in 1944. 'Escalator' originated as a trademarked term for the Otis Elevator Company's moving staircase and was demonstrated at the Paris Exposition in 1900.

Very sad news.

Simon and Garth’s uncle Is this anything?

The Brontës’ novels have an apparently unshakeable reputation for grimness. I wish people spoke more of their vein of sardonic humour; the novels would be better understood and, dare I say it, better enjoyed.

Olive as #football cheerleader

Oh Jessop, will you never learn

Trying to read a spy thriller which was apparently one of the Sunday Times’s Best Books of 2025. The style is so awful that I find it pretty much unreadable. The author seem to think he’s witty, but he’s just presenting us with a collection of clichés, without rhythm or style.

Putting on a beret and feeling obliged to say, “Ohh, Betty”

Je suis completement knackeré.

Garden of Earthly Delights

I do not believe (of course, I do not believe) that all of us died during the pandemic and now we are all of us actually in hell, no, I do not believe that (of course, I do not believe that), and yet it would certainly explain where we find ourselves.

As I discovered the hard way about 5 years ago, most British publishers don’t consider novellas for publication. However, they don’t say so in their Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook listings; writers are supposed to know it without being told, possibly by osmosis.

I can only assume that Graham Greene himself wrote this for the back cover of his novel “The Comedians“, as I can’t imagine anyone else having the nerve to write such an unhelpful, counterproductive blurb.

Whoops Apocalypse (the TV series).

I’ve never come across this immensely stylish WW2 information poster before. It looks almost like a frame from ‘The Third Man’.

One of those times when reading Wodehouse is of genuine assistance Wordle 1,662 4/6* ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

This is a brilliant example of how funny synchronized movement can be. #Comedy #Animation #LooneyTunes

My efforts to make “Oh Jessop, will you never learn” a viral meme meet with continued resistance

Aries: Live, laugh, lower your expectations.

Jessop meme activated

"There seems to be something jamming my guidance systems," explained the computer brightly, "impact minus forty-five seconds. Please call me Eddie if it will help you to relax."

No, Ve Vouldn’t Gonto Do It from Knickerbocker Holiday by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson youtu.be/caOe_wo5p7o

A lot of people are angry and contemptuous of those politicians who call themselves moderates, and I can understand why. Many “moderates“ seem to have forgotten the point, which is to provide an alternative to extremism; to oppose it, to the utmost of their power.

He runs his presidency like a Kaufman and Ryskind satire, but without the benefit of Gershwin’s music.

An AI chatbot does not have PERSONHOOD. It has no agency. It cannot meaningfully apologise. It cannot speak on behalf of another. It cannot speak for itself; it has no self. Stop asking it for quotes for articles. Stop printing its quotes.

We’ve been re-watching the first 3 series of “Sherlock”. They really are as much a period piece as the original stories now, but at their best they are brilliant, in all senses.

In this Year of Reading, a gentle reminder: The best way to get your kids reading is to let them see *you* reading. The way to *stop* your kids reading is to criticize their choices, or to make reading a competition, or a punishment, or a race, or a learning tool. Let it be fun. Let them read.

Media is starting to report the Grok child porn story but way too many are centering the bot's "apologies" and "admissions" without explaining that these are being generated in response to user requests and are not in anyway authentic or meaningful.

A fairly infernal quiz question for the Gilbert and Sullivan fans: In what sense is HMS Pinafore the first and Ruddigore the last?

One of the myths perpetuated by Shaffer, and this new adaptation, is that Mozart never crossed anything out. He did, and he restructured sections eg using symbols to denote repeats. In K491 he ended up drawing faces instead of asterisks (zoom in). I was so happy to get to see this score at the RCM ❤️

‘Cancel’ comes from a Latin word meaning “to make like a lattice.” When people needed to annul or void a document, they sometimes would mark it with crosshatches XXXXX which resembled a lattice. So the document became ‘canceled.’ ...we hope this post doesn’t get us that.

Man Spends Whole Day Dreading Fun Activity He Signed Up For https://theonion.com/man-spends-whole-day-dreading-fun-activity-he-signed-up-1819579571/

The thing is, I left X when the owner started making Nazi salutes, and even that felt as if it was slightly later than the ideal time to do it…

Joe Orton and his boyfriend – later murderer – Kenneth Halliwell, took library books and returned them with comedy collages on the dustjackets. The pair would sneak the book back on to a shelf and then wait for someone to pick it up so they could watch the reaction.

Ah, well

Morning quiz: supposing I have just shouted at the radio, "No, he didn't! He was joking, for god's sake, he wasn't being serious!", what had they said?

No mention of Bizet, who contributed the only bearable thing (the tunes) to this whole farrago

It's just occurred to me this moment that "Phooey" is just the French "Pfui", spelt differently.