When he recorded 'Something's Gotten Hold of my Heart' with Marc Almond, I thought Gene Pitney was a very elderly man enjoying one last turn before Almond wheeled him back to the care home. Pitney was 48.

Next week I’m doing events for Tales of the Suburbs at Five Leaves in Nottingham, Juno Books in Sheffield (with Alim Kheraj) and the Modernist in Manchester (with Andy Miller). Bring your own bourbons x www.johngrindrod.co.uk/events/

Teenager introduced me to the term 'trauma dumping' - over-sharing traumatic past experiences with other people. I do envy Gen-Z having the language for this stuff.

Rummaging around in the ephemera at the London Archives. Would love to know what happened at happenings.

From 2019 to 2023, there were 68 dead and missing from 21 fatal incidents in the Channel. Between August 2023 and January 2026, 129 people died or went missing in 48 incidents. At the same time the numbers of boats and people crossing fell. See @hollybancroft.bsky.social's article here 👉

Let everyone in free but charge for selfies next to paintings. They'd coin it. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Excited to talk about this — finally — and to be working with Pan Macmillan. Better do some work.

Looks like he's clutching a yoga towel while steadying himself on a bollard.

In February 1918, when the Zeppelin raids on London began, air raids were still something of a novelty and people had to find refuge where they could. William Nicholson's painting is of the ballroom at the Piccadilly Hotel, one of the first steel-framed buildings in London.

New book. Swoon!

So many, but a very special mention to anyone calling domestic staff 'the help' and retail staff 'the girl'.

Philip Larkin, St Hilda's Street, Hull, photo by Jane Bown.

Surely the Finns are sick of winning this by now. www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/03/...

of interest to few certain strains of music heads: huge stash of NME back issues now dropping on @archive.org, 300+ issues, 1969-1983 (so far). archive.org/search?query...

I've only just apprecated how Angus McBean, who shot the sleeve of Please Please Me, was steeped in surrealism.

Incredible clip.

What Are Ideas and Why Are Americans Running Out of Them?

YOU CAN'T EVEN SAY EASTER THESE DAYS

Here’s @jondennis.bsky.social on the track … www.theguardian.com/music/musicb...

Hell yes.

Frank Stella, Firuzabad, 1970 https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135867

This very large watercolour depicts the uppermost part of the wall paintings in St Peter and St Paul's Church in Chaldon, which is famous worldwide for its twelfth-century doom mural located on the west wall.

Lennon meets Frost.

Superhuman brain, yet doesn't understand there's no such thing as busy privilege.

The quote is from the interview I did with Terry for the FT in 2021. He was in despair at the rise of far-right rhetoric. But he was also extremely funny. I really liked him.

Fascinating story - a kind of anti-restoration of the former house of Langston Hughes. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/r...

In Finland we don’t say, “there will be consequences.” We say, “the rooster of honor will not sing for you.”

Not a sophisticated choice, but I adore this. By 1980 the original (yes, yes, I know) was eight years old and deeply uncool. This is respectful to the sheer silliness of the thing, but does something entirely different. A statement of intent for a new decade. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVxy...

In this episode of the Migration Oxford podcast, we discuss the realities of immigration detention across Europe. What does detention mean for those who experience it, and how do broader political forces shape the system? 🎧Full episode: podcasts.ox.ac.uk/index.php/de...

Yikes.

Evening Light, Snowdonia, c.1960, painting by Kyffin Williams, Welsh artist (1918-2006).

Make no mistake that any weakening of FOI is an attack on all of our civil liberties, and would be a clear example of democratic backsliding. It is clear that the government is now seriously considering an attack on your right to know. www.ft.com/content/2c34...

Me when they play 'Silly Love Songs'.

EVENTS! Tickets available for Tales of the Suburbs events in Crystal Palace (tonight), Bath (Saturday), Edinburgh and Glasgow (next week), Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham (the week after), plus Milton Keynes. More to follow! Please come along x www.johngrindrod.co.uk/events

Eternal Flame. I'd be begging for cyanide.

2/2 She knows everything. Woman, aged 56, in 1594. Painted by Cornelis Ketel.

Been going through some old books and found this historical artefact from the analogue days of book reviewing.

DUN DUN DUN -- Fox Business copes with more bad inflation data "Thesssseeee numbers are much hotter than expected, guys ... this is not good"

Why didn't they just bring back Whose Line Is It Anyway?

VICTORY! Government to open up the Land Registry - bringing to an end a thousand years of secrecy shrouding who owns England. I’ve been campaigning for this for ten years: the new Land Use Framework, published later today, makes it government policy. 1/ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The K8 is so elegant.

Even worse: posting a video of yourself addressing your followers with your statement on the issue of the day. You're not the UN.

Once again, Trump uses the language of sexual assault. It's what he knows.

Some cultural confusion here. "I'm meeting with my team" means "absolutely fucking not, no chance" in British work speak.

Crazy crazy story. Times of Israel reporter ( English language Israeli news site ) gets escalating death threats to change story that’s at center of big polymarket bet. www.timesofisrael.com/gamblers-try...

I've read two obits of Magnusson and neither has said whether she got her stuff organised in time. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m...

Finally watched Meades on BBC buildings from The Late Show in 1989. I probably saw it at the time, I was a Late Show junkie. Two years later I’d be working in one of them (Bush House) for almost 20 years.

What I assumed adulthood would be like as a result of being raised on Terence Conran’s decorating books in the 1980s