The very wonderful, very gnomic Fiery Furnaces at the Barbican this evening, very far away.

Gen-Z speak I learnt today: "Day one-ers" - people you meet on arrival at university then spend the rest of the year trying to ditch. "Pencils" - casual workers or those on zero-hours contracts who can be called in at a moment's notice (IOW: pencilled in).

More in my piece for OnLondon. TLDR? Poverty in London is serious, pervasive and largely driven by housing costs. That's not to belittle the problems faced elsewhere, but doesn't mean London should be defunded either. 5/5 www.onlondon.co.uk/richard-brow...

NEWS: C20 has supported an application to list the majestic Norwich Sports Village (1987-88), the only concrete shell structures in the UK designed by pioneering Swiss engineer Heinz Isler, utlising his innovative ‘inverted membrane’ and ‘plumped pillow’ method. ➡️ c20society.org.uk/news/c20-lis...

NEW: The End of the Line: the centrepiece of Saudi Arabia’s Neom gigaproject - a 500m tall, 170km long wall-like building intended ultimately to house 9 million people - can’t get out of the ground, say more than 20 former Neom architects, engineers and senior executives. ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

this looks like a trick daffy duck would put up to get bugs bunny into "the oval office"

Who's creative director at Toast these days? Goody Proctor?

5 November 1905 | A Pole, Tadeusz Mróz, was born in Krakow. A painter. In #Auschwitz from 25 April 1942. No. 33153 He was shot in the camp on 27 May 1942. --- Watch a short video about Block 11 and its yard where shooting executions were held: https://t.co/VBgDxkWLMa

Mamdani's speech is SO GOOD: respectful, generous, sparkling.

"Locked off Peak District till the Feds came." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Train worker hero credited with saving lives in the Huntingdon knife attack named as Samir Zitouni.

Laughable. Whoever heard of a journalist driving a Bentley?

Extremely French story about a Moët Hennessy exec who claims she was ordered by management to undergo "anti-seduction training". www.ft.com/content/32a5...

The FT explains what flying in economy is like

the password to the louvre surveillance server was "louvre" www.thesocialpost.it/2025/11/02/f...

39

A young person just told me I look "totally editorial". I'm assuming that's a bad thing.

Wrote about how the troll dynamic has come to trump ideology, with a hat tip to @jamesrball.com

Starmer's Britain. www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/...

The Guardian is hiring for a graphics reporter and data reporter to cover how the US government is deleting and altering important datasets. If you like the work we do, come join us! Data: workwithus.theguardian.com/job-search/e... Graphics: workwithus.theguardian.com/job-search/e...

Me liking posts in other people's conversations that concern me not.

Best of this year's Japanese mundane halloween costumes.

If you're after a wild weekend read, check out our deep dive into the flashy Utah leasing firm that somehow racked up $2bn of exposure to the First Brands debt debacle Featuring prominent Mormon sports stars, a private jet, cheerleaders and an epic corporate rap video www.ft.com/content/f0ae...

Surprised it's as low as 50%.

I'm sure I've posted these before at Halloween and I probably will again. This is a series of spirit photographs I inherited from my mum, who dealt in antiques and bric-a-brac in north-west England, collected all kinds of oddities and probably bought them at auction. 1/5

Tomio Hanko is a character shaped like a Lawson Bank ATM. He prefers to be called Tommy. He always wears high-waisted slacks to make his legs look longer. He does his best to act cool, but rarely succeeds.

Read the headlines and you’ll see wildly different conclusions about whether AI is taking jobs or not. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and @sarahoconnorft.ft.com break down what the data actually shows in their new newsletter The AI Shift. It's free to read here: on.ft.com/4niHdxo

Smeared VEET hair removal cream all over my upper lip without doing a patch test first. Massive allergic reaction, then two weeks with a huge, hideous, moustache-shaped scab (I was 13).

Harran II by Frank Stella, 1967 https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137468

In which Chris Brasher and FR Buckley go to ridiculous lengths to invent a wildly misogynistic narrative out of a schoolboy prank. (It's glorious, of course.) m.youtube.com/watch?v=QWTw...

Wonderful aside in this excellent thread. Pure Wodehouse.

Latest episode of Monstrosities Mon Amour is out! John Boughton @municipaldreams.bsky.social on the joys of 60s overspill town Thetford open.substack.com/pub/johngrin...

Thei wante us talkinge alone on our phones to a demon thei created, and not goinge places and being wyth each othir yn art and joy and communitye. Thei want cinemas to shut downe, and Broadway to go darke. Thei want wryteres to stop makinge a living. Thei want to sell us hell and have us pay for it.

Something a bit different from me today! Really enjoyed spending a few mornings riding South London's night buses for this piece for @londonermag.bsky.social and love any opportunity to combine narrative storytelling with data journalism www.the-londoner.co.uk/meet-londons...

Zorro!

WOULD TOLERATE MORE IN-OFFICE DAYS IF MY WORKPLACE LOOKED LIKE THIS.

Irresponsibly posting my location on social media.

My book UP IN THE AIR: A HISTORY OF HIGH-RISE BRITAIN is out today!

This headline literally applies to every author multiple times a day Hashtag relatable 😂

I know, I know, it's a $7m Brooklyn brownstone. It's just that it screams Eastbourne B&B.

*Calling all members* Get your votes in for our Annual General Meeting before it’s too late: buff.ly/reNDWPy Voting closes midnight on 31 Oct.

God, I hope so. All that gushing over badly daubed furniture and floppy hats ignores the their draft dodging, racist "pranks" and appalling treatment of servants.

Area developer finally gets his wish: the ability to fire all the inspectors. 🤡 @ddiamond.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Google Photos reminds me that, in 2020, one of the kids in my street celebrated Halloween by recreating a scene from Carrie in her front garden. She held her trance pose for ages, to the sheer delight of the little kids in the neighbourhood.

Let's take a ride... My next book is coming out with @faberbooks.bsky.social. Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains will be published March 12 2026. Preorder links in profile, and lots more on the book and the remarkable stories people told me to come over the next few months...

Home through the rain (1969) Artist: John Berry

Francis Bacon 28 oktober 1909 – 28 april 1992

Peter House, Oxford Street/St. Peter's Square, Manchester, 1972.

Very much looking forward to this and have re-read in anticipation for the first time in 30 years. So vivid it's even affected my dreams.

Did you know there is a commemorative manhole cover in Whitechapel celebrating the defeat of the 2017 fatberg? To find it: head west out of the station along the north side of the High Street, it's by the pedestrian crossing in-line with the far end of the hospital opposite. w3w bond/fame/agents