It seems when I first learned to write, I inexplicably developed a Northern Irish accent.

I am trying to rationalise my photo library. Finding some odds and ends like this - a sketchbook page from whenever.

Here's a little bit of the movie. Me back then and more recently, talking about being in the band. It was so much fun. I miss them. One of the best be

Most of you won't have heard of New Zealand band King Loser, but for a glorious while, I was one of their 15 or so drummers. Here's me in a clip from the recent documentary. King Loser forever🖤 I am missing my lost loved ones today, one of them is Celia Mancini.

The most pointless thing about using AI in communication: You have a person at one end using AI to generate content from bullet-point promps and another at the other end getting AI to summarise the content into concise bullet points. AI is in the middle playing Chinese whispers.

Thanks @ortacpress.bsky.social, two copies of @stuhennigan.bsky.social's Keshed arrived. I KNEW I pre-ordered months ago, but I don't trust me, so I ordered (again) just before the launch. I think it is a book I will be glad to have two copies of any way. Can't wait to start. #GetKeshed #Twice

Our public services aren’t for a secretive profit-hungry US tech firm. Sign the petition to tell the Government to scrap all contracts with secretive US tech firm Palantir. you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/st...

Post a tree you photographed

Out today!!! Congrats @stuhennigan.bsky.social and @ortacpress.bsky.social 🙌🏼 This book resides on the dark side of town - a razor sharp tale of what it means to be part of the human struggle. It’s superb - well worth £12.99 of anyone’s cash. #getkeshed

These people pictured Triumph of the Will and pageantry for the ages if they supported the ethnic cleansing machine. But what they're getting is public shunning and being forced to pretend they like Kid Rock.

"The ideas Epstein exchanged inside those circles – who is worthy of power, who should be engineered and who can be written off – now shape the technologies and institutions becoming the backbone of a new political order [...] under Trump’s second term." Broligarchy circle jerks. Revolting tossers

Two online gatherings this month! Following last night's blazing launch of Stu Henningan's KESHED we have a second event on Thursday 15th February featuring my 2025 Book of the Year. review31.co.uk/essay/view/1...

Really enjoyable. Can’t wait for my copy to arrive. I guess all writers are fascinated by writing but I loved how @stuhennigan.bsky.social expressed his obsession for the exactness, the battle for the rightness of it. Even (or particularly) if experienced as a maelstrom.

@carolecadwalla.bsky.social has been warning for YEARS about the risk to us all in the alliance between ‘tech’ and governance. Starmer holding the door open for #palantir er al is perhaps not surprising, but it is disgusting, dangerous and stupid. substack.com/home/post/p-...

"Embedding Palantir into the UK’s most critical and sensitive systems represents an urgent national security risk precisely because its chairman, Peter Thiel, was a co-owner with a convicted sex offender [...] through whom he cultivated his own connections to senior Russian officials."

I mean, we don't call the larder our To Be Eaten pile.

...during hard times we are still not alone, we always got literature, movies, music, art... our eternal companionship made by people who once knew, know right now and will know in the future... things we think only we notice and think about...

FINAL CALL FOR KESHED ONLINE LAUNCH TOMORROW. Anyone wants adding to the zoom invite list for the event online with @davidcollard.bsky.social @regretteruane.bsky.social pls email [email protected] ASAP. I'm gonna check it one more time after work so get em in quick if you've not got one yet.

In fact I think a lot of these conspiracies are driven by a desire for Epstein to have done “worse” things, because sexual abuse of girls and young women is so normalized and prevalent that people don’t view it as bad or strange enough to care. So they hope it’s secretly about eating babies

Reading Stu Hennigan's KESHED and feel like I've been beaten up outside a flat-roofed pub, which is a GOOD THING in a literary landscape dominated by tastefully buttoned-up bougie fretting. Looking forward to the online launch on Thursday with @stuhennigan.bsky.social & @regretteruane.bsky.social

I've been looking through memories. These are from when my girls were little, Lilian formed a band with the absolute genius name of Pantselation (notice pants hanging above the stage on a banner) and Phoebe became a poet of bleak realities.

Contributing to a state pension most won’t collect. Working to the end while sick or in pain. The whole discourse about how ‘we’ can’t afford state pensions & must push retirement out to 70+ is based on wilful ignorance of what manual work is like. And a narrow conception of who counts as a person.

It was my mum’s funeral on Wednesday. I’m so sad. I get such solace from Barry Lopez, who, though writing predominantly about places and travel, understood the spellbind of love, sadness, awe and presence.

Thanks to amazing team who came canvassing in Denton with me today - we had a lot of fun & fab reception on the doorsteps 🙂. And if anyone is still (weirdly) thinking of voting Labour - one more Labour backbencher will make no difference - the first Green MP from Manchester would be transformative 💪

Good morning. Given what is going on in USA and in Europe. If you are able, please do read The Accidental Immigrants by @jomcmillan.bsky.social short listed for The Orwell Prize When nationalism and capturing the flag to blame others turns into blind hatred. @theguardian.com

I often joke that Pierre and I panic-buy cheap reading glasses. Pierre has just had a sort and a cull. He just come to show me this, saying “Deborah Meaden’s going to loose her shit.”

When despair for the world grows in me, I turn to Wendell Berry and am comforted

I have a new story on BBC Radio 4 - Friday 23 Jan - and then on catchup Elevator pitch - a comedy about love, entropy and a ceremonial badger I’d love for you to give it a listen www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This is tonight on Bluesky!

Jesus's dad, Jesus, and Jesus's mum. A painting made by my daughter Phoebe when she was little

“We’ve invented a magic computer. It uses all of the earth’s resources, we’ve spent trillions on it and it’s the sole growth area of the US economy.” “What does it do?” “We were hoping you could tell us.”

Great to see Saltburn in @luluallison.bsky.social books of year. And it’s currently 50% off at @renardpress.com renardpress.com/books/saltbu...

1/3 My favourite of the books I read last year, since starting a record in March. Top to bottom: Angel, Elizabeth Taylor Question 7, Richard Flanagan Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson Train Dreams, Denis Johnson Life Cycle of a Moth, Rowe Irvin The Death of Grass, John Christopher Continued⬇️

Soon, reporters have to start laughing their heads off at what Trump says to them. Surely

me when you get your acoustic guitar out at a party I was up to that point enjoying

Fuck me, imagine being so appalling a figure that your actions are an embarrassment to *Fifa*

You say base layer, I say pyjamas

Anyone wants to BUY the book, pre-orders have been available from @ortacpress.bsky.social for AGES. www.ortacpress.com/product-page...

This is why confronting our powerlessness is part of the resilience of the long game. People tell themselves there's a magic solution to abate fear. Really, the solution is persistence. The solution is outlasting him. The solution is fighting to reclaim our power before he's able to seize it.

Like teenage boys England Cricket has confused fearless with reckless.

Daphne, my grandmother

On my way to listen to the second half of the foot ball and spotted a familiar face! Will catch up this evening. @ronanhession.bsky.social @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social

Just finished my New Year read. I really enjoyed this. First i have read by @colettesnowden.bsky.social . Interesting format and characters, lots sub stories. Highly recommend 👍 @ofmooseandmen.bsky.social

It’s 1990, I’m 1 years old, and the republican president of the US is attacking a petrol state It’s 2004, I’m 15 years old, and the republican president of the US is attacking a petrol state It’s 2026, I’m 37 years old, and the republican president of the US is attacking a petrol state

Share a great female villain

and at any moment / someone might fall in love with me I was / that woven into the electric / cold bright air (Heather Christle)

We’re in the car on the way to family, debating which Beatle would’ve had the most successful long-term relationship with Barry Manilow. I say George. Pierre says (get this) with all of his experience watching Married at First Sight (yeah, me either) he confidently picks John. Merry Christmas all.