Off tonight to see @thehandsomefamily.bsky.social at the Band Room on the North York Moors, a venue they once described as "the greatest small venue on earth"

Watching the detective: James Stewart, born OTD in 1908

“There are four winds and eight sub-winds each with its own colour. The wind from the east is a deep purple, from the south a fine shining silver. The north wind is a hard black and the west is amber.” (Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman)

I'll be in Dublin at the International Literature Festival @ilfdublin.bsky.social this coming Friday 22nd, to talk about Dooneen. 8pm. Tickets available at the link below. Be great to see you there.

Love this French titbit in a review of Lauren Elkin's Vocal Break: On Women, Music and Power

'Hyde Park' (1931) by Sybil Andrews

You couldn’t make this up

Love Boots youtu.be/E_66gXXfrbA?...

Watched this brilliant adaptation of Melville’s story of passive resistance in the workplace, relocated to 1970s London

Discovered the wonderful work of Gwen Raverat today (at an exhibition in Appleton-le-Moors, North Yorkshire)

Slow Sunday #moorland

“Is this what the end of the world feels like?” Watched this gripping, existential road movie with no roads.

PSA for those with access: this intense and beautifully observed film is on BBC iPlayer from tonight

People say we monkey around

Uncle Charlie calling: Joseph Cotten, born OTD in 1905

Well, how did I get here? David Byrne, born OTD in 1952

Sunny boy

View from a hedgerow

Part heist movie, part geopolitical parable set in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is a fun watch. Sandra Hüller is great value, as always.

Bluebell glade

Watched this powerful, moving and enraging film that somehow gives you hope that Mr Nobody will prevail #BBCiPlayer

Blackbird singing

“I think if they’d been butchers, I’d have been a butcher.” This excellent piece on writers who are the offspring of famous writers is by @john-self.bsky.social – though you wouldn’t know that if you bought a copy of the Guardian today, which misses off his byline (as well as the headline)

Saul Bass, born OTD in 1920

The high road

Recommend listening to this rather than the news #NowPlaying

May blossoming

“A poet needs a pen, a painter a brush, and a director an army.”—Orson Welles, born OTD in 1915

Look at the time

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS / LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD (Louis Malle, 1958, rewatch). Wonderful to see this atmospheric noir with elements of the French New Wave on the big screen at The Garden Cinema yesterday - fabulous Miles Davis soundtrack, too. A birthday treat for a friend. #FilmSky

It remains to be seen if Whit Stillman’s film* can do justice to the comic universe of Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude. In the meantime I’m picturing this scene. *Thanks @jacquiwine.bsky.social for the heads-up

Sleepy head

Reminds me of the joke about a widow listing her husband's death in the paper. She submits "John Brown Dead." Newspaper says there's a six word minimum, so she amends it to, "John Brown Dead. Tractor for sale "

Pleased to grab tickets to hear Mike Pickering and @johnrobbofficial.bsky.social exploring the music of Manchester as part of the excellent @yorkfestofideas.bsky.social (free admission, booking required)

Anders Danielsen Lie inhabits almost every frame of this compelling film about a man battling addiction and other demons over twenty-fours hours in Oslo

This is quite a find: rare footage of the Velvets playing at an anti-war protest in 1969, ingeniously synced to audio from a gig recorded a few days later (thanks @jimstwentyone.bsky.social)

Coulda been a contender #CountryFair

With immense labour and immense patience they extricated from the long day the grain of pleasure: this sun, this music, the rattle of the miniature cars, the ghost train diving between the grinning skeletons under the Aquarium promenade, the sticks of Brighton rock, the paper sailors’ caps. #Holiday

Something for the weekend

“How does it help to have a room full of people laughing at you?” Enjoyed Will Arnett’s turn as an accidental stand-up working with some very raw material drawn from life.

Foyles book shop in the evening rain, Charing Cross Road, London, c. 1935, by the great Wolfgang Suschitzky.

In the garden, after the deluge

Enjoyed the Berlin locations and Charlize Theron’s magnetic, kinetic performance in comic-book inspired cold war thriller Atomic Blonde (David Leitch, 2017)

Moorland vista

I cannot wait to read this.

Crouching dachshund

Jaws is a good movie but Spielberg blew it by not ending it with Fin

The life cinematic: happy birthday, Wes Anderson