"I understand that Hitler regards the Lambeth Walk as too democratic a dance for Germany," said Clement Attlee. "All they can do there is the goose step." thelionandunicorn.com/2026/01/01/t...

"I stroke it every chance I get..." Harry Roy's "My Girl's Pussy" (1931) and other classics by British Dance Bands. thelionandunicorn.com/2026/01/01/t...

"I didn’t march halfway across the world to put Jerry back in his box for jumped-up spivs to end up running the show at home." The first episode of Endeavour was broadcast 2 January 2012. thelionandunicorn.com/2023/01/22/e...

A happy 65th birthday to film director Todd Haynes, who made glam-rock drama Velvet Goldmine. thelionandunicorn.com/2024/04/29/f...

"‘Jack Hylton lived like Nero,’ noted his friend, comedian Arthur Askey, ‘and was, naturally, a good socialist!’" @alwynturner.bsky.social celebrates the best of interwar British dance bands. thelionandunicorn.com/2026/01/01/t...

COMING SOON from Lion & Unicorn...

Goodbye 2025! No vintage year, but kind to L&U. Thanks to @lordbonkers.bsky.social, Simon Matthews, Dan Atkinson, @finlay24.bsky.social, @hellothisisivan.bsky.social, @benfinlay74.bsky.social, @paulsaffer.bsky.social, @alantyler.bsky.social & @alwynturner.bsky.social. Splendid chap, all of them.

2025 hasn't just been L&U's 10th anniversary year, it's also been our most successful, with a record readership and four wonderful new contributors. Below I pick my Top Ten posts of 2025, in calendar order. But first, the story of how we got here.👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/08/02/n...

"There was something terribly trivial about Y2K. The idea that humanity could destroy itself because it used six, not eight, digits for the date was culturally implausible, a far cry from the Book of Revelation" Our @alwynturner.bsky.social back in the NS👇 www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...

"John Curtice told Tories that the Lib Dems would ‘almost undoubtedly’ win more seats than them at the next election. If any party is going to be killed in the near future it is the Conservatives, though the verdict will probably be suicide." thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/29/1...

"Mr Prout could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him." Today we shall be reading Rudyard Kipling, born 160 years ago, on 30 December 1865. thelionandunicorn.com/2018/11/04/i...

I've written another post for Lion & Unicorn. To celebrate its 10th year, the blog asked me to write about what the last decade has been like for the Liberal Democrats.

"‘I think I’ve just killed the Liberal Democrats,’ William Hague told his wife Ffion, after the Conservatives and Lib Dems reached their coalition agreement in June 2010." @lordbonkers.bsky.social on the fall and rise of the Lib Dems. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/29/1...

"The boiling fat warmth of Parker’s chip shop spilled into the streets. Glowing shop-front tellies were tuned to the wrestling, and outside the Salford Hippodrome a sign announced, ‘Strip, strip, hooray — we’ve nothing on tonight’" From @finlay24.bsky.social👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/26/l...

"1965 was the peak year of the Daleks: they appeared in a record fourteen episodes of Doctor Who that year, as well as in the cinema, on stage, in comics and in two books." thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/25/t...

"Their opposition to the ‘Family Farm Tax’ appears in practice to mean opposition to any inheritance tax on land, and the Lib Dems have also taken the part of parents who pay for private education & owners of £2m houses" @lordbonkers.bsky.social on the Lib Dems thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/29/1...

Happy birthday to Mike "Porky" Parry, "a licensed buffoon whose tongue and brain were in a perpetual state of civil war. ‘I think cathedrals are cathedrals,’ he’d declare, or he’d make reference to ‘Bordeaux – as in the tapestry’." thelionandunicorn.com/2024/07/14/c...

"‘I think I’ve just killed the Liberal Democrats,’ William Hague told his wife Ffion, after the Conservatives and Lib Dems reached their coalition agreement in June 2010." @lordbonkers.bsky.social on the fall and rise of the Lib Dems. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/29/1...

Top tip: remember that celebrities are also human beings, with all the expected flaws; and that you don't actually know them. You can like the odd thing they did without needing to apologise for the bad things they've said or done. You also don't need to issue a statement upon their death.

Share a great female villain 🎬

"Detective Sergeant Pierce has a Victorian-type dislike for drug dealers, and taps up rock musician Charley Small, who fingers an Indian guru, travelling to and from the Battersea Heliport as the likely source." It's the death of the Swinging 60s. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/21/f...

"If I ever make a Christmas album, shoot me," said Eliza Carthy in 2021, just two years before she released the album "Glad Christmas Comes". thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

"If the Daleks are derived from the Nazis, then Mavic Chen is clearly modelled on Stalin, his first appearance including a reference to a Non-Aggression Pact, which can hardly fail to bring to mind the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact" From @alwynturner.bsky.social👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/25/t...

"If you go down to the Street today, you’re sure of a big surprise..." @finlay24.bsky.social on Coronation Street. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/26/l...

"The Bloomsbury highbrow, with his mechanical snigger, is as out of date as the cavalry colonel. A modern nation cannot afford either of them. Patriotism & intelligence will have to come together again" — Orwell @alantyler.bsky.social on The Lion & the Unicorn👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/17/o...

"Detective Sergeant Pierce has a Victorian-type dislike for drug dealers, and taps up rock musician Charley Small, who fingers an Indian guru, travelling to and from the Battersea Heliport as the likely source." It's the death of the Swinging 60s. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/21/f...

"Superb, dark & melancholic... a complete piece, sequenced without gaps and plays like a contemporary folk/prog epic... Best of all is the brooding ‘Dark December’ which simply ascends with the advent of the horn solo" @benfinlay74.bsky.social on The Unthanks👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

"1965 was the peak year of the Daleks: they appeared in a record fourteen episodes of Doctor Who that year, as well as in the cinema, on stage, in comics and in two books." thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/25/t...

"The boiling fat warmth of Parker’s chip shop spilled into the streets. Glowing shop-front tellies were tuned to the wrestling, and outside the Salford Hippodrome a sign announced, ‘Strip, strip, hooray — we’ve nothing on tonight’" From @finlay24.bsky.social👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/26/l...

"If the Daleks are derived from the Nazis, then Mavic Chen is clearly modelled on Stalin, his first appearance including a reference to a Non-Aggression Pact, which can hardly fail to bring to mind the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact" From @alwynturner.bsky.social👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/25/t...

Here's me on Coronation Street and the disappearance of working class Britain from TV thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/26/l...

"‘If I was a producer on a show like that,’ Terry Nation reflected later, ‘I don’t think I would ever commit myself to a three-month Dalek story without a lot of other stuff in it as well.’" Our @alwynturner.bsky.social's Christmas present for Dalek fans👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/25/t...

"Its drama came from small domestic tensions & minor community frictions. A love triangle between a schoolteacher, a shop assistant & a factory owner. Three old dears supping milk stout. A widow crying over an old pair of glasses" @finlay24.bsky.social on Corrie thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/26/l...

"If you go down to the Street today, you’re sure of a big surprise..." @finlay24.bsky.social on Coronation Street. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/26/l...

"Incidentally a happy Christmas to all of you at home." thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/25/t...

"‘If I was a producer on a show like that,’ Terry Nation reflected later, ‘I don’t think I would ever commit myself to a three-month Dalek story without a lot of other stuff in it as well.’" Our @alwynturner.bsky.social's Christmas present for Dalek fans👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/25/t...

"If I ever make a Christmas album, shoot me," said Eliza Carthy in 2021, just two years before she released the album "Glad Christmas Comes". thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

"Detective Sergeant Pierce has a Victorian-type dislike for drug dealers, and taps up rock musician Charley Small, who fingers an Indian guru, travelling to and from the Battersea Heliport as the likely source." It's the death of the Swinging 60s. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/21/f...

"Superb, dark & melancholic... a complete piece, sequenced without gaps and plays like a contemporary folk/prog epic... Best of all is the brooding ‘Dark December’ which simply ascends with the advent of the horn solo" @benfinlay74.bsky.social on The Unthanks👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

The Lion & Unicorn editorial board has convened to decide this year's festive Dalek special...

Saxophonist Ronnie Scott died 23 December 1996. He's included in @benfinlay74.bsky.social's guide to the golden age of British jazz. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/05/17/c...

"Notable is ‘I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’ written by John Rox in 1953, a protest song commenting on the commercialism of Christmas & the disregard for the health of the natural world to feed our greed" @benfinlay74.bsky.social's favourite festive folk👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

Steeleye Span's "Gaudete" is one of only two top-twenty British hits to be sung fully in Latin... thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

Michael York, Susan George and Barry Fantoni in "The Strange Affair" - just as the optimism of the 1960s began to evaporate. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/21/f...

Ring Out Solstice Bells! (and other Yuletide classics). thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

"Detective Sergeant Pierce has a Victorian-type dislike for drug dealers, and taps up rock musician Charley Small, who fingers an Indian guru, travelling to and from the Battersea Heliport as the likely source." It's the death of the Swinging 60s. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/21/f...

"Notable is ‘I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’, a protest song commenting on the commercialism of Christmas and the disregard for the health of the natural world to feed our greed." Some festive listening, selected by @benfinlay74.bsky.social. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

"Notable is ‘I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’, a protest song commenting on the commercialism of Christmas and the disregard for the health of the natural world to feed our greed." Some festive listening, selected by @benfinlay74.bsky.social. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...

"The intellectuals who have tried to break down the insularity of the English have generally done more harm than good..." @alantyler.bsky.social on George Orwell. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/17/o...

"The creeping cold has fingers That caress without permission And mystic crystal snowdrops Only aggravate the condition." Some festive listening as recommended by @benfinlay74.bsky.social. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/13/t...