Simon Heffer has written his classical music article again.

Hey, choral societies! Stop doing this sort of naff, anaemic, cut-price cowboy garbage. Most of you need *more* covering fire, not less. You've got 1000 years of music to choose from; pretty sure you can find something worth singing that's not a colossal kick in the nads to the original composer.

Yes, happy birthday to the esteemed conductor, scholar, landowner, workplace bully and all-England, four-dimensional, tungsten-tipped c**t. Don't you go dying on me just yet, big guy. I'm saving up for a parade float and a skywriter.

Let's stick Welsh National Opera's new season announcement through the ArtsSpeak Bullshit Translator®, because it's a belter... "bold new era" / "new chapter" = no money "powerful rebirth" = on life support "progressive" = part-time "reimagined" / "reshaped" = barely an opera company any more

Easily the worst thing to ever happen there.

#TheNakedWeek clears off out of it for the summer with some rule-abiding foul-mouthery and some stuff that will probably make you quite angry, but at least that proves you're not *completely* dead inside. Shows what you know, sixth different therapist this year. 📻 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

The first thing people see when they emerge from Birmingham New Street station is a cultural jewel, the UK's oldest working cinema... mothballed for over 2 years by a company called Glenbrook Property, who definitely are not waiting for it to very accidentally catch fire and have to be torn down.

Your annual reminder that it's pronounced "Sinjin" Passion.

Oh I do love an original idea. Especially when it's so really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good. Just really good. Really, really good. So great. Really, really great. Brilliant, even. Brilliant and great and good. Well done, broadcasting. You guys are amazing. 📻

#TheNakedWeek continues at pace. It's a sort of Reithian highway to hell, or "That's Life with nonce jokes", as one commenter so helpfully put it. Give it a listen. Maybe it'll drown out the noise of your appalling family. 📻 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Hire Sarah, for gawd's sake. She is the Funniest Person There Is®.

#TheNakedWeek has returned to cover the series finale of civilisation (nice idea, too many kinks*, not enough irons**). Episode 1 includes journalism, jokes and some unusual shouting. 📻 *bombs **not bellends www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

culture

Terrible look for the paedophile community. Hard to see them recovering from this.

ODE TO A RESTAURANT CHAIN Frankie & Benny's How I wonder Why you are What sustains you? It can't be The food You should be dead Dead, like your founders: General Franco and Benito Mussolini

100* for György Kurtág. Terrific knock by the young man. A less half-arsed body of work you would struggle to find. Drool reverentially before Stele ⬇️ - the greatest piece of orchestration since Australopithecus first picked up a discarded femur and twanged it on the side of a desk.

A tesseract of incoherent, patronising bilge. "People wrongly think that classical music is elitist. And they're right; it totally is, as proved by us saying so. TikTok! Mixtapes! Audiences are simultaneously up, down and dead. Be younger, you old f**ks! Your money is rusty and not on Instagram."

Tell me again what sort of "glorious, uplifting music is guaranteed to propel me through the weekend," Radio 3. Go on. I f***ing double-dare you. Some of us suckers have to work weekends, so unless I can pay my council tax with John Wilson's bang-average recording of Rach 2, pipe the flip down.

This ham-fisted fatberg. This shuddering boregasm. This pious tub of twee self-harmony. This knackered deluge of c**trapuntal cack. This uphill trudge through an antique fart. This drooping monument to inept bombasturbation. This Third Republic frumpery. This coma en croûte. This pâté de f*** all.

Well, that explains it.

"Sir, have you been drinking?" "Me, officer? No. Never touch the stuff." "Uh-huh. And your name is...?" "Errrm... ?"

Tomorrow this trio of odd noises starts slipping off BBC Sounds and back into audio oblivion. If you want to hear the missing Episode 4, in which it all turns out to be a dream*, give me a call and I'll dictate it down the phone. *no, obviously not www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

HNY to those who celebrate. 2,026th time lucky, eh?

"What degree are you doing?" "About 900 Celsius."

Could be polarising. #noyouf***off

Episode 3 of No-Platformed floats onto Radio 4 tonight at 23.15. Episode 4 has been delayed indefinitely by stupid Christmas, so 3 is your lot for now. Contains surface water, stupid jokes about spelling, and a badly behaved Formula 1 pit crew. You know. Normal stuff. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

Wednesday - 23.15 - Radio 4 Episode 3 of #NoPlatformed, in which subliminal messaging goes wrong, Stuart discovers what the B in B&Q definitely doesn't stand for, and some wet and wild station renovations come home to roost. 📻

Wednesday - 23.15 - Radio 4 Episode 3 of #NoPlatformed, in which subliminal messaging goes wrong, Stuart discovers what the B in B&Q definitely doesn't stand for, and some wet and wild station renovations come home to roost. 📻

'Tis the season.

Surely an even number would be more useful?

Episode 2 of #NoPlatformed re-emerges tonight at 23.15 on Radio 4 then loiters around for a while on BBC Sounds. WARNING: contains parcels, defibrillators, contentious long-service awards and implausibly gruesome police procedurals. 📻 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

Wednesday - 23.15 - Radio 4 Episode 2 of #NoPlatformed, in which - among many* other surprises - two of the Railway Children turn out to be complete psychopaths. *How many? Well, we somehow got through 25 pages of script in only 14 minutes. Suck on that, Radio 3 Unwind, you catatonic pansies. 📻

Wednesday - 23.15 - Radio 4 Episode 2 of #NoPlatformed, in which - among many* other surprises - two of the Railway Children turn out to be complete psychopaths. *How many? Well, we somehow got through 25 pages of script in only 14 minutes. Suck on that, Radio 3 Unwind, you catatonic pansies. 📻

One of history's more intriguing set lists

[Tonight / Radio 4 / 23:15] Another chance to hear Episode 1 of something a bit off the beaten kilter called #NoPlatformed. Radio Times called it "an experimental sitcom with more hits than misses" so... that. More or less. Contains lots of stupid jokes about time. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Missed a full stop, you dense tub...

If you listen to this week's #TheNakedWeek, we can't be *entirely* sure that you won't be sued. Or that you won't become the next Director-General of the BBC. Worth a pop either way, I reckon. 📻 www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Well, this is a lovely surprise. Next month* there will be another chance to hear a show I wrote called No-Platformed which I assumed had been consigned to audio oblivion. As I recall, it contains quite a lot of strange jokes. 📻 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... *assuming the BBC makes it to December

Yes, One Battle After Another is outrageously good, but half a point off for missing out the best bit of the book.

When you're not sure how to spell "soup"

Concerto for Your Grandparents and Orchestra

SECRETARY Sir? I have Maurice Baron on Line 1. 1920s MUSIC PUBLISHER [from behind a mountain of cocaine] Has he finished his new piece? SECRETARY Yes, but he says he's not sure about the title, which is-- 1920s MUSIC PUBLISHER Sure, great, whatever, tell him it's f***ing perfect, just print it.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Waaah! The BBC is dumbing down classical music! Waaah! Radio 3 told me to relax and now I'm Jeremy Corbyn! Waaah! Shame on the sick BBC for reducing great culture to banal garbage! Waaah! ALSO THE DAILY TELEGRAPH:

Delighted to wind back the clock and slip into this week's #TheSkewer. It's like slipping into your favourite uncle. Still the best 15 minutes of noise out there by an absolute sodding mile. Listen and weep. 📻 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Meanwhile, on Platform 5 at Milton Keynes Central...

A quick PSA for anyone who might give a toss: Atlanta is currently on Prime Video. It's one of the best-written, best-acted, best-directed, funniest and oddest slabs of telly ever made.* Rub it into all your eyes and ears. *Especially Series 4.** **Especially especially the Goofy Movie episode.

Coming up on 6 months since we broadcast this beautiful show. Do check it out, and why not check out the Twilight Zone podcast too, where I was interviewed about the production process and the original Fantasy Park www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

£50 to any BBC Proms presenter with the balls to announce on-air that a performance was actually: "bang average" / "a right Horlicks from start to finish" / "no idea - went for a vape and a slash" / "the most offensive noise in the Royal Albert Hall since Oswald Mosley did a tight 10 back in 1934"

Northern Ballet, having recently ditched their live orchestra, now crowing about offering a "rare opportunity" to conduct a ballet. Must have own Spotify Premium account.

Cannonball Udderley [turns gun on self]