Finally read this, which is as good as everyone says.

Walked around Forest of Imagination at Entry Hill, Bath, late yesterday afternoon. Good to see this project continuing. I’m hosting the discussion today about creative education (and probably much more given excellent participants). Details here: @forestofimaginatn.bsky.social.

Two film events coming up with @swsilents.bsky.social: 26 October: The Newcomers - a six-part BBC series from 1964 on Bristol followed by Money Into Light, John Boorman’s follow-up film about Bristol in 1985. Book here: www.southwestsilents.com/event-detail...

‘Levelling up the arts can be a driver of growth, a source of social cohesion and a vehicle for cultural empowerment. Hopefully, after a period of much talk and little action, the city that gave us Shelagh Delaney, Caroline Aherne and the Gallagher brothers can lead the way.’

Fine evening last night watching The Ballad of Wallis Island followed by on-stage discussion between Tim Key and @neilramjee.bsky.social. Thank you Neil and @wshed.bsky.social. You help make Bristol a cinema city of excellence.

Looking forward to hosting Forest of Imagination Climate Education Roundtable Thursday 2 October 4.30-6pm Entry Hill, Bath BA2 5NA. With Margaret Heffernan, Andrew Grant, Peter Clegg, Dr Debbie Yeboah (PhD) and Alf Coles. More details below.

Daily Telegraph Review has the 25 greatest war films today. It’s beaten by The Great Escape (oddly) but Paths of Glory is in at number 4. This is being shown @swsilents.bsky.social in Bristol with Battle of the Somme (1916) 22 November with an introduction by me. Book here: ti.to/film-noir-uk...

Sad to read this. A wonderful poet. I remember - with great fondness and learning - seeing many of his film poems.

Appalling practice and picture.

Coming up 22 November. I’m hosting this terrific double bill for @swsilents.bsky.social: Battle of the Somme (with live music) and Paths of Glory. Book here: ti.to/film-noir-uk...

Local charity shop:

Coming up 26 October: two films about Bristol. The Newcomers, made by John Boorman before he went on to Hollywood fame, helped launched BBC2 in 1964. In Money into Light he returns to Bristol 25 years later. Thanks to @swsilents.bsky.social for partnership and @filmhubsw.bsky.social for support.

More than 72% of tickets now sold for screening of rarely seen Bristol films 26 October with @swsilents.bsky.social. Book here: www.southwestsilents.com/event-detail...

Festival of Economics looks at debt and borrowing 18 November. Details here: www.economicsobservatory.com/festival-of-...

Festival of Britain 75th anniversary (whole country) to be celebrated only in London? The original had activity all around the country. www.thetimes.com/article/2098...

This is a nice piece - both in what it says and how it is presented.

Guardian on Ian McEwan’s books. I’m interviewing Ian tonight for Toppings Bath on his new book What We Can Know. Book here: www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/...

Just arrived. Last year we ran a season in our city film festival on some of the rubble films. I’ve seen The Murderers Are Among Us but not the others. Terrific job by Eureka. Order here: eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/wrack-...

‘What We Can Know is aware of its limitations and comfortable in its skin, making it McEwan’s most entertaining and enjoyable novel for years.’ on.ft.com/41NMaXr I’m interviewing Ian McEwan 16 September. Book here: www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/...

Early morning walk with heron and a rower.

Some events coming up where I’m hosting/ interviewing/ presenting about fiction, Brunel, futures, cinema of the First World War, John Boorman and Bristol and economics. 16 September - I’m interviewing Ian McEwan about his new novel What We Can Know. www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/... 1/

I’m looking forward to hosting Nick Foster RDI when he comes to Bristol 22 September. His work is of wide interest and applicability. Book here: www.bookhausbristol.com/events/#e133...

The final episode of The Newcomers (1964 - which helped launch BBC2), we’re showing 26 October, is a day in the life of Bristol from student exams to births, deaths and marriages; retirement from the Bristol Aeroplane Company to the payment of a day’s tobacco duty. Book @swsilents.bsky.social:

Coming up next week 16 September. I’m Interviewing Ian McEwan about his new novel What We Can Know (which is terrific) for Toppings Bath. Book here: www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/...

Final tickets just released for my Bristol how on September 19th. Please do come redgravetheatre.com/event/2025/0...

Last two tickets for my Bristol show on September 19th. Please do come redgravetheatre.com/event/2025/0...

In one of the episodes of The Newcomers - which were showing 26 October with @swsilents.bsky.social - there’s a lengthy film sequence of an evangelical meeting in Bristol. It’s quite a remarkable piece of filmmaking. Book here: www.southwestsilents.com/event-detail...

If you’re in Oxford or nearby do go to this. Ian’s book is terrific and Richard is a brilliant librarian, exhibition curator and writer (check his Burning the Books). If closer to Bath/ Bristol I’ll be interviewing Ian McEwan 16 September. Book here: www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/...

In The Newcomers, the TV series from 1964 about Bristol which we’re showing 26 October, you see Tom Stoppard before he became famous. He was then a journalist in Bristol newspapers as a correspondent on tennis, cricket, motoring and the arts. Book here:

John Crace - @mrjohncrace.bsky.social - on Farage at the Reform conference: ‘All he had offered was anger. But that was enough. The crowd loved it.’ www.theguardian.com/politics/202... More from John 19 September in Bristol. A few seats left. Book here: redgravetheatre.com/event/2025/0...

Angela Rayner’s resignation and its implications will no doubt come up in forthcoming event (19 September) with @mrjohncrace.bsky.social in Bristol: What The Hell Just Happened? Last few tickets available. Delighted to be hosting John again. Book here: redgravetheatre.com/event/2025/0...

"What a wonderful collection — surprising, smart and rich." -- Nick Hornby What do moving images mean? How and why do they work? Film archivist, curator, historian and writer Luke McKernan looks at 140 years of a bewitching medium. Out now! stickingplacebooks.com/let-me-dream...

Read just two so far on this list but plan to read the rest. The two I have read - Helen Garner’s diaries and Ian Leslie on John and Paul - are excellent.

Earl Grey tea with Richard Holmes’s wonderful book about researching and writing biography. Holmes’s work is outstanding. It’s a second reading for me - this time as it’s mentioned in Ian McEwan’s new novel and I’m interviewing him 16 September. I hope we have chance to discuss this.

Delighted to be hosting John Crace when he visits Bristol 19 September. He’s a wonderful, funny writer, with deep political knowledge. Here’s his latest column. Very few tickets left. Book here: redgravetheatre.com/event/2025/0...

I’d missed this. RIP the author of one of the very best biographies I’ve been lucky enough to read, The Man Who Went into the West, about R. S. Thomas. Obituary of Byron Rogers, who died last month.

The Bodleian organises and curates brilliant exhibitions. Look forward to this one on John le Carré and his collaborators very much. observer.co.uk/style/featur...

‘A tall, barrel-chested man with a mischievous cackle, for all his slyly beady eye and impish iconoclasm Byron Rogers was a kind man without a hint of malice. Commemorating the people “whose lives have been dusted aside by history”, in his daughter’s words, was for him an act of justice.’

As I start to increase substantially the days each week I spend on my book on Brunel part of the time is visiting his work and what remains. Here’s a fine view of the SS Great Britain today.

Last tickets for my Bristol show on September 19th. Please do come along. redgravetheatre.com/event/2025/0...

Tour round some of the Gromit Unleashed trail today in Bristol. Managed to see 20. Here’s most of them. 1/

Long wanted to read a biography of Peter Matthiessen. Thanks to @lancerichardson.bsky.social it is now possible. Thank you Chatto and Windus for the advance reading copy. Out late Autumn in the UK.

Reading Agency figures in Saturday Telegraph: 27 million or so UK adults ‘…say they do not regularly read by choice - 47 per cent of adults. Those ‘…aged 16 to 24 years old are the least engaged with reading, with 61 per cent identifying as either lapsed readers or non-readers…’.

More praise for @joannapocock.bsky.social wonderful new book. ‘Lyrical and clear-eyed at once, Pocock has reinvented the road-trip genre for a new age — an age, she argues, in which we lack the will to fully confront the drastic effects of our political and economic decisions.’

Saw Lady and the Tramp this morning in a glorious print for 70th anniversary rerelease. I’d forgotten that one of the dogs quotes Gorky from The Lower Depths: ‘Miserable being must find more miserable being. Then, he is happy’.

LTC Rolt: ‘Brunel…was more than a great engineer; he was an artist and a visionary, a great man with a strangely magnetic personality which uniquely distinguished him even in that age of powerful individualism in which he moved.’

Today’s reading. Another read of Rolt’s classic biography for my Brunel book and forthcoming talk at Ironbridge. My work seeks to supplement Rolt’s. And I hope I get a better cover than this reprint.

In one episode in The Newcomers - the six-part BBC series from 1964 we’re showing with @swsilents.bsky.social and others 26 October, you see Bristol at night. One extended scene is in an evangelical church in St Paul’s. Book here: www.southwestsilents.com/event-detail...

Saw this over the weekend. Terrific, tight, excellently acted and directed. It’s a bad story dealt with well and with some hope too. We should see much more of Eva Victor as actor, writer, director. Tiny audience though.

Do you want some great reading about the dilemmas Labour faced when it was last in power? Well, you're in luck - because my book on New Labour is out in February, and you can pre-order it now for a mere twenty quid! manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526146328/