Oh no. Truly a torchbearer. Set a high bar that I don't think has been matched since.

So sorry to hear that Jenni Murray has died. She was magnificent. I still miss her voice on Woman’s Hour.

Roses are redde Noble are the manatees For a bettir future Teach artes and humanityes

youtube.com/watch?v=ft0v... RIP Country Joe ‘Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box’.

Yorkshire, black, pease, rice.

I’m thinking about starting a British version of the NYT connections puzzle designed to be unsolvable by Americans. Sample row: England players who missed a penalty.

Just learned that Keats had a younger brother who emigrated to America. His son, Keats’ nephew lived until 1917, into the age of cars and planes and world war.

Just learned that Keats had a younger brother who emigrated to America. His son, Keats’ nephew lived until 1917, into the age of cars and planes and world war.

FREE THE WINDSOR ONE DEFUND THE POLICE

£500 given out to a working class writer every month. Details in link. Please share :)

“Q: What do you think Jonathan thought of you? A: It doesn’t matter.” The Jewish Chronicle tried to replicate the Guardian’s Blind Date column. It didn’t go very well. (via @lindasgrant.bsky.social)

Feels like America is now run by Tony Soprano.

So much truth. And controversial view: for me one of the key differences between radio programmes and podcasts is that radio programmes rarely make me shout GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAID EARLIER IN THE PUB I WASN’T THERE

Unbelievably, #DuvetKnowItsChristmas generates such good will on social media that over the years we've raised somewhere approaching a quarter of a million quid for homeless charities. If you can spare a bob or two, sling some to Centrepoint, and here's the link: www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

I’ve just watched Die Hard for the first time. It was less Christmassy than I’d been expecting.

My kids woke up so excited this morning for the first night of Hannukah and now yet again we have a festival where I’m very conflicted about whether it’s safe to take them to synagogue to celebrate. Communities shouldn’t have to live like this.

I’d hoped it would be Tom Sutcliffe but Misha Glenny is a fine choice.

My experience of jury duty was exactly this. In the end one juror summed up the key points and got us over the line to a verdict. Turned out in his day job he was a solicitor.

In case anyone is wondering if Watson was really THAT bad, @lpachter.bsky.social compiled a list of quotes that are absolutely not for the faint of heart. liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...

The Andrew formerly known as Prince.

Which judges went on holiday together? Which author lost their literary innocence with a judge badmouthed his book? Who sat next to AS Byatt's roll of Sellotape? Me on the Booker Prize in the 2000s, with contributions from @ericawgnr.bsky.social, @lindasgrant.bsky.social, Damon Galgut and more:

Please share this letter in support of the City University professor of economics Michael Ben-Gad, who is receiving death threats and harassment, as part of an ongoing campaign to have him sacked owing to his having completed compulsory IDF service 1982-1985.

Can any flower experts tell me what these are please?

Trump now preparing to invade and annex Sweden.

To put events today in long term context, in the mid-90s during the height of Oslo my mother was in a Jewish care home in N. London. When it held a fundraising jumble sale it had to be patrolled by the police.

The Community Security Trust is one of the jewels of British Jewry which has its origins in the street fighting against the postwar resurgence of the Mosleyites and later the National Front. cst.org.uk/about-cst

I assume the conspiracy theories about the Manchester attack are in full force on X but I’m not going to look.

To put events today in long term context, in the mid-90s during the height of Oslo my mother was in a Jewish care home in N. London. When it held a fundraising jumble sale it had to be patrolled by the police.

You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.

RIP Brian Patten

I bet Rusbridger is livid at getting played by Toby Jones when Ben Bradlee got Jason Robards

Watching The Hack. With the casting of Toby Jones as Alan Rusbridger I expected Mackenzie Crook to turn up as Jonathan Freedland.

When people come out with that old saw, if voting changed anything it would be illegal I give you Trump’s speech to the UN.

I would love to know if there was ANYONE who was rich and/or famous who met Jeffrey Epstein and decided he was a sick creep.

The Roses is at heart a romcom which The Wars of the Roses definitely wasn’t.

‘I have in my hand a piece of paper’ Anchorage Agreement

I think the word “broken” is politically toxic, breeding despair, feeding populism, and disparaging people who work in those sectors

www.theguardian.com/books/2002/j... Bacck in 2002 I addressed the question so often asked - how could the Jews of all people behave like this to the Palestinians.

I always enjoy reading the TripAdvisor London Forum because I'm fascinated to see what foreign tourists expect, what they ask about and what surprises them. I thought this post from someone from Texas was a really lovely and cheering comment about riding the tube late at night

Finished. Glad to see the back of it.

Reading Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises for the first time since I was a teenager, the antisemitism and racism make the experience like chewing a mouthful of rocks.

Suburban memoirists, our moment is finally here!!

Beautiful rain at last.

Radio 3 just played a snippet of Carmina Burana in tribute to Ozzy Osborne. They always hit the right note.

🚨🗣️ 52 influential women unite to urge the Government: do not abandon asylum-seeking survivors. Violence does not stop at the border, and neither should our compassion and support for survivors. Read more: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... #WelcomeEveryWoman