@jonathantranter.bsky.social Hello Jonathan, hope you’re well! This might interest you ⬇️

My lovely friend Jaki is featured in this episode of Made in China, a BBC Sounds podcast in which Eva Brookes explores her identity as a transnational adoptee. Its really good. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Recommend this highly. Steve playing Daisy Bell on Russian TV from the 90s… so poignant. As someone who lives across cultures I completely relate to how he feels about Russia.

Double-headed eagles, white parrots and “defecating squirrels”: my experiences reporting from Russia. Our film ‘Our Man In Moscow’ for BBC Panorama is available on the iPlayer and will be shown on BBC One at 8pm tonight (Mon Feb 2). www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Harry Styles’ new single Aperture totally reminds me of Traffic and Weather by @fountainsofwayne.bsky.social! The bit that goes “we belong together”- same words, identical melody.

NEW ISSUE OUT NOW! We have synthpop giants PROPAGANDA on the cover of the latest Electronic Sound and we’re issuing the mag with a clear vinyl seven-inch featuring superb new mixes of the band’s classic tracks ‘Dr Mabuse’ and ‘Duel’. Get your copy at electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/magazine

It’s the first weekend in UK shops for the new Electronic Sound, which marks 50 years of KRAFTWERK’s ‘Radio-Activity’. You can also buy the mag directly from us, bundled with a seven-inch of THE DIVINE COMEDY’s dazzling cover of the album’s title track. electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/magazine

NEW ISSUE OUT NOW! We’re marking 50 years of KRAFTWERK’s ‘Radio-Activity’ in this month’s Electronic Sound and we’re bundling the mag with a yellow vinyl seven-inch featuring THE DIVINE COMEDY’s epic version of the album title track. Get your copy now at electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/magazine

OUT NOW: Electronic Sound Magazine With Divine Comedy 7" Buy at: electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/p/issue... This issue features an interview with Neil. Order the bundle for a yellow vinyl 7" with an epic version of 'Radio-Activity' by The Divine Comedy. More info in the link.

My older daughter’s review of the Gary Numan gig in Bristol has now been published in Epigram, the student paper epigram.org.uk/review-gary-...

Went to see The Last Dinner Party last night and they were incredible. Pleased to find out they’re influenced by Peter Greenaway/Michael Nyman. faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-director...

Gen Z opinion - my older daughter’s written about the Lily Allen album in the student paper. It’s spot on: epigram.org.uk/tell-me-ever...

Sad to hear Mani has died 😢

Whole fucking thing makes me sick to my stomach. An abject fucking liar, a man who lies as easily as he fucking breathes, threatening an organisation which strives for truthfulness. And plastic patriots like the Mail and Farage urging him on. Jackels.

Here's another view of Denys Lasdun's University of East Anglia basking in the late afternoon sun

Denys Lasdun’s University of East Anglia 1966/7 - the ziggurats looking particularly gorgeous in the late afternoon sun. Photo taken in 2018

Why can’t us immigrants just exist? Can we just be neither bad nor good, just live?

I really could do with an iron infusion… www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I did not know Mont-bell had opened in the UK! I’m not particularly outdoorsy but their stuff would be perfect for the UK weather.

I find it odd that a non-celebrity version of the Traitors is now referred to as a “civilian” version.

When an artist plays a same venue 2 nights in a row and they switch up set lists and the night you didn’t go had your favourite songs 😔

RED ALERT! It’s the first weekend in UK shops for the new issue of Electronic Sound, with GARY NUMAN on the cover. You can also buy the mag together with a red vinyl seven-inch featuring two tracks from Numan’s seminal ‘Telekon’ album direct from us at electronicsound.co.uk/issue130garynuman

It seems like Norwich (at least UEA LCR) is back on the touring route for bands. Which is great. It’s been rubbish for too long (well for me at least)!

This remains an awful and unfair proposal. For one thing, a lot of people genuinely struggle to find time to volunteer, and for another and more importantly, it’s not volunteering if you’re being compelled to do it!

Another nation fighting Russian tyranny, and winning. As Arthur says in that piece, the fight against Reform is also a fight against Russian tyranny. We should be a single-minded as Moldova is.

Should we be grateful that a Labour PM belatedly takes a stand against racism? No. Too low a bar. But there's very little hope around and I'll savour what I get.

It's particularly important that the PM talks about racism. We can see it metastasising in the mainstream and until now No.10 looked too terrified to call it by its name. Saying the word is the first step to challenging it.

Very good to hear him say this. I cannot understand why these comments always seem to come two weeks after the fact, but it's much better than nothing.

1/ There’s quite a lot of misunderstanding by good journalists about how right to work checks operate. It’s not illegal to work without having provided proof of your right, as James goes on to say later in the thread. And employers are not under a legal duty to conduct checks: ID is not mandatory.

Come on someone (I mean politicians) please call out Farage that he is racist and a heartless human being like Sadiq Khan did with Trump? Trying to deport ILR holders (like me) is inhumane.

Keir Starmer’s spokesperson asked for the PM's response to Nigel Farage’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands of people living and working completely legally in the UK, replies that he thinks it is “unworkable” and “unfunded”. So his objection is that they’ve got their sums wrong

Indeed many of the permanent resident Japanese in the UK I know have lived here for the past 40+ years + are now retired. They won't be able to get a work visa. They don't want to go back to Japan because their home + family are in the UK. They don't feel like they belong in Japan any more.

There are around 30,000 Japanese nationals who have permanent residency in the UK. Many of them are married to British people, have British children. The reason they have not taken on British citizenship is that this would mean giving up their Japanese nationality under Japanese law.

It’s quite do-able from a legal perspective. I don’t think dismissing Reform in this way is wise. Voters need to understand that this stuff can happen if they vote for it - and that it would be morally, socially, culturally, economically disastrous. So they shouldn’t vote for it.

Retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain would be immoral and economically damaging. It would tear families apart. Attacking it as ‘potentially illegal’ is completely beside the point. Argue with the (awful) idea. Don’t try ’well, actually you can’t do that’.

Absolutely right. It’s not a gimmick. It’s a repudiation of 75 years of integration. It’s a betrayal of the Windrush generation. It’s unfair and it’s un-British.

Reform will apparently pledge today that they'd abolish indefinite leave to remain - including retrospectively, to people already granted it. Obviously this is a moral abomination but it is also a practical and legal impossibility.

Sorry but just saw a reel from BBC6 music claiming band T shirts have been around for “almost a century” and “it all started with Elvis in 1958”. A century?! That’s ridiculous! There’s a big difference between 67 years and 100!

For there to be no comment from the government on Musk's call for violence, let alone action against X, is unconscionable. An utter dereliction of its responsibility for national security and an affront to every member of an ethnic minority, who is being put at risk by this rhetoric.

Seen over on Threads where some Japanese immigrants to the UK blaming other “illegal” immigrants for their being made to feel unsafe. Nothing new but I hate it so much.

Hopefully all the flaggers are tuning into the last night of the Proms?

Loved this mini radio documentary about Anglia for Africa, the Norwich version of Live Aid which my friend @pushonblue.bsky.social co-organised. Well worth listening! www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Nigel Farage looks uncomfortable as Jamie Raskin uses his opening statement to absolutely demolish him

It’s the first weekend in UK shops for the latest Electronic Sound, with the fab FAITHLESS on the cover. You can also buy the mag direct from us, with a red vinyl seven-inch featuring two exclusive Sister Bliss remixes of cuts from the band’s new album. electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/magazine

Greater Anglia are an absolute joke for charging me £20 to change my journey. So now I’m paying a total of £74 for replacement buses both ways. I miss Shinkansen 😭

New GU and Blur collab is cute, especially the milk carton T shirt and the socks. But not sure about the pants that say “best of blur” www.fullress.com/gu-music-col...

Amid stifling summers Japan warns of future restrictions on children’s sport

Quite a few Japanese people wearing Oasis T-shirts on my flight back from Japan to UK, presumably all here for the gigs.

There’s a tribute band festival happening at a park nearby. Earlier we heard noasis, and now Jilted Generation, a tribute to the Prodigy. Other bands on the bill include Kazabian, and Really Hot Chilli Peppers.

Watching Brian Wilson at Glastonbury 2005 (I’ve seen this a few times before) on BBCFour. It’s just lovely. And I love the Brian Wilson band - they were so great and supported Brian so warmly and brilliantly.