The boss has started an uprising and I believe I’m contractually obliged to get behind it. So you know, down with this outrage.

Oh Gawd. Jonathan Wilson +Stephen Osborne + Rhapsody in Blue = bliss #proms

The Jr Sextet shows at the Nevill holt festival next Friday and at Pizza Express Holborn on Saturday are now sold out. There are are tickets for our July London show, and we'll be in Liverpool at the Tung auditorium in November. jayrayner.co.uk/shows

In a cab. The driver glances at me. ‘Has anybody ever told you that you look like…’ I mentally prepare myself: Llewelyn-Bowen? Dave Grohl? Marco? ‘… Gaddafi?’ FFS.

For today’s @ftweekend.com I am at Wild Izakaya which is an Izakaya - a casual place for a couple of beers and a few snacks - much as fortnums food hall is a grubby corner shop. Terrific cooking, serious ingredients and five pages of premium sake. www.ft.com/content/11b9...

Lincolnshire, TKC is coming your way. Apply for tickets at the link. www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtour...

Whisper it: as a big fan of Indomie instant noodles, with their multitudionous sauce and seasoning sachets, I can't help but find myself a little attracted to these images. I mean come on: noodles looking like bed springs.

Thoughts and prayers with @pickardje.bsky.social and all the other political corrs, furiously throwing search terms at multiple PDFs in search of the best Mandelson nuggets by deadline.

I am determined not to be distracted. And then an interview with Rupert Everett by @shattenstone.bsky.social turns up. And work has to stop. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ju...

Yes, we are spoiling you: have a link to my huge romp through the history of French food in Britain featuring copious amounts of snails, cassoulet and tarte tatin.

For today’s @ftweekend.com I am at Holy Carrot in Shoreditch sorrowfully eating plant based food which aims at the restorative and delicious, but misses. The issue isn’t that they serve a plant based menu; it’s the plant based menu they are serving. www.ft.com/content/313d...

This by Joe Fattorini gets wonderfully deep into the absurdity of the Peter Murrell fraud case. Which is to say: the mystery of the five decanters. open.substack.com/pub/joefatto...

‘New defence and security treaty with Poland’ really is just a bit too 1939.

I endorse this message.

For today’s @ftweekend.com I am at The Cocochine, snuffling out the best bargain in Mayfair: the lunch menu at £29 for two courses and £39 for three. Beautiful dishes which never lose sight of the imperative of deliciousness. www.ft.com/content/c787... ‘

So much this.

Two pairs of seats for our Sunday night show Pizza Express Jazz Club Dean Street have come back. (nb air conditioning). And there are now only about 10 left for our June show at Holborn. Tickets available at the link below. jayrayner.co.uk/shows

Have received emails from enterprising students who tomorrow sit a mock English language GCSE in ME. They’re looking for tips and insight. I can only say a) how sorry I am and b) good luck. Here’s a version of the paper. And a pic of one question. pmt.physicsandmathstutor.com/download/Eng...

For this week’s @ftweekend.com restaurant review I am in Barcelona at Colmado Wilmot, a small place that does the simple things really well. Like fried eggs with sobrasada, tortilla with txistorra, fried prawns with garlic and a fab rib eye. www.ft.com/content/00e4...

Just had one of those annoying approaches from a journalist asking me to type answers to their questions, which I regard as writing for free. Won't do it. Worse still they didn't call them questions. They called them 'prompts'. I am not an effing AI.

All restaurant closures are sad, but the just-announced end of the Spaghetti House group after over 70 years, is especially so. We take the diversity of our restaurant sector for granted, but it started with pioneering family run businesses like Spaghetti House. Farewell. www.spaghettihouse.co.uk

Here's one for the connoisseurs: an entire page on Johan Hari's website dedicated to mistakes he made in his book Magic Pill; the book his publishers Bloomsbury insisted had been thoroughly fact checked when he libelled me. They are not trival mistakes. magicpillbook.com/corrections/

Look, if somebody needs me to give up my seat I will, but just this once.

As I was saying over the Mandelson row 24 days ago.

Rejoice: the week I did on Osman’s house of games is being reshown from tomorrow. This is either a heads up or, if you hate me, a warning.

A superb write through on what the council election results in London mean for the capital from @londoncentric.media esp good detail on the impact of alphabetical order on how candidates did. www.londoncentric.media/p/london-loc...

Some restaurant openings are like big west end shows which every critic will weigh in on. So for @ftweekend.com it’s my turn to write about the reopening of Simpsons-in-the-Strand. Via dinner in Romano’s and breakfast in the grand divan. TLDR: it’s so damn civilised www.ft.com/content/ce08...

Dame Shirley Porter, famed for her role in the Westminster council gerrymandering scandal, has died aged 95. In 1999 I was sent to Israel by Granta to write a big piece about her. Here’s a link to an edited version.(She was a distant cousin, tho we had never met) www.theguardian.com/travel/1999/...

Interesting to see the number of people blocking me today. Can't imagine why.

An extraordinary response. Either you know what the poem is about or you don't. Either you know it's significance or you don't. And if you choose to use it you better understand it.

Well this is quite something. Over on X @harryeccles.bsky.social, a Green candidate on the Isle of Wight, rewrites the famous poem by Martin Niemoller about Nazi erasure. But does so to leave out the Jews.

FFS that was the only reason I got into this game.

My great colleague @robertshrimsley.bsky.social saying all the thing I want to say this week about antisemitism and saying them beautifully and with real power. Comments are not enabled on this column because that’s where we are. www.ft.com/content/f9ee... The shrinking of Jewish life in Britain

My review for today’s @ftweekend.com is all about the gravy splattering joys of Singapore chilli crab, and my ability to wear my lunch on my short. Anyway Sentosa on Bermondsey Street is a great place to chilli crab and much more besides www.ft.com/content/1876...

I call bullshit. A pro would nestle the pickled onion on a pickled onion monster munch. As to the partisan cheese I can take it or leave it.

The marvellous @nigella.bsky.social being wise, elegant and delicious all at once.

The divide between what I'm seeing on this place and over on X is stark. Over there it's as if the only subject is the antisemitic attacks in Golders Green yesterday, and Polanski's line about Jews having a 'perception' of unsafety. Here I've seen one post. It's profoundly odd and dismaying.

Really? I assumed it was a beef with some editor who’d savaged his copy.

For today’s @ftweekend.com I am in a fabulous Greek-inspired wine bar in Salford called Kallos where the bread game is strong, the dips are silky and they offer a beautiful list of premium canned fish. www.ft.com/content/3603...

Around 2010 a young woman called Jessie became part of the music scene at a club I was part of and often played at. We all thought she was great and she ended up gigging with close friends of mine. Here's a grainy video from Dean Street. Wonder what happened to her. www.youtube.com/watch?v=skp-...

We're recording the last audience show in this season of The Kitchen Cabinet in Felixstowe on tuesday night and there are still some tickets. Apply here. www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtour...

Same.

This.

This piece by @heawood.bsky.social is brilliant: funny, touching, dark and superbly written. the-fence.com/how-do-you-k...

For today’s @ftweekend.com I am at Cometa, a New Mexican restaurant using UK seafood (and a bit of fried chicken) and very good it is too. Have some pics. www.ft.com/content/52fa...

Starmer can't resign over this. He has to hold on to resign after May 7.

Tinkle? TINKLE? I have a god forsaken, world-weary growl.

Also solidarity with anyone trying to verify their identity with Companies House. It's a bloody mess.

Whoever designed the call options system at Companies House is a monster.

Pleased to say this week’s episode of the Kitchen Cabinet is finally up on sounds. Apologies for the delay www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...