Best breakfast is in Hubei. Rest of their cuisine is pretty mid, but the breakfast is perfect.

Off to That London for the first time in ages*, suitably miserable pissy rain already. *if you don't count Peckham and Teddington as London then it's nine months!

(Taps mic) I think there is a very real diff between “skipping some particularly Tolkeinish bits in Tolkien” and BookTokers declaring proudly that they read no description, only dialogue, ever. The thing that isn’t new here is proud anti-intellectualism

I will be waiting all my life for Earthseed to get the Game of Thrones treatment. Could be done in two seasons!

And at school too!

A GREAT DAY TO BE THE WORLDS GREATEST AUTHOR. THATS RIGHT IM TALKING ABOUT YOU

Ok, here we go with a 123-track youtube playlist of my 1996. Uploaded six of these myself, including two music videos, and another two I had previously uploaded years ago. Also includes The Spice Girls. Enjoy! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Turned on the TV, to find HIGNFY have Michael Gove on. I don't watch it anyway, not for a quarter of a century, but come the fuck on now, who wants to hear from Michael Gove in 2026? Cancel it and put something else on.

RIP Anthony Head, fortunately the obituaries are not calling him "The Gold Blend Guy" www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsN4...

I've put together a list of tracks from 1996! Now to make it into a YouTube playlist! No, this is nowhere near ready to make into a mix, sorry!

Today's idiocy: I put my earbuds in this little nook for safe keeping, then opened the window to let a moth out while driving. Fortunately they were crap £10 earbuds from B&M. Sorry, but I will continue to be like this, believe me I have tried all my life not to be.

I'll give you two

The A-level politics conference I went to in Westminster in 1997. Was not impressed by any of these people, except maybe Scargill, who felt like a living encounter with history. Hislop took exception to a posh kid who asked him whether satire was disrespectful.

So, as the week once again reaches its late afternoon it is time for the Hellish Picture Quiz! Guess! Or Deduct! 4 of @centuriesofsound.bsky.social s 5 Hellish tracks from these beauties. If you dare! And listen, if you haven’t already, for the answers.

RIP Marjane Satrapi

Trying to edit a sample pack today and the WAV files were in a hidden folder inside windows/system and were read-only. From the DAW that I bought, on the computer that I also bought, I should have access to these things, this does not feel like a big ask.

Wheely bin, dog, rainbow, houses.

While he was sourcing music for the episode, Thomas also shared this song which has been sitting with me. Hopefully people will understand what I mean when I say this made me feel the Anthony Bourdain quote about Kissinger, but for Sacha Baron Cohen.

Horrible what's happening in Southampton tonight, ghouls taking advantage of a tragedy to push their fascist agenda, thinking of everyone I know there.

A great feature to add to BlueSky would be the ability to leave a little note for yourself when you block or mute someone so you can remember why you did that.

In early 2008 I was backpacking through SE Asia, and as usual would pick up & drop traveling companions as I went. On the bus from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh I met this guy from Arizona I'll call "Paul" (not actual name) and we stayed together through Siam Reap and parted ways in Bangkok. (1/?)

I used to collect news clips through a year to include in mixes, this kind of thing is why I had to stop. Nothing good will come out of giving more exposure to this rhetoric.

For anyone shocked by reading about Grover Cleveland on maptap today, here's a banned and very rude recording about him and Frances Fulsom, from 1892! www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQuS...

NEW from Centuries of Sound 1951 Part One - Your Choice is Simple An immersive sound collage of 1951 with clips from films, radio, television and a huge variety of fantastic music, nearly three hours and free to stream, this is A Good One! centuriesofsound.com/2026/06/01/1...

This is completely not my kind of thing but somehow it has really hit the spot.

This is the bit where I keep re-posting my new mix, this time because I feel like it's a really strong one. Please share with anyone who may be interested, it has been suggested a lot recently that writers looking to immerse themself in a year may find it particularly useful.

NEW from Centuries of Sound 1951 Part One - Your Choice is Simple An immersive sound collage of 1951 with clips from films, radio, television and a huge variety of fantastic music, nearly three hours and free to stream, this is A Good One! centuriesofsound.com/2026/06/01/1...

Born 100 years ago today, Marilyn Monroe

This week’s pod sees James Errington of @centuriesofsound.bsky.social give us the 5 tracks he will meet in hell. James tells us all about the project, in which he has been producing an audio collage for every year of recorded sound, which goes back a lot further than you’d think.

The best thing I can say about these is that they probably aren't the worst thing about the 2026 world cup.

Here it is then www.patreon.com/posts/159763...

The new breed of conservatives understand no motive but money or power. They consider the instinct to make all non-profitable art to be a lie, a failure or a delusion. This is why they love AI so much.

A question for pop nerds. What examples are there of "additional single recorded to make fans buy the greatest hits album" that stand up but commercially AND critically to the rest of the hits?

Sorry to tell you all that after about 30 listens I have decided that Rocket '88' is, in fact, a bop.

"Yes, I gave the dog eat" - a sentence I just came out with.

Different, but not better different

Looking forward to checking out the new Boards of Canada LP in December, when nobody will be interested in talking about it any more.

The intersection between the PRC making every possible effort to control their overseas citizens and the UK culture of offering everything to tender with no regard to human rights has the result of our taxes being used to pay for the oppression of dissidents. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

100 comments on your art might not seem like a lot, but imagine if 100 people came to your gallery show and called your work awful to your face. That would feel terrible.

God help me, I have been on Reddit again. Always a terrible mistake.

Make 1951 happen: 1. Look through these 16 images 2. Select as many as you like on this form - docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... 3. That's it

Make 1951 happen: 1. Look through these 16 images 2. Select as many as you like on this form - docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... 3. That's it

I've made 16 cover images for 1951 Part One and I want to know what YOU think about them. Here's numbers 1-4 1. Charles Trenet 2. Man selling mirrors 3. American girl in Italy 4. Big Bill Broonzy

I am begging you for the millionth time to understand, no one is pretending to like a band you don't like.

Recorded 100 years ago today, King Oliver's Jazz Band - Wa Wa Wa.

Whew

Even better

Also recorded 100 years ago today (from the same sessions), Lill's Hot Shots - Drop That Sack. Featuring Johnny Dodds, Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Johnny St. Cyr and of course Louis's wife Lil Armstrong.

Men of Achievement, 1674