Trump's DOJ was monitoring all the movements of the Miami Herald reporter who was covering the Epstein case.

Anyone know which musical instrument this bloke is playing?

My son worked in a bakery as a teenager. A middle-aged customer asked for a white loaf, and then, in the jocular way the middle-aged speak to young people, said: "Slice me up that bad boy!" My son, feigning incomprehension, said "Sorry?" Crestfallen, the man replied "Can I have it sliced please?"

PUBLISHERS: When I buy a book I take dim view of this sort of thing.

Remember this. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/29/m...

Today's Velvet Underground myth takes a deep dive into whether Brian Epstein, Bowie and The Yardbirds has a pre-release 'acetate' of the Velvet Underground and Nico album grantmcphee.substack.com/p/bowie-bria...

Folks @prchovanec.bsky.social is in friggin’ ANTARCTICA right now and his feed is 💯 (and he’s worth following even when not in Antarctica)

Jason is right. A sink within a sink?

Very much looking forward to @alexlarman.bsky.social's book www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/94fa1dc...

Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”

Christmas day 1947 John Lennon is gifted a harmonica by Harold Phillips, a former serviceman now student at Liverpool University who was renting a room from John's Aunt Mimi and Uncle George at their home Mendips. From Mark Lewisohn's Tune In:

#nowplaying Come On, Christmas

'We're all going to hell in a handcart.... well not me personally.'

Yes exactly. That’s the thing that’s always differentiated us, we’re the only “Christian nation.” Yup.

You do everything in your power to get every relevant voice in a story. But as one of my former colleagues told a local official who thought his silence would kill a piece: “I’d like to have you. But the story is being written with or without you.”

BREAKING: There’s good rockin’ tonight. #nowplaying

THREAD. My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments. I've collected his work here...

Definitely. I’m proud to have contributed to this effort to get DG’s music back into the world. An immense talent.

I mean come on

If you were feeling the need for some Christmas music - I mean free-range, hand-reared Christmas music with all the trimmings - look no further. open.spotify.com/playlist/1A4...

lmfao www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

The photos of those Haitian refugees was his first big break, as they earned him the Robert Capa Gold Medal award, which catapulted his career. But at the moment he took the images, he and the other men on the boat thought they were going to die. He had this to say about the experience:

The Vanity Fair photographer from the Susie Wiles story. Holy. Shit. www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...

Trying to finish this sucker today. Every 30 seconds or so there’s some wonderful line like “I always wanted to direct a Hamlet and have all the parts played by ex-livestock auctioneers. I wanted the performance to come in under 14 minutes.”

ICYMI: The Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace is launching the South London Writing School, offering a scholarship in tribute to the late co-owner Jonathan Main and monthly masterclass Sundays featuring Diana Evans and Evie Wyld 👇 #BookSky

Just when you imagine you’ve reached the limits of your disgust for this vile specimen.

Bravo Bob.

Today’s hard Pips was a monster.

Only in America!

Excellent stuff from @roystoncartoons.bsky.social

The late Steve Cropper was a guitar hero to me. I loved his spare, rhythmic playing. Here's a Booker T. & the M.G.'s playlist based on Richard Williams' recommendations in his fine blogpost (link to follow in next post). open.spotify.com/playlist/21M...

#nowplaying First press (I think) bought today from Lewisham’s finest shop.

"One image released Friday shows what appears to be a bowl of novelty condoms with a caricature of Trump’s face...Another showed Trump with six women with leis whose faces were redacted by the committee." www.cnn.com/2025/12/12/p...

The party’s on …

Days after FIFA awarded Trump a fake peace prize, DOJ moves to drop charges in FIFA corruption case www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/n...

25 'MOST BLUESKY' POSTS OF 2025 Here's my selection of the 25 Bluesky posts that most impressed me this year. They're quite varied, but doesn't that reflect the thriving, harmonious site this really is? Yes. It does. They've been anonymised anyway, who cares?

"The big question for Europe is: when are you gonna fight back, guys?" ask former Obama staffers Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes. "He doesn't respect you, he's interfering in your political affairs, he's talking shit...at some point stop lathering him with praise" open.spotify.com/episode/6USY...

It's 106 miles to Fossanova, we have a full tank of gas, half a packet of communion wafers, it's dark and I'm wearing a cassock... HIT IT!

I can’t help thinking that when, in future, people ask what UK political leaders said as it became undeniable that US saw European liberal democracy as its no1 strategic foe, Starmer and others will regret that the answer is “not much, shuffled awkwardly, looked at their feet”.

"there's a new serif in town"

After MTG lied about me for weeks, she said that she felt bad for my unborn child because he'd have me as a mother. Her rhetoric led to threats against my family. No one, even her, should receive threats like those, but I'd like to see her own up to the role she played in creating them for others.

Wow -- Russia reportedly plotted last year to plant bombs on US-bound flights (gift link) giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

John Lennon forever 🖤🖤🖤🖤👑

Latest from me: on overdiagnosis, a craze/bandwagon the govt is indulging by commissioning an official review, complete with the clunky blurring of mental illness & neurodivergence www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In 2004 Martin Parr guest curated the Arles photography festival with a programme that exhibited his favourite photographers alongside his bonkers collections of Spice Girls memorabilia and Saddam Hussein watches. There's a great documentary about it here: www.rencontres-arles.com/en/mediatheq...

#xmasbands @quantick.bsky.social Sly & the Family Argument

#nowplaying Gaumont, Bournemouth, August 21 1963. The first live performance of She Loves You and it goes down a storm. And wow, what a great show! Some screams but mostly the audience claps along and the music is audible. Gorgeous vocals particularly on Baby It’s You.

My review of Robert Elms's genial, gossipy Blitz club memoir in the Spectator this week. www.spectator.co.uk/article/nost...