‘The Shortest Day’ illustrations by Carson Ellis

Margaret Rutherford and Celia Johnson photographed here in the stage version of “REBECCA” taken at The Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, 1940

50 YEARS AGO TODAY: Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas, her final series (and first in five years so she was probably on the way out anyway) airing every day over a working week.

A 2kg book of Olivetti’s design history. www.presentandcorrect.com/products/oli... Our final restock on these for 2025.

RIP Martin Parr. Here are two of my favourite photos of all time. I get such a Proustian rush looking at them that I can hear the “fzzt” of a can of Quatro being opened.

Bar’s open! Photographer Martin Parr Union Hotel. Manchester, 1974. Martin Parr, always making the ordinary extraordinary.

Spooky advent day 6: Krampus, a traditional figure in Central and Eastern European folklore, is basically a terrifying horned bad santa, accompanying St Nicholas on his visits to children on the night before St Nicholas' Day (6th Dec) and punishing the bad ones by whipping them with birch twigs.

when MUSCLE BEACH PARTY winds up being one of the most beautiful looking prints you’ve ever seen…

This really needs emphasizing. The entirety of the UK media ecosystem is utterly fixated on a 100% fabricated "crisis".

It's Doctor Who Day. To celebrate, I've edited and designed a new digital bookazine for @radiotimes.bsky.social, collecting the best of the magazine's articles and rare photography from the show's early years. Download it FREE from www.radiotimes.com/doctor-who-t...

I wrote and drew a magazine at the age of nine, which my headteacher refused to photocopy for me. Foiled by distribution, then and now.

Fritz Lang's Frau im Mond (Woman in The Moon, 1929) This production photo is beautiful, and the film is important: first countdown, multi-stage rocket... A visionary sci-fi movie.

Announcing the title and presenting the cover of mine and Angela Watson’s forthcoming book, #MyBelovedOther #comics #graphicnovels #BookSky #book #books #book2026 #antiracism #BlackSky More info and links: www.nickabadzis.com/blog/2025/10...

Leonard McCombe, 1957. “Dublin” #photography #1950s #cats #Dublin #LeonardMcCombe

This YouTube thumbnail from the BBC Archive looks like a lost Ghost Stories for Christmas episode...

Happy Hallowe’en!

I sent an email today that cost me £600 and now I can't stop thinking about it.

Good morning. ‘Midnight Madness - Witches on Night Flight’ woodcut by Gwenda Morgan (1955).

Reviving my forgotten Substack with Jon Pertwee having a gossip and moan to his fan club, as originally published in TV Years magazine. open.substack.com/pub/stuartma...

What a frustrating experience this has been.

Not a single one of the 110,000 knuckle dragging thugs in London today will vote Labour. There is nothing to be lost but plenty to be gained by Starmer condemning them in very strong terms.

I know a lot of people have expressed similar sentiments but I’ve lived in London for 20+ years and never felt threatened or a even a bit scared to be here until today. This needs to end.

one morning, when gregor samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a very hungry caterpillar

I've just finished another stint working with the Edinburgh TV Festival, designing the printed brochure and on-site graphics for this year's 50th Anniversary event. The Festival is run by the TV Foundation, a charity that works to make the TV industry more accessible for all.

I’ve been a defender of the BBC for all of my life, I think, and I have worked in their newsrooms and on other shows and projects. Ever since we were told they were going to go further right to appease right wing people, the whole news department has gone mental.

Venerating the Moss God

Perhaps, one day, schoolkids will study this squalid little chapter in British terror-panic history. When they do, I hope these two headlines from today are printed side by side, with clear annotation of which individual faced more outrage and condemnation.

Irish public consultation on UBI for artists. Meanwhile the UK government last consulted us on if we’d mind all our assets, pensions and property being stolen by the world’s worst arseholes to feed into their planet burning machine.

The UK is about to ban access to Wikipedia, just remember this bill was originally pitched as a means to protect kids from accessing porn.

Episode underrunning Tony? #Crossroads

There's a realistic chance we get to a position where Wikipedia is blocked while official government accounts are posting on a site that created MechaHitler AI

Sky Kids will no longer commission originals. Massive hit to a sector of the UK TV industry. (From Broadcast). Leaves only BBC & 5 commissioning originals for children.

If this is accurate, WeTransfer is unusable for professional creative work. Would violate most work-for-hire contracts to share copyrighted material with a third party like this.

Disrespectfully, I need anyone who has not looked for a job within the past year to shut up because shit has changed. Your advice and experience doing this in the past means nothing. You have not job hunted like people are job hunting right now, don’t give people false hope with your outdated ideas

When NPR left Twitter, traffic dropped by only a single percentage point. niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-...

Beginning to wonder if I'm the only man in South London without a calf tattoo.

Reading this, I’m really aware of the damage the word ‘content’ has done to creative careers. It’s a horrible, reductive word that covers the whole spectrum of human expression from poetry/symphonies/fine art at one end, to lift music and classified ads at the other.

Writing about Dungeness, lacunae, archives, unknowing & absences, sound mirrors & silences. Thinking of this quote from Derek Jarman & the original meaning of stanza as room or dwelling place. “The house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace”

“It is astonishing that a Labour government would abandon the labour force of an entire sector. My inbox is filled with individual artists & global companies who are bewildered that the government would allow theft at scale & cosy up to those who are thieving.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Fantastic ending to Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday, which led to the government's defeat on AI & copyright. Speaking the UK's creators: "Their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away."

In the news: In which we learn that our leaders find it easier to believe "AI is the future" than to believe that actual, living human beings who make art for a living have rights and deserve respect. Our consent doesn't matter to them. Only appeasing the tech bros matters.

Hoot Hoot I Scream ice cream parlor, Los Angeles, CA, 1928

Jean Marsh has died at the age of 90. Brian Shuel's 1961 photograph of the actor hangs in London's National Portrait Gallery and is one of the most striking images in the collection

Producer George Pal read an article in Life magazine in 1946 about going to the moon and decided it would make a great film. Nearly four years later, Life magazine was on set to document cast and crew making the movie. (These beautiful photos by Allan Grant, I believe)

Want to know how Trump gets in? Just look at the coverage of Le Pen iandunt.substack.com/p/want-to-kn...