First visit to the Bazalgette Embankment at Blackfriars. A bit cold and rainy today (and a rare sighting of dog shit) but you can see the promise as a public space.

Have had cause to look up the first use of the word ‘shedloads’ and surprised to find it was as recently as 1989 by the Nottingham Evening Post, according to the OED.

At Benington Lordship in Hertfordshire for its snowdrop festival. Also, its Norman keep.

Been to the Indoor Festival of Folk at Cecil Sharp House. Quite the day.

Any excuse to repost this peerless thread.

Yes, whatever happened to my fantasy Brexit where the all powerful UK simply swept away the superpowers, the global companies, anyone else's rules, geography, history, domestic politics, demographics, deindustrialisation, Trump, and things I don't like? Oh yes, reality. And bad Brexiter governments

#5DebutAlbums50s60s I am hopefully not the only person considering voting for the Third Ear Band’s woozy 1969 masterpiece Alchemy. Oboe to the fore. John Peel on Jew’s Harp. Terrific.

Well done Scotland and it shows up the Government’s negligence to do the same thing in England last year.

Very high water at Pulteney Weir in Bath this morning. Reminded of the 60s city centre floods which led to the weir being built.

Martin Carthy has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and cannot fulfil his upcoming gigs. What sad, gutting news. But what a great life.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Window cleaner in Farringdon, London.

RIP Kenny Morris: original punk, Banshee drummer extraordinaire. I knew him well in the Banshees and was in touch with him recently about his memoir. Which I hope will be published. God bless you Kenny

Inevitably the Restaurante El Diablo on top of the volcano in Timanfaya In Lanzarote is yet another César Manrique design, built on the spot where the underground temperature is highest - 140 degrees C ten centimetres down, 400 degrees C at six metres.

Having lunch on top of a volcano In Lanzarote.

So, every post so far from Lanzarote has been in tribute to the work of architect, artist and seer, César Manrique (1919-92), a man who saw the possibilities in the island of his birth and realised many of them, stopping over-development and creating remarkable land art and buildings.

Visited the Fundación César Manrique In Lanzarote, the home of the late architect, carved from five volcanic bubbles interconnected by lava tubes and very much a 70s dream living space.

At the rather lovely Jameos del Agua in Lanzarote, two caves connected by a lake in which lives a unique species of blind white crab. Now with a restaurant, cafe and performance area. Used by local farmers as a refuse tip until the late 60s.

The sign for the Gents toilet at the Jardín de Cactus.

In the Jardín de Cactus on Lanzarote. An admirably accurate description.

That may have been true before the start of the Ashes. It certainly isn’t now.

I haven’t left the country to escape Storm Goretti, honest. Good luck everyone.

Béla Tarr, 1955-2026 🤍

Love this 😂

Did I need to see another David Bowie documentary? Apparently I did. Really enjoyed this - some good interviews, and veered away from the full retrospective to talk as much about the Tin Machine period as anything else. Terribly moving at the end of course. On Channel 4.

I bet few others are showing Richard Burton and Jason S as their most watched actor and director of 2025…

Extraordinary stat about Bardot from the Guardian obituary.

I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Strange History of Samuel Pepys’s Diary’ by @kateloveman.bsky.social - fascinating about how the Diary has been regarded and superbly researched. The first time I heard of Pepys as a lad was via a Benny Hill song (‘naughty Samuel peeps’) and there’s even mention of that!

Farewell Brigitte.

Been to see Grey Seals and their pups at Horsey Gap beach, north of Great Yarmouth.

Delighted to see Peter Watkins’ magnificent ‘Culloden’ (1964) is being repeated on BBC Four on Tuesday 6 Jan.

@worstjourney.bsky.social You may be interested in this podcast interview with author Kim Stanley Robinson, who visited Antarctica in 1995 and has a non fiction book out at the end of 2026 about AC-G’s hut that he built at Cape Evans ahead of the Winter Journey. Rarely mentioned, he says.

Sally MacLannane is my favourite Pogues song and The Thumping Tommies did it proud tonight at @thebearclubluton.bsky.social as part of a very fine set.

Just been to the annual viewing of Meet Me in St Louis.

Rare footage of St Paul’s Cathedral testing its giant flamethrower

@badger5000.bsky.social Welcome to Totinge

A Few Good Men. Best in Show. A Mighty Wind. Miss Congeniality. Barcelona. All three movies in Linklater's "Before" trilogy. Music & Lyrics. Michael Clayton. All films that were able to be made because of the production company Reiner co-founded in order to give talented filmmakers creative freedom.

Very sad news about Rob Reiner coming through.

This is fucking grim. Somebody invented a white guy, an "IT professional" named Edward Crabtree, who stopped the Bondi shooting and spread it all over the internet, which was picked up by AI agents and slop aggregation sites. The real hero is a fruit stand owner named Ahmed el Ahmed.

Sad that the main news had no room for Stanley Baxter, the face of Hogmanay for about two decades

To the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth. Founded by the well-travelled married couple Merton and Annie and opened to the public in 1922.

Our government's policy on Europe is heavily influenced by a desire not to alienate dead people.

‘There is No Antimimetics Division’ by @qntm.org. An extraordinary novel. It’s like having SF concepts injected straight into your eyeballs. Very highly recommended.

At the Bear Club in Luton waiting for the excellent Jazz Dynamos.

In the years to come, the Gabba Test came to be known as the ‘Brook Test’ following Harry Brook’s match winning double century in the second innings which heralded a decade of batting hegemony… #Ashes

I’ve been lucky enough to visit two Frank Gehry galleries this year - the Bilbao Guggenheim and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. They are both astonishing buildings.

#5debutalbums7074 Over 50 years on the early Virgin records era is my favourite musical period and these debuts by Henry Cow and Hatfield & the North are nailed on. Beautiful, sometimes whimsical, endlessly listenable.

Yeah, this is a good one (now on Netflix).