Very pleased with the cover (and reviews) for my new book "Travels through the Spanish Civil War" out on 20 November with @hurstpublishers.bsky.social Pre-orders, etc here www.hurstpublishers.com/book/travels...

I was at Gaddafi’s last big speech in Tripoli. It’s a high bar but I think Trump nudged it

The curious incident of the dog in the Night Watch: Dog in Rembrandt’s masterpiece was ‘copied from lesser-known artist’. Via @senayboztas.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

‘Just imagine spending hours, or days, stuck inside one of these things. It is total madness’. By @tomphillips.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Reading in York next Wednesday, where I once worked for the Council. The visit has reminded me of this sign in Museum Gardens which apparently banned cycling while allowing you to injure young and old alike by way of recompense. The good management of municipal facilities is all about give and take.

‘Resistance is when I put an end to what I don’t like’: The rise and fall of the Baader-Meinhof gang. By @jasonburke2.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/news/2025/se...

'The supposed “centrists” are ushering fringe politics into the mainstream and normalising the abhorrent'. By Aditya Chakrabortty. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Brenda Fricker had a zest for life that took her to the heights of stage and screen – but behind it lay a terrible story of violence, grooming and abuse. From her bed, flanked by pills and cigarettes, Ireland’s grande dame talks to @rorycarroll72.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Breaking news: Robert Redford, the big-screen idol turned Oscar-winning director, independent film advocate and environmental activist, died at 89.

Looking forward to reading this, by William Chislett. Lots of ground to cover … www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/work-docu...

Looking forward to reading this, by William Chislett. Lots of ground to cover … www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/work-docu...

“He left his hotel in the centre of the city and the earth ate him,” said Carlos “Maco” Somigliana of the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF). “Nothing more was ever known – until now.”

The bossa nova pianist Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior went out for cigarettes after a concert in Buenos Aires in March 1976 – a forensic team has finally revealed his fate. By @harrietbarber.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

‘The author David Nicholls is rumoured to be working on a novel about a star-crossed couple who run into each other over the decades on the days Mandelson quits.’ Ouch from @roberthutton.co.uk thecritic.co.uk/oh-mandy/

I hope this ishmael finds you whale

So much weird in here, but hard to disagree that the average Saxon would have recognised policies of sinking vessels you don't like the look of, and imprisoning people who look different.

From the great Byron Rogers' obit in the Telegraph:

More people are on the move due to climate change. In Malawi, it is both the devastation of cyclones and the slow-burn of droughts. I met Julius Chibonda, who has moved twice in the last 16 months in search of enough water and land to support his dreams. He said: "Without water nothing can exist."

The sleep of reason produces … chocolate

“I voted for Mas in the past, but this time I chose the right,” said Ronnyxh Oliver Mamani Figueredo, 34, an Aymara carpenter and pharmacy owner who has a seven-storey, Knights of the Zodiac-themed cholet that cost more than $1m. By @tiagorogero.com www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

'In a flurry of wings, the predator was off a steaming pasty snatched from the hands of a Birmingham daytripper. “What do you want me to do about it?” her unsympathetic husband said. “I can’t fly.”' @joshhalliday.bsky.social on the winged thieves of Scarborough www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Peru has enacted a sweeping amnesty law in Peru, shielding military and police from prosecution over human rights abuses committed between 1980 and 2000. Rights groups say it will deny justice to thousands of victims. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a... @dancollyns.bsky.social

Allan Ahlberg, beloved children's author, dies aged 87

‘City of singles’: cosmopolitan prewar Paris’s ‘crazy years’ brought to life. Via @kimwillsher.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

‘It was a buddy movie – and then they kissed’: Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi on My Beautiful Laundrette at 40 www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...

I picked 10 great Ozzy recordings for the Guardian. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

‘I had a home, apartment, career’ … the Guardian’s Gaza diarist on the life he lost – and his journey into exile www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

'It was definitely there and we found it on the trail under a mossy embankment. Whether it is a genuine unicorn – that I don’t know.' www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...

Carolina Wilga: German backpacker found alive after 12 days missing in remote Australian bushland

Como nada me gusta más que un jardín recetero, aquí atreviéndome a pontificar sobre el gazpacho. www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5m0...

"Three decades after genocide was committed in the middle of Europe, memories in the rest of world are beginning to fade … But the sprawling murder scene in the hills and fields around Srebrenica continues to cough up its bones." By @julianborger.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Haiti’s renowned Hotel Oloffson is burned down by gangs www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

'The Tourist contains all the Kourtney Roy hallmarks: auto-portraiture, a filmic approach, her characteristic colour palette and a tension between the witty and the sinister, the conventional and the unorthodox, the glamour and the sleaze …' www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

'The family said they had suffered stress, anxiety and sleep deprivation because of the loud, drunken, destructive and lewd behaviour of guests, which included vandalism, vomiting and having sex in the block’s communal areas' www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...

If anyone is working with young people in coastal communities either as an academic, practitioner, youth worker etc and has been involved in something they really think has made a difference please get in touch. Or if there is somewhere you think we should visit please drop me a line and say why

let’s find out please repost

These words of defiant unity followed the horror of the 7/7 bombings. Imagine what we would hear today instead | Hugh Muir

‘This is art, too’: the Madrid drama space bringing contemporary theatre to older citizens www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

‘Like working in a volcano’: stories from six countries in Europe on a day of extreme heat www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

I met Santiago Yahuarcani in Madrid a couple of weeks before the opening of the Manchester exhibition. Here's the interview. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

'The Peruvian artist Santiago Yahuarcani paints hybrid creatures, rocks with eyes and fish brandishing spears in a shamanistic celebration of his home and his people – but also the terrifying colonial horrors inflicted upon them' www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Congrats to both!

'It is a deadly funding crisis, a global response knocked totally off course. This is a pandemic, and pandemics have no borders'. Via @tracymcveigh.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Hector Guimard, the ‘forgotten’ designer of art nouveau Métro entrances, to get Paris museum. Via @kimwillsher.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

‘Everything is better’: how Rubiales’s unwanted kiss transformed Spanish women’s football. By @ashifakassam.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/football/202...

I write @theguardian.com about Spanish and English across continents.The many variations we share are not obstacles: they are a testament to the resilience, creativity and beauty of our languages. With cameos @uninoticias.bsky.social and Diana Salinas www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

NEW from me + @tomphillips.bsky.social :How the Haitian government is using drone attacks to wrest control of capital from criminal gangs, aided by Erik Prince of the notorious Blackwater mercenary outfit. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

‘Beyond anything imaginable’: dozens killed at busy Gaza seafront cafe. By @jasonburke2.bsky.social and Malak A Tantesh www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Exciting variation in the terrifying colony organisms that will one day rise from the oceans and float over our doomed cities like angels of extinction, whispering the names of dead sailors and forgotten ships, slowly winding up time on a spool for use in another place.