“Every piece of writing—whether story or argument or rumination, book or essay or letter home—requires the freshness and precision that convey a distinct human presence.” www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

I loved this book.

Gutted to hear of the death of Tracy Kidder, who was a hero of mine. I adored Mountains Beyond Mountains and Strength In What Remains. His prose was clean, gorgeous, and buttressed by thousands of hours of reporting. He was drawn to human goodness. RIP.

"In the midst of what is going on now, it is hard, when you sit down at a desk, to feel confident that morning after morning spent fiddling with words and rhythms is a justified activity – especially as there is never any certainty that the whole thing won’t have to be scrapped." — T.S. Eliot, 1942

A beaut.

Tonight I learned that E.L. Doctorow wrote a screenplay for Ragtime that ran one thousand pages. Would read.

Lazy Sunday in Kyiv be like :

Remarkable story from Denmark's nat'l broadcaster. "When Danish soldiers were flown to Greenland in January...they brought explosives so they could destroy, among other things, the runways in Nuuk & Kangerlussuaq [to] prevent US mil aircraft from landing" www.dr.dk/nyheder/indl...

Laugh it up. A difficult day for my family, historically...

Yorks, monstered. Devastating essay by Andrew O'Hagan. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

New footage analysed by Bellingcat shows two of the world’s most wanted crime figures, Christy and Daniel Kinahan, appearing openly at a mixed martial arts event in Dubai, despite US sanctions and multimillion-dollar rewards for information leading to their arrest. www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

Just finished Mao II, in which Don Delillo describes the funeral of another Ayatollah. Incredible book. And weird timing.

As the analysis starts of the Gorton and Denton result, I wanted to flag some aspects that my experience yesterday suggests are being over or under-played (Caveats - I went to Longsight, Gorton and Denton town centres and spoke to as many people as I could, but it was mostly during the working day)

Green Party got 47% in the Gorton & Denton by-election their previous highest by-election result anywhere, ever, was just 10%

Vivid and courageous reporting from @sommervilletv.bsky.social. Was listening yesterday in the car, and missed my turning: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Putin is making Russia small again: ”Our model suggests that Russian casualties are now between 1.1m and 1.4m, of whom 230,000-430,000 are dead. That would mean one in 25 Russian men between the ages of 18 and 49 may have been killed or severely wounded since the start of the full-scale war.”

On Saturday, five European governments concluded that the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a frog toxin. From 2024, read Navalny’s account of his last years. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Manchester Free Reference Library opened on this day 1878 in the old Town Hall, King Street. Demolished early 20th century, colonnade can still be seen in Heaton Park.

Stunner, by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, in this week's @newyorker.com . Deep reporting and gorgeous writing about Anthropic, AI, and the soul of the new machine: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Poland will launch an investigation into possible links between the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Russian intelligence, as well as any impact on Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.

This piece from inside Iran @equatormag.bsky.social is fascinating and horrifying: www.equator.org/articles/the...

Manchester 1976, what a photo

A two act play... Yesterday: Deutsche Bank's offices raided in German investigation into money-laundering. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Today: Deutsche Bank announces record profits of 9.7 billion euros. www.db.com/news/detail/...

This is possibly my favourite quote about politics. paw.princeton.edu/article/stil...

Can confirm that being a journalist is occasionally very sick indeed.

Strong AKA game from the freshly-indicted Ryan Wedding:

Rifaat al-Assad has died. This obit in NYT omits a) he used to own Witanhurst, and b) his vast offshore wealth was partly managed for nearly a decade by Mark Bridges, the Queen's private solicitor. (Obit does mention: Mitterand gave him the Legion D'Honneur ffs.) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/w...

The US granted visas to Jews but only allowed 30,000 in from Germany a year. You had to wait for your number to come up. Meet Robert Smallbones. An unassuming British diplomat who 'hacked' this system so effectively (saving 48 THOUSAND Jews) the UK government kept his scheme secret for decades /1 🧵

We're absolutely delighted to welcome Sophie Heawood and @nivenj1.bsky.social to The Fence as columnists for the print magazine in 2026. Their first outings will be in Issue 27. Subscribe today to get eyes on their words first. www.the-fence.com/shop/

The Prime Minister of Belgium speaks:

Cleminson Street, Salford. Salford pioneered play streets, traffic-free from 8am till sunset (borrowed from New York) in the 1930s. Legislation followed: there were 700 in England and Wales in the 1950s, all but forgotten by the 1980s.

Lovely essay by John Phipps about a man and his cello. (Contains the word "luthier", which improves any piece.) www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

'She was long in the body, but strong of limb and rib, and her muscles moved under the skin like currents in a bay of the river. She was swift as the wind or as the summer swallow . . .' from Sean Jennett's ‘I Was A Labourer’. Photograph: Chris Killip

There is one rule for criminals in Dubai: no violence. Someone forgot the rule. The Turkish gangster Şeyhmus Muhittinoğlu was shot dead in Dubai just before Christmas. Some eighty Turkish nationals have since been arrested by Dubai police. What a place. www.crimeworld.com/internationa...

Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline Kennedy, has died at 35. In November, she wrote about receiving a terminal diagnosis following the birth of her daughter. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/hsZC7S

Over Christmas, something remarkable: the Dutch extradited Kidane Habtemariam, an Eritrean people trafficker, from the U.A.E. He will now stand trial in the Netherlands. I wrote about Kidane's life and many crimes here: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Make it even more vulgar.

*gasp* #cricket

Really interesting development, grateful to @harrystopes.bsky.social for highlighting it. Read the thread...

Beautiful piece by @TimAdamsWrites on the brilliant Observer journalist Rachel Cooke who could write wonderfully about anything, has died tragically young and will be hugely, hugely missed by so many people. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Was sent this bit of news overnight. "Irish mafia" arrested in Colombia, during Clan del Golfo raids. Eagle-eyed readers of @newyorker.com will note that Clan del Golfo has recently worked with the Kinahan group.

Woman in a purple hat, Manchester, 1985, photo by Shirley Baker (1932-2014).

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair... Amazing piece about NEOM, The Line, and where fantasy meets reality in Saudi Arabia. Chapeau @financialtimes.com

A rail worker credited with saving multiple lives during a mass stabbing on a train has been named as Samir Zitouni. The 48-year-old's actions on the Doncaster to London King's Cross service on Saturday evening were described as "nothing short of heroic".

So fun to write this short tribute to a classic @newyorker.com story: Up and then Down, by Nick Paumgarten. www.newyorker.com/magazine/tak... But don't read that read the original. It's about eight thousand words long and it will make your day better. www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...

Honoured.

No More Kings, by @willoyd.bsky.social -- an essay very much worth your time. www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Thank you to the Sunday Long Read... Kinahan and many other delicious treats in this week's buffet.

Heaney, by @fotoole.bsky.social : observer.co.uk/culture/book...