2026 Reading 1: Big Kiss, Bye-Bye by Claire-Louise Bennett. My second Christmas book, and a wonderfully strange one to start the year with. The strangeness should come as no surprise, after C-L B's previous two books, but still, page by page, it evades certainty and asks question after question.

My Books of the Year, in which I ponder why 2025 wasn't a banner reading year for me, and what that might actually mean. tinycamels.wordpress.com/2026/01/04/b...

Skating and sailing on the ice, on a cold winter's day, with Adam van Breen of Amsterdam and later Oslo. His day is today.

Announcing Magic & Mechanics! Out on 12th March - featuring [prepare yourself] George Saunders, Claire-Louise Bennett, Colin Barrett, Mark Haddon, Camilla Grudova and Amber Medland! Preorder yours here: www.scratch-books.co.uk/product-page...

Love it that the naff right wing are bringing back the ‘What is Wrong with this Picture?’ puzzle format of yesteryear. @davidcollard.bsky.social , in particular, will be pleased.

Love it that the naff right wing are bringing back the ‘What is Wrong with this Picture?’ puzzle format of yesteryear. @davidcollard.bsky.social , in particular, will be pleased.

I decided to finally read Middlemarch on my month off work - it's filled with sublime, carefully written passages like this, where Dorothea visits her marital home for the first time.

“Your words used your way will generate your meanings. Your obsessions lead you to your vocabulary. Your way of writing locates, even creates, your inner life.” — Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town, pg. 15

This is the start of the updated Dance To The Music Of Time @idca.bsky.social

Weird that you burn incense to feel calm and relaxed. It should be something you burn to rile yourself up.

Trinity Buoy Wharf on New Year’s Day

We went for a walk today.

According to the ancient art of home barista divination it looks like 2026 is going to be a bit meh, I’m afraid.

Went to see The Apartment on New Year's Eve at the Star and Shadow (local community cinema in Newcastle) and yeah it's still a perfect movie. boxd.it/clviT1

Here comes my favourite 20 albums of 2025. The list nobody has been waiting for. 20: STOCHASTIC DRIFT by Barker Hey, it's ambient, but it's got a jagged edge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jKi...

Reading my first Iris Murdoch novel (The Bell) and hoooo boy, this lady can write a damn sentence

Anyone in Newcastle, this perfect film is showing tomorrow 2pm at the wonderful Star and Shadow cinema. Tickets £7/5/3/0. www.starandshadow.org.uk/programme/ev...

My latest short reading thread: on Shirley Jackson's totally fascinating and slightly frustrating Hangsaman.

BLOG POST: Notes on the best new-to-me books and films of 2025, including juvenile delinquents, witches, weirdness, and a dystopian Argentina where the tango is *banned*! precastreinforced.co.uk/2025/12/15/f...

Just learned that George Bernard Shaw declined the Nobel Prize money, arranging instead for it to be redirected to the translation of Swedish literature into English.

The last time I saw The Trial by Orson Welles it was on VHS; the teenage me probably taped a late-night TV broadcast of a cropped, substandard print. I saw it again last night. Wow. Every frame is a work of art, not least due to cinematographer Edmond Richard. Here's a short 🧵of frames. #cinema

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention." Francis Bacon, ever relevant on reading habits.

My latest short reading thread: on Shirley Jackson's totally fascinating and slightly frustrating Hangsaman.

The Night of the Hunter at the Tyneside Cinema, with the 21yo son. (Here's his review: letterboxd.com/thurston11/f...) boxd.it/cj2Exl

Popped my favourite pieces I’ve written this year at the top of this round-up. Been lucky to have a lot of great opportunities (writing on John Ford in the Guardian, Dylan in the i, Borzage on the Blu-ray) but interviewing Adrianne Lenker was very special.

Dipped into Joyce Carey's short story collection, Spring Song, last night. I say this without modern shade or double entendre: he spent a rewarding time observing children's behaviour. They spring fully to life on his pages, in all their emotional complexity and innocence.

post a perfect album from the 90s “that isn't nirvana, pearl jam, soundgarden, or Alice In Chains.” (Not that I’d credit more than one of those bands with so much as a half-decent album between them) Whereas this album IS perfect. Not a bad song on it: a 43-minute blast of pure grown-up pop joy.

My tennis-loving father-in-law has just picked up and is reading The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer. Will be interesting to see how this goes.

i post this story every christmas, and will keep doing so until it stops making me cry merry christmas xx

Christmas Eve

This year we’re bringing back an old favourite jigsaw puzzle. An interesting selection of characters. Is that Beatrice exchanging sexy side-eye with Henry VIII? And how to identify the three cute blonde cross-dressers? Viola, Rosalind, and… Innogen? Julia? (Portia in her lawyer get-up is easier.)

BBC are showing A Question of Attribution on Saturday - it’s amazing ❤️ www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

2025 reading 🧵 This is why I don’t do end of year lists early. What a book. Ishiguro’s anxiety dream of a novel. Funny, confounding, Fluid and inconsistent but with characters I still cared about. Poor Boris! Such a good book. Surrender yourself to it and it delivers.

Son's complaining about having to get up to change the record. They should make bigger vinyl, he says. Has anyone made a record larger than 12"?

This is unutterably beautiful.

From William Donaldson's GREAT DISASTERS OF THE STAGE:

I am WFH in same room as son and his 3D printer. What we need now is a clever algorithmic bot that can produce palatable electronica to align with, build on and camouflage its* various growls, burrs and whirrs. *The 3D printer, not the son.

Hoping you all have a warm, light filled Longest Night from my little family to yours

My friend @theneilcole.bsky.social’s son shared this genius idea for when two people are trying to decide on a film to watch: i) both write down a list of three films they want to watch ii) each picks the one from the other list they’d most like to watch iii) toss a coin to choose between them.

Now you see them. Now you don’t. #ShortStoryCabinet

Like Aliens, it’s a sequel that honours its original by keeping the premise but changing the genre. Here the joy is in the details – the clanging gun, the fingering of the bullet holes in the leather jacket, the keys in the sun visor – but they work because the hard work had already been done.

Good morning! Today, I will share a thread of poems for/about winter solstice Do feel free to add your own or anything else appropriate. ❄️❄️🕯🕯❄️❄️ This one is W.S. Merwin

Like Aliens, it’s a sequel that honours its original by keeping the premise but changing the genre. Here the joy is in the details – the clanging gun, the fingering of the bullet holes in the leather jacket, the keys in the sun visor – but they work because the hard work had already been done.

He's been! Here's everything I read this year (and a few things I wrote): Henry James! Joseph Heller! Penelope Fitzgerald! A biography of the unsuccessful 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, Al Smith! advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/Book...

Just listened to Bridge Over Troubled Water (album) followed by Bookends (album), and blimey the latter just blows the former out of the uh water in terms of songwriting, performance and production.

20 yrs ago R3 had a very splendid JS Bach week leading up to Xmas and 20 yrs ago today C led me gently round Manchester city centre completely off me napper on NHS morphine. I was Kubla Khaning all over the place.

The middle-of-the-road Meh-ness of The Holdovers (watched last night) means my film brain is mostly still ANGRY about Wake Up Dead Man (watched three days ago). What a poorly constructed film that was, irrespective of its interesting themes.

Translation apps - what’s not to love?