It took me about four seconds to become obsessed with the Merlin birdsong app. Thank you, @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social!

I'll be running a three-day #travelwriting workshop at West Cork Litfest this summer. Loads of other great workshops too, if travel writing isn't your thing...

Pulled a calf muscle via the “explosive movement” of crossing the road

Mark Ronson’s memoir is a hoot. He makes 90s NYC sound even more exciting than 90s London. My review for this week’s @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.com/lives/autobi...

A wonderful piece by @akennedysmith.bsky.social about her father Joe Kennedy: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A lovely sentence from a segment of the Today programme: “Gorillas understand the concept of a friend of a friend”.

This story about Laurence Sterne (told here by Ian Campbell Ross) is new to me

The Observer Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism is looking for the best new voices in cultural criticism. Entries close on 28 February 2026, so get scribbling! First prize is £3000 and publication in @theobserveruk.bsky.social Find out how to enter: www.anthonyburgess.org/observeranth...

It’s a very good thing that @maryelmorris.bsky.social and I made ourselves do Parkrun this morning, because our reward was meeting this gentleman:

Bristol: the home of Aardman Animations

Unity Street, Bristol

Doing this very soon! Arrghh!

The US-China confrontation; beliefs vs facts; Tennyson, science and catastrophe; Iris Murdoch’s poetry; Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein; a history of shamanism – and much more. The new TLS is out now: www.the-tls.com/issues/curr...

The aristocracy today; Sally Mann’s creative process; the majesty of László Krasznahorkai; the charge against Chaucer; how grey became cool; small press struggles – and much more. Out now: www.the-tls.com/issues/curr...

As part of the @britishacademy.bsky.social Lecture Programme, in partnership with Coventry University, I will be reading and discussing Indignity tomorrow. 6pm, free event, followed by reception and book signing but registration is required 👇!!! www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/lectu...

It’s here: the newly refined and now fortnightly TLS. www.the-tls.com/

Strong intro. “There are lots of kinds of insects all of them a bit the same.”

Here we have Eimear McBride with her TLS tote bag: @thetls.bsky.social

Falmouth fox

I recently heard about the “theory of unexpected red” in interior design. The Fox Rosehill (subtropical) Gardens next to Falmouth University show us how it’s done:

Sorting through childhood stuff again. There’s no way I’m ever getting rid of this

I bought a second-hand footstool online. I noticed later that there was something rattling around inside the box it came in, and it turned out to be this:

Touch of class

Great to be taking part in this ‘Historians on Substack’ live event in London on 27 March, with a focus on modern storytelling in the digital era, tips & tricks for Substack writers and wine-fuelled networking. Booking details below. akennedysmith.substack.com/p/historians...

A section from my introduction to the current issue of the TLS (@thetls.bsky.social). Our cover review is Andrew Scull on the letters of Oliver Sacks

Roy Gibson on Tom Holland’s translation of Suetonius in this week’s @thetls.bsky.social

I've enjoyed listening to Brahmacharini Shripriya Chaitanya on Radio 4 this week. Uplifting: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

More watch what’s happening in US/Trumpland, more feels imperative to understand Putin’s rise to power, how he used Russia’s oligarchs to consolidate power - and what happens you cross him Reviewed two new books on that theme for latest @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/politics-soc...

I just tried to type “Many thanks” and predictive text came up with “Many are skeptical”

Translators are harder to impress than nontranslators. Damion Searls gives examples of that in The Philosophy of Translation; I, in my @thetls.bsky.social review of it. www.the-tls.co.uk/languages-ll...

The gorgeous residential Gladstone’s Library Writer in Residence programme provides space and resources for up to four writers whose work engages with liberal values in the broadest sense. Writers at all stages of their career can apply. Please share :) www.gladstoneslibrary.org/events/write...

A snippet from my introduction to this week’s issue of the TLS (@thetls.bsky.social)

Many congratulations to the most recent winner of the TLS (@thetls.bsky.social) crossword:

The poinsettia I bought before Christmas waited until I had lovingly repotted it, and THEN died

The recognition was immediate

T. S. Eliot’s prose; political divides; Yukio Mishima’s deadly art; foreign money and English football; Mark Twain abroad – and much more. This week’s TLS is out now: www.the-tls.co.uk/issues/curre...

Little bit of a jolt, in my Shazam playlist, to go from Sheep May Safely Graze, BWV 208/9, to Pulled Up by Talking Heads

The Shard this evening

A snippet from my introduction to this week’s issue of @thetls.bsky.social:

Just found myself about to look up a train leaving from “London Waterstones”

Whenever I walk past the shop called DUCK WORLD in London Bridge station I think of the shop my dad remembered from childhood that only sold balsa-wood swans

Sorting through stuff in my childhood bedroom and it turns out I’m the author of a very readable primer on architectural styles

Christmas is so magical

Temporarily (or permanently?) making these the base of my food pyramid

Accidental prose poem (my son’s school spellings for this week)

My favourite fact about Iceland is that we have many, many crime writers but only one forensic pathologist, and he was so busy answering all of their questions that he decided to have a small seminar for writers to get some peace. It immediately sold out so he had another one that also sold out.

Houses at Auvers Vincent van Gogh, 1890