Reading @minutebook.bsky.social 's musical bio of David Ackles. A lovely book, measured, elegant and generous, like its subject. And it led me to the author's Ghostwriter recordings, which I didn't know and which are quite wonderful...

On this week’s newsletter, Anthony Burgess himself introduces Earthly Powers, his Booker-prize nominated novel about the eternal conflict between good and evil by way of Windy City gangsters, American cults and Papal intrigue Subscribe for FREE: anthonyburgessfoundation.substack.com/p/burgess-on...

First video on the new channel. #Lorne, the Great Ocean Road, cockatoos and concrete brutalist dogs. youtu.be/JqX2ET8cTEQ

My shortest poem: EMPIRE It is remote here. Send marmalade.

I wanna go back to Uni and start a society called the Newman Society, and when people join it turns out that we are devoted to studying the life and thought of the great Francis William Newman - John Henry Newman's smarter brother..

The Return is an impressive, austere film, with strong performances, based on a script by Edward Bond, no less. Yet it is an example of one of my least favourite genres: take a mythological story and strip out all the mythology. This one is saved, I think, by the faces... youtu.be/aOQQ45ddYdk?...

A very happy St Stephen's Day to all... youtu.be/fm-po_FUmvM?...

Watching The Holly and The Ivy (1952), my go-to Christmas movie these days. A lovely, grown-up Christmas story that just keeps getting better as it goes on. And a young and sexy Denholm Elliot is always such a joy..

Four Christmas movies to know me by...

One of the best jazz soundtracks ever for one of the most underrated British films of the early 1960s... youtu.be/g48oGKlceg4?...

Post you from a different era...

"...The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter Is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter..." Bob Dylan, Brownsville Girl www.theguardian.com/culture/2024...

@mfrancispoet.bsky.social I saw this on #naturewriting and immediately thought of your tartly delicious 'Canticles'... bsky.app/profile/orch... Pleased to find you are here...

Fragment of Fear (1970): The perfect UK paranoid thriller, with an impeccable cast and Hemmings giving one of his best meat-and-potatoes performances - and a splendid soundtrack. That flute!

"A tiger's sigh, a wolf's music, a song on a lonely road..."

Repost with your first crush. Mine’s a tie.