People walking on a path leading to the church door of St Mary & All Saints, Fillongley, have reported a feeling of being obstructed by something unseen. Those who try to continue on their way experience a sensation of being forced back by unseen hands.🧵 #PhantomsFriday

Just a reminder that this exists. :-)

The 2,000-year-old marble head of the Greek goddess Aphrodite discovered in the ancient city of Aizanoi in western Turkey.

Call me an old softie but when a bird’s in front of you and you know it’s just flown in from Africa but still has the energy to sing its heart out, it’s tempting to offer it a chair and a cup of tea so it can rest up a bit.

Today marks the Harrowing of Hell in Catholic theology (and pre-Reformation European art). Here is a magnificent woodcut by the mighty Albrecht Dürer (1511) - Christ's descent into Hell between crucifixion and resurrection to rescue faithful souls who had died before he came. Adam holds the cross.

I talked about My Phantoms too much, so this thread will probably be the only thing I post about Gwendoline Riley’s new novel The Palm House. I have read it twice, first in proof and again now the novel is ‘in the shops’. As usual, the style is the substance, and the style is impeccable. >

31 years before Thomas Mann began The Magic Mountain in Davos, Robert Louis Stevenson finished Treasure Island there.

I am listening to the Matthew Passion at the shop - hardly background music, but it's Good Friday and has to be listened to. Is it the greatest music ever written...?

So excited to have Kenneth Pattengale of The Milk Carton Kids coming to play solo at the bookshop in May - for two nights! Just one ticket left for the 16th, but still a handful left for he 15th. Unmissable! www.treehousebookshop.co.uk/events/2026/...

If you missed it the first time, the #NordicNoir series "Entrapped", starring @olafurdarri.bsky.social, has come back to Netflix! I may have to give it a rewatch. @onefootiniceland.bsky.social

Who wants to help a second-hand bookshop at the end of the month by ordering some surprise books in the post? Better value than an Easter egg! #BookSky www.treehousebookshop.co.uk/shop/details...

This is happening today

Such beautiful cards from this company - now including my main man Dürer! We stock some in the shop too, but they currently have a sale on the website - go look.

The Albrecht Dürer Greetings Card Collection: Animals. Introducing our first Albrecht Dürer Greetings Card Collection: Animals. This comprises Young Hare, Squirrels, and Little Owl. These are also available as individual cards. www.rathergoodart.co.uk/product/albr... #durer

Tom Jones, Tom Jones I hope it's Tom Jones He's Welsh and very orange And he sounds just like trombones

The Thrush cousins at the #WeedyPond The Song Thrush; Redwing & Fieldfare. The very last of the winter thrushes are now leaving Dorset. No more 'seeeh' or 'chak-chak-ak' calls in the Ash trees here. I suspect that the Blackbirds & Song Thrushes are rather relieved - flocks aren't really their thing.

Coventry and Warwickshire folk events taking us into April. 🙂🎶

Today's show, I am joined by @davidbenkof.bsky.social to talk about how his love of musicals has led him to bring together a community of like minded people (and some pretty exciting guests) www.mixcloud.com/RadioAbbey/s...

The beautiful preservstion of trilobite compound eyes will never cease to amaze me. On this little 400ish million year old Phacops you can see all the little lenses - each one a rigid calcite mineral crystal! Together they had excellent 360° vision, perfect for finding lunch on the seafloor.

Who's taking to the LTYLR stage in April? 4 APRIL: O'Hooley & Tidow 11 APRIL: Laura Wilkie & Ian Carr 16 APRIL: Banter 18 APRIL: @trackdogs.bsky.social 24 APRIL: @ranagri.bsky.social 30 APRIL: Good Habits events.livetoyourlivingroom.com

Check this out. Free courses online from MIT. ocw.mit.edu I went in and looked at Writing About Literature and it's all there, syllabus, reading list, the lot. All free. Please share.

I understand today is World Theatre Day. A great day to buy tickets to see some live performances. www.atgtickets.com/shows/pen-pu...

Happy #WorldTheatreDay from us two loons. We love working in theatre. It always ends up being less than minimum wage if you count up the hours, but it's also actual genuine sacred magic, so there's that. Image: TimeWeavers at Smock Alley, Dublin Feb 2026.

Last call for my Zoom talk on Bruegel this evening. You can pay £10 for this session or £40 to receive the recordings of all 5 talks in the series. Have a look at the info, the 'book now' button gives more info about this talk. I am a proper art historian! www.treehousebookshop.co.uk/events/2026/...

Arriving at Rochdale Town Hall for tonight’s Folk Album of the Year Award Gala. Watch the live stream on the @folkonfoot.com YouTube channel at 1900 GMT tonight. m.youtube.com/watch?v=wXwK...

"No one will notice the lighting rig in the shot if we don't make a bid deal of it." #TheFilmCrowd

Today's show did go out at 12 (Thanks to Victoria @treehousebookshop.bsky.social for lining it up and my dashing in to flip a couple of switches) It's now available on listen again www.mixcloud.com/RadioAbbey/s... Can I be shameless and say please listen, it's my birthday?🤣🤣🤣🤣 A girl has to try!

Had a walk along the prom & met some hells angels.

Join us for what promises to be a truly extraordinary film experience: SHARK EXORCIST! Join #thefilmcrowd this Monday from 8pm! www.youtube.com/watch?v=46qE...

My new Reading Project post is up and FREE TO ALL! In this one, I discuss two distinct, and distinctly discomfiting novels: TO THE WHITE SEA by James Dickey, and Thomas M. Disch's science fiction classic 334. billryan64.substack.com/p/dont-let-a...

with @treehousebookshop.bsky.social Chatting about things we'd love to do, incl bringing MT to gigs. We don't know if it would work, or if there's a market in this area, but, if anyone would like to give it a try, for the joy of performing in this "enchanting" space then we'd love to talk.

Any Brummie of my generation will get a memory jolt when they look at the background of this picture. Can anyone help Mike with his query?

Looks like a theatre company will be acting out my short playscript ‘Adam & Yves’ at a venue in Wimbledon on 31/3. More deets to follow - in the unlikely event you’re in the area on that date, and free, you might like to go along.

This is so so good that I'm even prepared to overlook the brief audience clap-along

Ursula K. Le Guin on growing older and what beauty really means www.themarginalian.org/2014/10/21/u...

"THE BIG GREENBOOKS 500 CLUB". Since it started last year, with your amazing help, i've been able to send three schools £500 of books each. We're now approaching the next £500, so today I'll be getting in touch with another school! THANK YOU! www.biggreenbookshop.com/big-green-bo...

🤣🤣 I love Bob, but duetting is not his forte...

Very cool exercise. A blog post about a visit to an English seaside town is written in ever-older forms of English until it becomes incomprehensible to us. Even though the whole thing is in English. I stopped understanding at 1400. A reminder that language isn't static.

If you haven't read it, go get a copy asap. #BookSky

8 new BOB DYLAN INSTAGRAM posts www.instagram.com/bobdylan?igs.... .

Looking forward to the next horror writing school, SPRING SCARES, kicking off the 14th April - and we'll have some opening author announcements for your shortly! www.eventbrite.com/e/spring-sca... #horror #horrorcourse #horrorcourses #horrorwriting #horrorwriters

February has been good at the shop, but it's a short month and hasn't been good enough to make up the serious shortfall from a very quiet January. Everyone will be paid except me. So here is our online shop for anyone who wants books or merch! (UK only) #BookSky www.treehousebookshop.co.uk/shop

Think of all the crap stuff that happened in the pre-AI world, and scale it up without limits. That's where #AI and its loathsome proponents are going. #ChatGPT #LLMs

One week until I’ll be chatting with Mark Norman about my forthcoming book on the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas at QUAD in Derby. And it’s just one event amongst a plethora of eldritch endeavours at this year’s UK Ghost Story Festival

#BOTD Alan Rickman - TRULY, MADLY, DEEPLY #FilmSky

‘By employing craftsmen and buying luxuries from across Europe, the Tudors were showing they could command the same resources as other European monarchies.’ Kate Heard on Tudor art. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Brilliant. And come and hear the Brothers Gillespie at the bookshop on 22 March - a rare chance to hear them in a very intimate venue in the Midlands!

Also just... we're trying to do better things for the community this year, and stuff like this keeps happening. It's really not easy atm, sigh.

Classic British thriller with #TrevorHoward #RosamundJohn #SallyGray and #AlastairSim in... 📽️ GREEN FOR DANGER (1947) 6:10pm #TPTVsubtitles