Note how we’ve moved from concerns about people arriving irregularly in small boats to wrecking the lives of people who are by definition here entirely lawfully

really dislike that "Boriswave" used to be something you'd exclusively see being used by racist Twitter accounts but it's now made its way to the political mainstream, including today's Playbook headline

Meta exposé author faces bankruptcy after ban on criticising company

coates has turned out to be one of a vanishingly small number of people who both have something to lose and are willing to put it on the line to say what are clearly truthful if dangerous things. im impressed

Take a moment, and read...

This is outstanding. And, while research doesn’t get much of a hearing these days on identity issues, everything in it is consistent with piles of research. Anti-racism norms don’t drop from the sky. They are built and buttressed by elites drawing red lines. They can be eroded when elites don’t.

Redford was a movie star who didn’t have to do anything except be a movie star, who in the second chapter of his life saw a need in his industry and I think earnestly tried to help. Sundance is complicated like everything, but I feel confident we are much better off for it.

Let's be clear. The proposal to deport hundreds of thousands of people born in Britain to parents legally resident in Britain, just because they are black or brown, is not 'right populism'. It's the cornerstone policy of the 1970s National Front.

This is excellent.

Hopped on a train from Victoria to Croydon yesterday to visit my folks and there were several of these guys on it, drunk and loud and aggressive. It was a short journey and I just looked at my phone but I've rarely been so uncomfortable in London

I’ll be thinking about Parul Sehgal’s latest essay for a good long while.

'“I’m a damaged person too!” he says. “But I’m trying, you know? I’m trying to be truthful about it.”' Charlie Kaufman, bless him. (Please someone give him some money to make another film.)

The Armani will/succession saga is amusingly chaotic www.reuters.com/business/fin...

Country's in such a state that Jonathan Liew is writing about racism and not cricket. A travesty. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Literary criticism that is funny, accurate and understands its target (Dan Brown will be fine) is a joy to read

Good luck and godspeed to everyone at the mercy of the BFI website this morning.

'Dawn in London' (2008) by Stefan Bleekrode behance.net/Stefanbleekrode

I am absolutely thrilled to have five pieces published & beautifully presented on the splendid @lothlorienpoetryj.bsky.social site, edited by that great member of the #poetrycommunity @stridermarcusjones.bsky.social #poetsonbluesky #poetry #writingcommunity #booksky

The excellent @backlisted.bsky.social locklisted this week reminded me of the existence of this - Alec Guinness reading The Wasteland. youtu.be/Hcj4G45F9pw?...

Deeply depressing to see journos you once respected carry water for people who want to chuck you out of the country.

Finished Caledonian Road and can't remember the last time I read a novel with such verve, or plot, or ambition. The acknowledgements are about three pages long and you can see why once you finish.

I desperately hope they give Shabana Mahmood the support she'll need. Putting a brown Muslim woman in charge of the Home Office with the political climate as febrile as it is will make a target of her.

I'm really glad this guy had the sense to run back to the police officers. The moment where he's surrounded looks incredibly scary.

'It is August still'

Idly wondering what a Taylor Swift vs Meta lawsuit would look like

Sophie Turner has lots of positive things to say about her time on Game of Thrones but her advice to the new Harry Potter cast (and her own kids) is striking. I forgot she was only 13 when it first came out. www.flaunt.com/post/sophie-...

Not the point I know, but the listing of various (progressively weird) colours in discussions about race always amuses me

I think a lot about how the biz model for traditional news has led to this. "Clashes" and "erupt" will result in a higher click through rate here. Chaos sells, accuracy (when dull) does not. Grim stuff.

Quite tickled by something that's a signifier of lower class households across south Asia being included in the FT's HTSI section

'tis the season for Seamus Heaney's 'Blackberry Picking' www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50981/...

Oh my god

Substack has made it very clear to me that everyone needs an editor and I’m a little surprised we haven’t talked more about that

Embarrassed to say this but....I did not realise that people read the words 'asylum seekers' and 'hotel room' and imagine the sport of place that you stay in on holiday. But obviously that's what happens. What a mess.

Very happy to tell you that my novel Dooneen will be published next June by Fitzcarraldo Editions (@fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social) and New Directions (@ndbooks.bsky.social). Many thanks to Jacques and Barbara - both of whom say lovely things here - and to superagent @laurencelaluyaux.bsky.social.

If you don't drive (or don't want to for a day!) and would like to see a bit of the Peak District, there is an open top bus that takes you around for hours in the summer with some of the most glorious views known to man visitpeakdistrict.com/visitor-info...

Eliminating critics is not how you "boost" your coverage of Hollywood and culture, it's how you make that coverage more toothless. variety.com/2025/digital...

Today is my book’s anniversary. It’s been lovely hearing how much so many different kinds of people enjoyed it. I’m forever grateful to the indie booksellers for championing the book in their stores, and for Anne for making me write it. You can still buy it as well: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

'mistaking'

All the chatter about Vance and the Cotswolds reminds me of this glorious piece by Claudia Cockerell on Daylesford and the Bamfords www.the-fence.com/down-on-the-...

Finally saw In the Mood for Love (in the cinema) for its 25th anniversary and boy, I get what the fuss was about. What a beautiful film. I’m glad I didn’t tear through all the obvious masterpieces and still have films like this to discover

Odd piece. This is about a first test screening and the casting director's comments aren't quite as bad as they seem

I've been working my way through some Auden poems lately and it's been more of a struggle than, say, Heaney or Larkin, both of whom I love. But then occasionally I get to lines like this and am bowled over

Finally the end of a pretty disgraceful saga www.thebookseller.com/news/unbound...

"The Dutch River is with me now, I can't see it, I can't hear it, I can't reach it from here, but I can start to think with it." A night walk on the Dutch River (lightly revised from the recent Kirk Sandall to Goole thread): longbarrowpress.substack.com/p/dutch-river

A year on from the summer riots, my latest @newstatesman.com column muses on the nature of political violence and how to keep it from consuming our streets, via Gandhi, MLK, Malcolm X and that most underrated of social theorists, director Spike Lee. newstatesman.com/politics/uk-po…

Lauren Groff Reads Elizabeth Hardwick www.newyorker.com/podcast/fict...

Andrea Riseborough as Isabella Blow is a sublime bit of casting www.vogue.co.uk/article/isab...

Hello. After 11 years @theguardian.com & @theobserveruk.bsky.social I am now freelance and available for commissions. I do features, profiles, interviews, reviews, comment pieces, editing and more Here are 10 pieces I'm proud of:

This is an obvious move. The reason traditional media is grappling with vertical video and competing with influencers is because this is where eyeballs are and every bit of audience data lays that out plainly

Quite like that there are so few debuts longlisted this year. It's nice to see experienced authors get their flowers www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...