Fell down a rabbit hole of Dawson's Creek clips. One thing I forgot about that show was how achingly good the soundtrack was

One lesson of the Epstein emails is the total intellectual vacuousness of the international business elite www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Tomorrow we release the final episode of Backlisted for the foreseeable future.* After ten years, it's a very odd feeling. I am looking forward to spending more time with my books and fewer times on social media. * Boats against the current, we beat on via Patreon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmQK...

Adored Riz Ahmed's Hamlet. Shakespeare in English, in Hindi, against a London skyline, in the middle of an Indian wedding. Glorious.

Thanks to @tanjilrashid.bsky.social for inviting me on to the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social’s excellent new culture podcast to revisit one of the first pieces I ever wrote for the magazine and to talk about David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest at 30 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Slightly confused by BBC iPlayer putting Election (the Matthew Broderick/Reese Witherspoon film) on its Valentine's Day list. Great film, but categorically not a romantic one

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

It is worth noting the Post slashed the bulk of its arts coverage, including most of the critics, ending a great tradition in journalism.

there isn’t a better Books desk in the country than the one at the Washington Post. I’m not really sure there’s anything else to say

February, Margaret Atwood. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47787/...

I'll say more before too long, but for now: Thanks to anyone who has ever read and supported the Post's books coverage.

This is horrible. The WaPo's Books section has a brilliant band of critics and editors and has developed a genuine identity in the book world. I'm heartbroken for a staff that has done such consistently great and dedicated work.

There are vanishingly few places for literary critics to work and for writers to have their books seriously reviewed. Depressing stuff.

The Post killing its Books section (one of the best around) is so fucking bleak

So much for the billionaire benefactor model www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...

Quite excited for Riz Ahmed's Hamlet but might have to go to Romford to watch it because I can only find showtimes listed at the other ends of London (It's also on at cinemas in Brixton and Acton) www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXTA...

There are crumbs of solace to be found in how utterly tacky the super rich in those emails are. No shame, dignity or character. A grubby, inelegant lot.

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/culture/q-an...

It is absurd that the 'could this be the new movie star' convo is focused around Glen Powell when Timothee Chalamet keeps churning out hits

NGL this description of Bsky in Vulture cracked me up

After seven and a half years of weekly parenting columns for the Observer, today's will be my last. I started writing the column a few weeks before becoming a dad, so I've never parented without it. I'll miss it more than I express in words, but I had a go anyway. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

The clear danger here is that the Muslim community doesn't vote Labour and Reform rallies a core base of people furious over high immigration/that 30% statistic.

Completely horrifying story. www.nytimes.com/article/alex...

As a massive nerd criticising Matt Goodwin, I want to assure him that the cool kids are only abstaining because they don't know who or what he is. Idris Elba is not sitting by the phone waiting for a dinner invite to discuss how he's not really British.

Wowsers look at what happened to posts on Twitter/X about London crime after monetisation of posts was introduced… economist.com/britain/2026...

Not pictured: Haruki Murakami’s wife, or indeed whoever is cooking, cleaning, paying bills, running errands, doing the laundry, answering emails, etc like yea his routine is goals, but let’s not lie to ourselves about all the invisible work others are doing to enable him to have that routine

Even in the age of huge campaigns the amount of promo for Bridgerton's new season is astonishing. The actors must have done interviews with every legacy and 'new media' outlet Netflix could find.

This was a minor story on London news this morning - but suspect is a real cautionary (and alarming) tale of an older man getting radicalised online. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The "marry early" line is so dark

Between this and what's happened in the US overnight, it does feel like the right are heading towards a different public position. Not 'we don't want mass migration' but 'we don't want ethnic diversity.'

Unexpected literary headline of the day www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/b...

This piece made me want to go and read Infinite Jest. Which is not something I ever thought I'd type. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

If anyone missed it, this TLS review from Friday is the kinda thing most writers would sell a kidney for. Alice Jolly is an unbelievable writer too so this is really quite something to read coming from a technician of that calibre. First ever review for my fiction, what a start.

I've always found Max Ehrmann's poem Desiderata to be rather sentimental and syrupy. But lately I've come to appreciate its gentleness. www.desiderata.com/desiderata.h...

A very strong line-up of debut novelists in the Observer's 2026 list. Great to see @weatherglassbooks.bsky.social on there with Lucy Apps' Gloria Don't Speak. #smallpresses observer.co.uk/culture/book...

Recently we watched 'Mississippi Burning', a film I knew little about beyond the fact that it's about the civil rights era. What stuck with me was how well it captures the ordinary, likeable people who perpetrated, supported or looked away from heinous acts.

Once again: If it's not your job, it's fine to not watch horrific footage.

By no means is this the worst detail here but I'm slightly perplexed at a Lunch with the FT interviewee just bringing his wife along uninvited www.ft.com/content/32bb...

Don't love the idea of top fashion brands becoming deeply involved in cinema www.ft.com/content/cf3d...

Poem for #BBC #Winterwatch • Philip Larkin •

The Thames Clipper out of tourist season is a joy: It takes you up and down the river, you can hop from the Tate Britain to the Tate Modern & London in January somehow looks coolly elegant when seen from the river.

Publishing desperately casts around for new celeb children's book author to replace Walliams for the vital Christmas 2026 sales period. FTFY.

Being the child of famous parents sounds so grim.

Working in a print newsroom for the first time in my life means picking up so much new jargon. The bulldog edition? Slugs? Refers? Ridiculous + delightful stuff.

The Tate Britain exhibition on Turner and Constable is terrific. Watercolours, oils and the most glorious paintings of skies and clouds and bits of the English countryside.

First episode of our brand new culture podcast, The New Society, is out! The brilliant @tanjilrashid.bsky.social interviewing Salman Rushdie. Subscribe!

Plenty has been said about Jessie Buckley's gorgeous performance in Hamnet but I also adored Emily Wilson's turn as Shakespeare's mum. She's only in it for a few scenes but still made me weep.

And invests no money in content or creators or any infrastructure of programme making, does no training, cannot support collaborative projects efficiently, and has an opaque payment system that mitigates against what the public would understand as “making television”.

I chair the acquisitions meeting of @reaktionbooks.bsky.social, an independent publisher. We're open to unsolicited book proposals: history, art, music, film, food, animal studies and any great indefinable non-fiction book ideas you might have. Check out the list and get in touch.