back to work so it's time for nice christmas? yeah good thanks, you? yeah good thanks, good new year? yeah good thanks, you? yeah good new year thanks, kids enjoy? yeah thanks kids enjoyed, your kids enjoy? yeah thanks kids enjoyed

These are your instructions. 📸 @bookhaus.bsky.social

Really pleased to get up at 5am and settle in front of #TheAshes - to be greeted by rain in Sydney

Headline: house prices fall. Sub-head: house prices didn’t fall. Come on, @thetimes.com, this is rubbish!

My bookmark is a playing card from a pack of Qantas cards given to me in 1980 by an aunt, as she headed off to make a new life in Australia. I have always used them as bookmarks - this might be the last one left, with me through all that time

In Agadoo did Kubla Khan Push pineapples, shake the tree

I'm a big fan of, and subscriber to, @jim.londoncentric.media's London Centric Substack, essential reading for Londoners. But this New Year post, mapping a modern-day Henry Smith against his 17th century namesake is something different, and utterly brilliant, worth the sub on its own

The family together for the last time this year. Happy new year everyone

Festival threads and outstanding one-offs in abundance in #Bestof2025: CLASSICAL MUSIC CONCERTS - the year's choice @davidnice.bsky.social with @alexandracoghlan.bsky.social @robertbealemcr.bsky.social @bernardhughes.bsky.social @boydtonkin.bsky.social & more www.theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...

#np For Christmas in 1992 I got this CD of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and it genuinely changed my life. I was knocked out from the first time I heard it and still love it completely. This was the music I wanted to spend the rest of my life listening to!

Tired of headlines pivoting on words like 'could', 'likely', 'might' and 'set to' - which predict things that just happen to confirm editors' priors? Very pleased to be back in @theobserveruk.bsky.social to write about how this could be set to get worse: observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Our subjective pick of the year's BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM RELEASES, each one a zinger: theartsdesk.com/classical-mu... @bernardhughes.bsky.social @seb-scotney.bsky.social #arvopart #kapustin #antaldorati #shostakovich #terryriley #seandoherty #exaudi

My cats being uncharacteristically companionable - but characteristically beautiful

Pick of the year from the Classical CDs team at @theartsdesk.bsky.social - lots of great stuff to discover

Just finished my 74th and probably last book of the year - and it was one of the best: The Day of the Jackal. Not sure why it took me so long to get round to - it was on my dad's bookshelves forever - but it is very very good and I can see why it was such a phenomenon

‘Painful to hear!’ How podcasts’ rush to video is turning them into dreadful listens

Just seen a clip of Jonathan Agnew commentating on England’s winning runs in #theashes. Never heard someone so disappointed

Excellent article by @philtinline.bsky.social on the New Statesman website about his long history with John le Carré

Woke up at 5.15 and thought of getting up for #theashes. Opted instead to stay in bed - and thus missed a gripping finish and England win…

Pick of the year from the Classical CDs team at @theartsdesk.bsky.social - lots of great stuff to discover

Lovely present from Mrs H of a 1951 first edition of a childhood favourite of mine: Cynthia Harnett‘s The Wool-Pack #christmasbooks

Wrapped the family’s presents in newspaper to be eco-considerate and just discovered my wife’s has Jeffrey Epstein staring out of the top

What else for Christmas morning than Bach’s Christmas Oratorio? Don’t really have settled favourite recording so trying out Philippe Herreweghe

No

This is the most unsurpassably brilliant Christmas album and I feel sorry for people who haven’t heard it. Christmas in Norwegian - what’s not to like?

It’s not a Christmassy observation but that harmonica solo on Alanis Morissette’s Head Over Feet is the worst monstrosity ever committed to record

I listen the the Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols almost daily at this time of year. It is Christmas for me like Fairytale of New York is for more normal people

Brilliant thread and replies

Top ten names that would make a decent baby name if it wasn’t already the name of a medical condition or medication… 10. Amnesia 9. Rubella 8. Codeine 7. Malaria 6. Paxil 5. Alopecia 4. Bonjela 3. Aphasia 2. Typhus 1. Chlamydia

I like an up-tempo carol and reckon there aren't enough, so have written a few. Here's an extract from my A Babe is Born #ClassicalChristmas

Michael Nyman is an English composer & musicologist. His 1st String Quartet was premiered by the Arditti Quartet on 23 September 1985 at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. open.spotify.com/track/06itn4... #britsymphyear

He's making a list, He's nailing it high, Indulgences, No longer apply, Martin Luther's coming to town

Here's a short extract of my Let in the Light, from the BBC Singers contemporary carols concert last Friday. You can hear the whole thing from about 1.53.20 here (preceded by a short interview) www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... #classicalChristmas

Just done our family tradition of the Charlie and Lola Christmas Special (2006), which we can all recite word for word now, but still love without reservation. It's the most pitch-perfect Christmas thing I've ever seen, both funny and also prone to spring a tear to the eye.

Half Ma’am Half Brisket

Our final regular Classical CD column of the year, starring Avril Coleridge-Taylor and a big stack of Shostakovich: www.theartsdesk.com/classical-mu... @bernardhughes.bsky.social @jkaconductor.bsky.social @londonsymphony.bsky.social #avrilcoleridgetaylor #shostakovich #bbcphilharmonic #classicalcds

Here I am with some other lovely composers after the BBC Singers concert today featuring the premiere of my Let in the Light. You can hear the broadcast on BBC Sounds now - starting at 1.53.25 with a short interview www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Off with my daughter to hear the BBC Singers sing (and broadcast live) the new carol I have adapted from a piano piece I wrote for her before she was born

New Blog Post: A probably overlong piece about my favourite Christmas music, Josquin's Praeter Rerum Seriem. heathcoatstreet.blogspot.com/2025/12/a-ch...

Just finished @patrickkincaid.bsky.social’s charming and entertaining The Continuity Girl. I can see why @jonathancoe.bsky.social blurbed it: it’s very much in his kind of universe

Inner Forces https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/497529

Justified fears #TheAshes

I’m already dreading what the England score will be when I wake up tomorrow morning #TheAshes

A seasonal slant on the most wide-ranging record reviews in the universe, from Thomas H Green - #theartsdesk on #Vinyl 94: #NinaSimone #TheCoral @thecoral.bsky.social #TheCranberries #FrankSinatra #PeteFij #JimiHendrix and more www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/th...

Looking forward to hearing the BBC Singers premiere my new carol on Friday at Temple Church - and live on Radio 3. Let in the Light is an arrangement of a little piano piece I wrote for my (now 18) daughter when she was in utero, and she will be there with me for the performance

Just listening to James MacMillan's The Confession of Isobel Gowdie for the first time in a while. It's a very powerful piece and I remember it having a real impact on me when I first heard it. A significant piece in late 20th century British music #classical #np

Glad to see this favourite album belatedly added to streaming services. In addition to the Copland Clarinet Concerto there is a brilliant orchestration of Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata there is a devastatingly beautiful piece called 'In Memory of Benny' that tends to make me cry

Glad I didn’t get up really early for a game that’s actually starting tomorrow #TheAshes #doh

—I’ve been asked to baptise the King of Spain’s daughter —Infanta? —No, holy water as usual. Weird thing to ask honestly