🎶 Read your briefing in full here, which includes info on Nahum McLean's latest performance, as well as access to a limited number of free tickets to a concert at St Ann's Church this week.

The Palestine Festival of Literature has launched an online publication, and the intro essay is worth your time. www.thekeymagazine.com/p/western-jo...

My first piece for @globalvoices.org -- a part of my We Are Noor feminist journalism fellowship -- on the Brazilian far right and how they weaponize legal abortion: globalvoices.org/2026/03/07/h...

I would not be the writer I am without this man’s support since I was a freelancer with a wild dream. Please consider checking out a lil something that catches your eye from his great bookstore.

‘Eight kilos of gas did not change our reality. It did not end the war or remove the fear. But it brought back something we were close to forgetting: what it feels like to live a normal day, even if only for a few hours.’ Hassan Ayman Herzallah in Gaza, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

Your weekend match is here, lovelings, and this week's featured a BOAT. Find out when I've previously used boats to get to a match before and why Gosport Borough fell flat against Sholing in a Southern League derby here. unexpecteddelirium.substack.com/p/match-of-t...

Reminder that much of this would not be happening if cowardly/greedy states and institutions had frozen or seized the assets of a few key people several years ago.

The National Gallery’s outsourcing and poor treatment of staff is driving its BAME workforce into poverty and precarity. Their union says this amounts to discrimination against black and brown workers.

today’s International Women’s Day theme is “balance the scales”, and the #Matildas have become an example of what that looks like in football. but this #AFCWAC has shown us how much further Asian football still has to go to address gender inequality. football360.com.au/internationa...

Beautiful switch of play and weight of kick from Smith.

‘The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, which El Mencho built, imports more weapons and military hardware, kidnaps and traffics more people and has a larger presence in the licit economy than any of its rivals.’ Forrest Hylton on Mexico after Mencho, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...

The Right to Food Commission is bringing together trade unionists, community organisers, tenants’ unions, and NGOs to document the crisis driving hunger in modern Britain — and to build a new movement to end it.

For my contribution to #WomenWritersWeek at @ebertvoices.bsky.social I wrote a look back at the film industry 100 years ago – the arrival of synced sound, the death of Valentino, Gilbert and Garbo, and more – and what we might be able to glean from its storied history.

We can’t let the far right do the things they’d want to do in government… because it means I don’t get to do them myself.

"Part of me threatens to concede that what is lost cannot be retrieved, that history moves forward with or without our consent. Another part refuses to simply move on, to abandon what has been taken. Ramadan strengthens that refusal."

*sigh* oh god damn it. my storage unit is due again. i need $200. any assist would be greatly appreciated ♥ ko-fi.com/joannablackh...

South Africa today.

India today.

New Zealand today.

This morning on UD, time to let rip on the absolute shambles that Spurs have been for a longer amount of time than they ever needed to be. unexpecteddelirium.substack.com/p/the-occasi...

Plus: The Brit Awards rundown, which was hosted in Manchester for the first time in its history; the latest on the by-election, as Farage calls the result a "victory for cheating"; and the Iranian rally in the city centre following US-Israeli strikes. Read it here:

An attempt to put criticism of Arsenal into perspective "They dominated the line of scrimmage..." open.substack.com/pub/tonyevan...

We're well over halfway, with more than 280 pledges already! Leeds deserves high-quality local journalism, and you can help us ensure the city gets it⬇️

A 17 year old Black girl, who all of English football should be gassed about, is already having to consider this type of stuff 😞🫠🙄🤬

Wrote up the by-election, the Green victory and the conferences for Labour at the @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Had a conversation with this guy Ryan Coogler on behalf of @theankler.com youtu.be/4IZ8xJUEhlQ?...

Your weekend match is here. Horsham vs Southend United in the quarter-finals of the FA Trophy. Nearly but not quite, for the home team. unexpecteddelirium.substack.com/p/the-weeken...

February Book of the Month 📚 “The Mixed Marriage Project” interweaves historical research that might leave you wondering whether anything really changes in these United States. Read why we picked it ⬇️

that being said, here's my latest. stacialbrown.substack.com/p/chromebooks

‘Unesco’s preliminary damage assessment for cultural properties in Gaza has so far verified damage to 157 sites since October 2023.’ @selmadabbagh.bsky.social on the Gaza war’s damage to Palestinian culture and heritage, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

‘Tehran used to move faster at this time of year. People spoke with more confidence and even the smog seemed less suffocating. But this year the city is on pause.’ Raha Nik-Andish on the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

keir starmer can't have an answer to the green party because he's never once bothered to think about why someone who previously supported his party would vote for them.

Fine. I've started a newsletter. For now, it will mainly be weekly updates on what I'm up to -- what I'm working on, what (if anything) I've published, what I'm reading, that kind of thing. Maybe if there's something I'm dying to blog about, I'll do it. We'll see! www.patreon.com/cw/jessicawl...

Fair point.

A win by 4K?? I thought this was meant to be going down to the wire? Sidebar: Kinda wild the Conservatives got less than 1K votes and we don't really mention it 🤷🏾‍♂️

Showing how absurd the neutral athlete notion was, and is, for Russian athletes.

Last week, my mother took me and my kids to see the school where, 60 years ago, she was among the first wave of Black students to integrate a previously all-White school. We wanted to remind my kids that Black history is not just famous people in textbooks, it is often the people right next to you.

Last night I went to the @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social to see LIFE WITHIN THE LENS, a rich programme curated by Tyler Balentine that featured seven shorts by Black creatives. Read my thoughts on the night via @ebertvoices.bsky.social

I've been meaning to write something about Bluey for at least the last couple of years, and I've finally gotten around to it. unexpecteddelirium.substack.com/p/single-par...

please join me in supporting this family, if just 20 people give $50 this family will have met their goal in time to be reunited ! chuffed.org/project/1699...

The rains have finally stopped! Wait, it’s 16 degrees in February?

🚨 The Battle of the Tips Continues. Restaurant staff at Harrods are taking the company to the Employment Tribunal tomorrow. 🧵 🔗 Read more >> uvwunion.org.uk/en/news/2026...

After Israel's systematic erasure of an entire academic ecosystem, Gaza's students and teachers are taking extraordinary steps to reclaim their right to learning. Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi reports jewishcurrents.org/education-ca...

“Recent years have been boom times for language that is inarticulate on purpose,” Megan Garber writes, but a certain meme from 2016 may be this era’s ultimate innovation: