Please think about doing this if you can. I donated blood for years. It was one of the very few altruistic things I’ve ever done and it meant so much to me that I cried when they told me I couldn’t give any more. Please - if you can, it’s a lovely thing to do and you get free Seabrooks crisps.

Only caught the end of this but oh my. boxd.it/cbMJQH

This is an exceptional essay which I think everyone could do with reading, critic or not. A reminder of how to appreciate art even if you don’t like it.

I just love this

“The last loyal dog in the universe.”

Radio 3 just broadcast a wonderful Messiah recorded last week at St Martin’s In The Fields, with particularly beautiful solo work from the young and phenomenally talented Ana Viera Leite (soprano) and William Thomas (bass). Well worth tracking down on iPlayer if Christmas Handel is your bag.

"When the juice hits your eye/and no pips do you spy/that's satsuma!"

Somehow Keith the sloth has ended up on the floor and perfectly summed up my christmas mood.

- Flu, colds and Covid everywhere - Still the only person I ever see in one of these - made of the stuff the MOD developed to withstand biological attack and nuclear war - one mask lasts approx 6 months when worn daily - almost always on sale because see point 2 cambridgemask.com/collections/...

Someone just liked these photos so I’m taking the opportunity to repost them. STB died just under two years ago. He was the loveliest cat, a streetwise rescue who could not get over the existence of soft furnishings and liked to have a bedtime story read to him. Still miss him.

If anyone needs to know what dying from cancer is like (for the last month of life) this scene featuring Paula Pell as a hospice nurse from Dying for Sex explains it beautifully. youtu.be/i8a0pUaCGQU?...

It’s Monday. It’s the holidays. So let’s celebrate with a bevy of memorable photos from a 1963 photo session with the lovely Claudia Cardinale who recently passed at the age of 87. (Thread)

This show was phenomenal enough for Lucy Mangan and I to be in perfect agreement for once. If you missed it, I strongly suggest catching up www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

This is truly the most wonderful time of year, when followers of the life and teachings of Satsu come together to celebrate Satsumas.

NIGEL FARAGE STOLE MY SATSUMAS

You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Derek Walcott

I watched this film last night, and @mariephillips.bsky.social's review is spot on. It's much richer than I thought it would be! #FilmSky

If you have a friend who lives alone and clearly enjoys her own company, can you not keep asking her who she’s spending Christmas with? There’s this weird thing where some people can’t conceive of Christmas alone and I have to do a lot of emotional lifting to explain that IT’S WHAT I WANT.

Really pleased that a family run Italian cafe is being replaced by "a category leader in brunch". FUCK OFF.

kentucky fried chicken sign, marietta, georgia, 1992

So excited for this (but not released in the UK until after Christmas! Why? Why?)

The Balearic Sounds of Pete Beales Easy Peelers

One of my favourite things about Christmas is that it’s satsuma season - actual satsumas, indescribably more delicious than the hideously-branded “easy peelers” (sounds like a p0rn mag) and usually frustratingly hard to find. (Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have them at the moment.)

If you’re on the lookout for an interesting and individual gift, something off the beaten track, something a little different then our racks and shelves are absolutely bursting with total magic…open till 7pm tonight and all weekend…See ya here folks!! 🚀✨💥😎

It's so depressing, isn't it? Authentic quirky, individualistic local businesses forced out by blandly generic fake authenticity and faux quirkiness, wrapped up in feel good corporate bullshit.

The pros of owning a Golden Retriever: Watching her bound across the municipal park on a crisp, bright December morning, her furry ears flapping in the wind. 1/2

The doom and gloom about London is ridiculous and harmful. Team FT is Team London - as.ft.com/r/19d3d36d-e...

Thanks to @jim.londoncentric.media I discover that Daisy Green has profits of £2.4 million a year, in case anyone was wondering how money is concentrated into the hands of the wealthy. Presumably the family who have run the Parliament Hill café for 44 years will be encouraged to retrain in tech.

LIVID at the City of London’s decision to boot out the existing café owners, some of whom have been there over 40 years, and replace them with Daisy “we are not a chain, but a group of independent cafés owned by the same company with the word Green in our name, serving the same £20 burgers” Green

#AdventMovies2025 Amiable but far too long comedy with a critique of post-war poverty and homelessness at its heart boxd.it/c7DhCN

Marlene Dietrich and Herbert Marshall in a publicity shot for Blonde Venus (1932).

Every time I'm in a restaurant I remember Kevin McAleer's reply to a waiter who told him the Soup Of The Day. "Where there any other contenders?" "Um, no?" "A hollow victory, then".

The Yule cat, Jólakötturinn, is a huge, vicious cat from Icelandic folklore that is said to lurk in the snowy countryside during the festive season and eat people that do not receive new clothing to wear before Xmas Eve. (Or, more boringly, eat the food of people without new clothes.) Good morning!

Well this is going to be a new ritual in our household, right @andrewmale.bsky.social?

#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched A bit meh recently, though I recommend tracking down Dirty Girls on YouTube: a 1990s student documentary short about a group of 13-year-old Riot Grrrls at an American high school who have the reputation of not having washed “since Kurt Cobain died”

A timely reminder that my book would make the most marvellous Xmas gift for the exasperated woman/bewildered man in your life. 10% off with the code FAZAKERLEY if bought direct from www.michelehowarth.com. Happy to include sweary dedications if that’s your thing. Gift wrapping an option - just ask.

Funeral pigeon update. Andrew and Marie showing off their Christmas hair-dos.

Here is the curséd item in question. Songs where Roger Whittaker sounds like a cult leader, a sociopath or a weird itinerant preacher with blood upon his hands. open.spotify.com/playlist/7lz...

Go get the flu jab lads. I cannot say this enough: you do not want to come down with this

In an alternative universe, THIS was the hottest 1990s couple

This is amazing (but also…)

This is always absurdly moving every year - I completely understand why Chris has called it a day, especially after the year we've had, and the unutterable sadness of having to add number 246 immediately before printing.

Reader: someone switched off the radio for him

choo choo, motherfucker

My mouth is watering - well, I suppose technically my ears are watering, but that’s disgusting - reading the replies. So much radio joy to explore!