A thread of the best grotesque corbels / gargoyles / other stonework features I’ve seen over Christmas? Why not First up, this weird little fella at All Saints in Beeby, Leicestershire…

A SHARPE themed beer? Yes please Endorsed by Bernard Cornwell and actually a tasty pint #booksky

Rewatched CASINO (1995) and sure it rules but I was mainly distracted by the High Talker from Seinfeld making multiple appearances

A long overdue DUEL (1971) rewatch, a celluloid anxiety nightmare all timer Elemental themes (“there you are, right back in the jungle”) and a strong ‘suburban fear of America’s backwaters’ vibe, anticipating Texas Chainsaw et al Wonder what the Director went on to do after… #filmsky

Rewatched CASINO (1995) and sure it rules but I was mainly distracted by the High Talker from Seinfeld making multiple appearances

A long overdue DUEL (1971) rewatch, a celluloid anxiety nightmare all timer Elemental themes (“there you are, right back in the jungle”) and a strong ‘suburban fear of America’s backwaters’ vibe, anticipating Texas Chainsaw et al Wonder what the Director went on to do after… #filmsky

A SHARPE themed beer? Yes please Endorsed by Bernard Cornwell and actually a tasty pint #booksky

1977 Motorhead Christmas card

Now reading - The Accomplices (1956) by Georges Simenon Another Simenon before the year’s out following recent reads of The Blue Room and The Hand, the latter of which often gets compared to this Absolutely banging cover design #booksky

You in a million years would not guess correctly who directed the 90s remake of Christmas in Connecticut.

New on the blog today, Part One of my BOOKS OF THE YEAR, 2025 - favourites from a year of reading. Featuring books by Edith Wharton, Barbara Pym, Caroline Blackwood, Vivian Gornick and more! #BookSky 💙📚 #BooksOfTheYear #Books #BOTY jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/12/16/m...

Really enjoyed this collection. It ended up quite different from the minimalism of Carver - somewhere between Selby Je, Larry McMurtry and Katherine Anne Porter? Intense passions, coming-of-age reckonings etc. Humane, character driven work of high quality, in other words. Highly recommended #booksky

You could do a history of American cinema through the lens of relative cocaine intake, culminating in this movie about a talking horse giving investment tips

Great end of year round up - lots of things immediately added to my “must get a copy of” list

Rewatching The Godfather series - a bit good, who knew? - and this time I’m enjoying spotting all the Sopranos actors (Carmine Sr, Junior, Paulie) AND the Italian genre actors, like Gastone Moschin from all those poliziotteschi films 🤌 #filmsky

This tracks with why noir is a modernist form, embodying the early 20th century move from naturalistic external surface to characters' subtextual, inner worlds But audiences are now fed up with “tortured protagonist” tropes, so we’re left with post-postmodern ‘non characters’. Or something 🤷‍♂️

This tracks with why noir is a modernist form, embodying the early 20th century move from naturalistic external surface to characters' subtextual, inner worlds But audiences are now fed up with “tortured protagonist” tropes, so we’re left with post-postmodern ‘non characters’. Or something 🤷‍♂️

Rewatching The Godfather series - a bit good, who knew? - and this time I’m enjoying spotting all the Sopranos actors (Carmine Sr, Junior, Paulie) AND the Italian genre actors, like Gastone Moschin from all those poliziotteschi films 🤌 #filmsky

I've always found this photo of the spire of Derwent church in the middle of Ladybower Reservoir terrifying.

Every Raymond Carver story

You could do a history of American cinema through the lens of relative cocaine intake, culminating in this movie about a talking horse giving investment tips

The Oxenham Arms pub in South Zeal, Devon, boasts the unusual distinction of having been constructed by 12th Century monks around a prehistoric standing stone. If you’re lucky and visit at the right time of day, as I did today, you might also see it being recharged with sacred energy by the sun.

We all know familiar ghost story settings - mansions, old schools, canals - but what about reservoirs? I’m sure there are examples but none immediately spring to mind As a theme (encroachment of the modern, the present literally drowning the past, abandoned villages etc) it ticks a lot of boxes 🤔

Good Orwell adaptations are possible but rare I didn’t realise there was one of Keep The Aspidistra Flying starring Richard E Grant from 1997, inexplicably retitled A Merry War…Any good, I wonder? It looks particularly…functional (dull) 🤔

Now reading - Fast Lanes (1987) by Jayne Anne Phillips About a third in and this rocks. I know Phillips was associated with the whole “dirty realism” thing, and it does read a little like Carver, but through a ‘post-punk’ lens - shades of Henry Rollins when he was trying to be Bukowski etc #booksky

Now reading - Fast Lanes (1987) by Jayne Anne Phillips About a third in and this rocks. I know Phillips was associated with the whole “dirty realism” thing, and it does read a little like Carver, but through a ‘post-punk’ lens - shades of Henry Rollins when he was trying to be Bukowski etc #booksky

Great list and lots I haven’t seen! Two I’d add: The 1995 adaptation of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Three Miles Up, part of a pretty much forgotten series “Ghosts”…

Watched 1984 (1984) for the first time in a long time. I can see why this met a fairly lukewarm response upon release but I actually think it holds up pretty well First, the positives: Richard Burton is GREAT as O’Brien in his final screen appearance… 🧵 #filmsky #booksky

Made it

I tried to read Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993) following all of you praising it, and I have to say… it wasn’t for me. Endless clever-clever postmodern witticisms that made me physically eyeroll more than once (I know, I know - I should have watched a performance, but I do enjoy plays on the page)

Now reading - The Blue Room (1964) by Simenon I really enjoyed the film adaptation from 2014 (very Chabrol) and am looking forward to seeing how faithful it is to the book This also might be the raunchiest Simenon judging from the first page! #booksky

This book of Weird Tales rules and I’d strongly recommend it

Watched 1984 (1984) for the first time in a long time. I can see why this met a fairly lukewarm response upon release but I actually think it holds up pretty well First, the positives: Richard Burton is GREAT as O’Brien in his final screen appearance… 🧵 #filmsky #booksky

I haven't blogged for ages, so I wrote far too many words about something that happened 40 years ago, and which nobody outside of America cares about.

A stop off for a night in Stamford, en route to Cambridge for the weekend. Bizarrely only 35 mins drive from where I grew up but I’d never been before now Check out this 12th century Norman arch. Originally a house entrance Short 🧵 of other sights

First time properly visiting Cambridge. I’ve hit up a bunch of medieval sites, museums, pubs, bookshops etc, and it’s been GREAT. Who knew? Also read on for the obligatory spotting of a famous person (a good one too)… 🧵

First time properly visiting Cambridge. I’ve hit up a bunch of medieval sites, museums, pubs, bookshops etc, and it’s been GREAT. Who knew? Also read on for the obligatory spotting of a famous person (a good one too)… 🧵

A stop off for a night in Stamford, en route to Cambridge for the weekend. Bizarrely only 35 mins drive from where I grew up but I’d never been before now Check out this 12th century Norman arch. Originally a house entrance Short 🧵 of other sights

Cafe review appreciation

Cafe review appreciation

Lest we forget the smooth Mars bar

Rewatching an all time banger, and why not #filmsky

Rewatching an all time banger, and why not #filmsky

My algorithms are fucked

Another excellent Simenon with a familiar theme to much of his non-Maigret work - the slow crack up of mundane men. Claude Chabrol could have done a great adaptation of it (Chabrol did in fact adapt two non-Maigret Simenons, neither of which I’ve seen - Betty and The Hatters Ghost)… #booksky

To continue the SHIP THEMED architecture content from Amsterdam, a few years ago we also visited Het Schip - pioneering social housing from over 100 years ago that (you guessed it) was designed to look like a ship 🤌👌