that's all we bloody need

BBC News

Just had to tell my kids the story of David and Goliath, but not so much from the 'small-and-brave overcoming improbable odds' angle as from the slingshot health-and-safety perspective.

Morning. Fucking hell.

Intrigued by the name of our new local Chinese takeaway.

we go again

The annual festival of “stop hitting yourself!“ aka the BBC’s commentary on Lib Dem conference.

Over on the Other Place I would occasionally put this thread together, most recently during lockdown, four years ago in fact, and I realised I'd not done it here. So, bear with, and feel free to mute as this is an epic (genuinely, I’m not sure we won’t reach hitherto non-invoked thread limits tbh).

Today I am mostly poring interestedly over old documents in German, Swedish and French, despite not knowing any of these languages. This is fucking stupid.

Something new… open.substack.com/pub/sammywri...

Morning.

Good afternoon, my Friends. Our school is poor but happily feeding the less fortunate children. This time, it's posho and a mixture of beans and peanuts. We love you all! ❤️

I thought I'd do a grim little thread on a cursed bird. Here it is. It doesn't know it's cursed, and it isn't it's fault, but it is.

I learn that there was a GIs' pin-up magazine called YANK. 👀

What's it going to be, gang? @thebasementtan.bsky.social, @rickburin.bsky.social, @derbren.bsky.social? Anything but ST, which I've seen too many times.

Two Nazis, one jay, and the trouble with taxonomy.

Historians, please help! Can any of you tell me who the Bengt Berg referenced here might be? The context is appeasement among British Nazi sympathisers. Thank you!

I thought I'd do a grim little thread on a cursed bird. Here it is. It doesn't know it's cursed, and it isn't it's fault, but it is.

god give me fucking strength

Same energy.

I wrote an essay on non-fiction and truth for The Author, in which I talk about Capote, Graves and Durrell before concluding that writers just need to stop being full of shit.

Morning.

More gold from the BBC Archive: a 1974 doc on the RNLI at 150. Features a moment of Hergest Ridge, great knitwear and, incredibly moving, the Penlee lifeboat and crew that would be lost with all hands not many years later: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g_C...

After a massively busy August, work has been slow so far this month. If you know anyone who needs a copyeditor or proofreader for climate-related fiction or non-fiction, especially work that's solution-focused and justice-oriented, please point them my way. ☺️https://betterworldwords.com/ #amEditing

Trump's "sterling reputation" is evidenced by "his appearances and speaking parts in numerous well-known movies, television shows, and beauty pageants" So presidential! Wow.

This guy called Robert used to ring my grandads house to try to talk to him. We all thought he was just an annoying guy, and would tell him to go away Robert and hang up on him. Lots of people made annoying calls to grandad, so we just continued, till grandad said, it's that bloody actor again.

Wrote about Nazis in the North East, and the slow attritional fight against an upwelling racism and cruelty, for @tribunemagazine.bsky.social. TL;DR: it's pretty bad tribunemag.co.uk/2025/09/tyne...

This is the muckiest book I have ever read. All kinds of sex antics. Disgusting. The author's haunted expression here is the horror of finding that he had such scenes within him

Big news: I have finally put my finger on why I despise the CBeebies cartoon Love Monster with such a passion. Ready? It's because it's always about "fun" but it is never, ever funny. Turns out fun without laughter gives me the absolute pip.

Morning.

2500 words on why your book is good actually

This is what I'm working on next: fascism and the environment. Hoping to finish it before the world burns and/or the fascists take charge. Fingers crossed. Do ask me about it, if you're curious. www.thebookseller.com/rights/manch...

Interesting paragraph on the Jewish response to the 1967 murder of the US neo-Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell, who was shot by a disgruntled member of his own movement.

It's quite funny to start reading the Unabomber manifesto all ready for a stern, learned denunciation of industrial society and finding that he starts out by whining about "lefists" and "politically correct types". Hadn't really realised how well he'd fit in today. Just such a fucking dweeb.

v proud of this issue of The Author from @societyofauthors.bsky.social – featuring Sarah Hall on a human-authored 'maker's mark', my interview with Elif Shafak, Adam Weymouth on wolf research, Roman Krznaric on befriending your translator, Richard Smyth on bending the non in fiction...

I wonder how many people of my generation can do a perfect Peter Lorre impression while having never seen a Peter Lorre film.

Well it's certainly autumn! And do you know what's autumn-coded, fall-adjacent, September-appropriate? That's right: BOOKS. Here are some of mine. Buy them, if you want.

Morning.

oh just FUCK off

47 today, guess I'll just put on Time Out Of Mind and stare at the wall

Happy birthday to me.

There was an early 90s Spitting Image segment called Last Night Of The Yobs where the Albert Hall was filled with hundreds of Union Jack-waving hooligans. SEEMS TIMELY.

All I saw was cheesecake boat and ocean for at least 5 minutes

plot twist: scotch egg

Ah. That's better.

The only fusion going on here is me facepalming so hard that my atomic nuclei merge

Morning. Pffffff.

[Faber & Faber offices, 1945] "great that we're publishing a classic of progressive, reformist US journalism. who should we get to edit and introduce it?" "let's ask the two most prominent English fascists we can think of"

Spent three days turning the office upside-down in search of a book I need and then remembered I bought it on Kindle.

It's a beautiful morning, and probably a good day to not be online.