We wanted to understand how rugged English-Scots-Irish culture has shaped America. So we talked to three white South African billionaires at a sex party in the Bahamas.

Don't you hate it when fighting age men flee their own country, leaving their families behind, then expect other people to give them a handout.

"Mam! There's a duck in Harlech Television"

"For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night" @alwynturner.bsky.social selects his 70 favourite album titles from the 1970s. thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/14/a...

If the papers don't use the headline FRAMPTON GOES DEAD when he falls off his perch, we're no longer a nation #totp

Yet another song I'll forever associate with the IRA mainland bombing campaigns, thanks to The Rock 'n' Roll Years. #totp

Of all the songs that sound like a bad hangover/emerging from an all-nighter at 6.30am waiting for the first bus and looking at a grey cold unforgiving sky, it's Baker Street. Also Gerry Rafferty knew his subject and met an awful long painful alcoholic end.

They should shrink-wrap this political party and label it "REFORMED GAMMON JOINT" www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Can you imagine having such a weak hand that you feel the best two cards you can play as selling points are 'American treatment of indigenous people' and 'American healthcare'?

This #totp is a good illustration of the point that UK & US charts may as well have been on different planets at the start of the 80s (as per @whenisbirths.bsky.social)

I once interviewed Kevin Godley about Fade to Grey. Made for £5,000, and £2,500 of that went to the make-up artist. #totp

FB reminded me of this fantastic thing from five years ago. m.youtube.com/watch?v=Li0r...

OK, so I'm calling this for Wilson. Or Robertson. #totp

Tonight's turret meeting will be pretty awkward

🔴 Last week the Free Speech Union got a High Court writ to prevent the publication of a list of its donors So we decided to investigate who *does* fund Toby Young's outfit Wanna see? 🫣 New on Democracy for Sale: democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-funds-...

If you visit a bent casino and get fleeced, that's the casino's fault. If you keep on going back to try and beat the house, knowing full well it's bent, that's your fault.

The UK's premier Lol Creme lookalike act on acoustic, there. #totp

Working for a press agency, and sending out news feeds in a variety of obsolete ways: Compuserve, AOL email, Mercury private line (!), fax and BT pager service. And then having to open an ISDN link to take broadcast-quality audio from the USA. God help you if you forgot to drop the line afterwards.

This BBC drivel was parodied 44 years ago by Alexander Cockburn: harpers.org/archive/1982... It is - literally - beyond parody.

If the liberation of Belsen happened today, the BBC wouldn't dare run the story without getting a quote from Julius Streicher.

A Reform council leader behind a “Doge”-style crackdown on public spending owns two firms now in administration owing £1.5 million, including over £500,000 in unpaid tax, Covid loans, and staff wages.

I think in this day and age they shouldn't have separate competitions based on your sexuality.

Beatle-ologists still read dark conspiracies into how the press knew about Brian Epstein's death before anyone else. But the journalist Richard Stott admitted years ago that it was down to him, as he was bribing a load of telephone engineers to be informants. He went on to edit the Daily Mirror.

Just some of those we lost in 2025. The gaps are there for us to remember those close to us. Wishing us all a better 2026. x

Michael Jayston talking about Alec Guinness and Tinker Tailor: what a joy, and what a voice.

Merry Christmas. If anyone wants me, I'll be in the armchair with this lot.

Bit of a metallic taste on this muscadet

Building off @cameronwilson.bsky.social's reporting for @crikey.com.au, I highlight how we appear to have a baptist & bootleggers situation in Australia, where it appears the gambling industry was a big force behind the "social media ban for teens" in an effort to kill a plan to ban gambling ads.

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

If you visit a bent casino and get fleeced, that's the casino's fault. If you keep on going back to try and beat the house, knowing full well it's bent, that's your fault.

NEW! Ep 36 of #FirstLastAnything and top TV arts producer and filmmaker Jamie Muir (@jamiembrixton.bsky.social) joins me on the textcast to talk about The South Bank Show, The Late Show, early life with dad Frank, and some key record purchases in his life. firstlastanything.co.uk/2025/12/14/f...

Dion’s semis.

"Christmas time / Tinnitus and piles..." #totp

January 1979, and the Iranian Revolution is in full swing. Buses magazine cover the hard facts on the ground.

We quite literally have no one at the helm of England's established state church, because the last one had to depart over institutionalised child sex abuse. Any chance of a quick peek into that, since you're looking at religion and culture?

goose bauble?

As seen in yer actual Sunday Times and everything, PantoSplaining is a visual potter through pop culture past. We love this stuff and we hope you come to do too.

NEW! #FirstLastAnything ep 35: phenomenal artist Michael Gillette joins me on the music textcast to talk about key purchases, plus: getting his big break with Saint Etienne, housesharing with Aphex Twin, and the lure of The Beatles. And much more. firstlastanything.co.uk/2025/12/07/f...

This short film about Yello's "Oh Yeah" is a delight: two old Swiss friends with no agenda except to immerse themselves in weirdness and have a gas.

Yep, we all remember Mr Humphries in Are You Being Served? and his cheeky catchphrase: "Arbeit macht freeee!"

Yoor Party! Oor Party! A'body's Party!

One of the most beautiful bits of english eccentricity and glorious design is coming back to Sotheby’s and should be bought by a musuem (or me) for THE NATION. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Toby Young, self-appointed king of free speech, is speaking in Hungary tomorrow about UK “censorship”. He’ll be addressing a group funded by Viktor Orbán’s autocratic regime, which has seized control of the country’s media, judiciary, and routinely harasses its critics

NEW! #FirstLastAnything Episode 34: As a big fan of the album Pearlies by Emma Anderson (@emmaandersonmusic.bsky.social), I was delighted that Emma joined me on my music textcast to discuss it, her career in Lush and Sing-Sing, and some favourite recordings. firstlastanything.co.uk/2025/11/23/f...

"You cannot hope to bribe or twist - Thank God! - the Reform activist. But, seeing what the man will do Unbribed, there's no occasion to."

hahahahaha I knew it. "I feel very confident that he can do a very good job. I think he's gonna surprise some conservative people, actually. And some very liberal people he won't surprise because they already like him."

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, 1957 DEAN: Damn fine work on generative grammar, Chomsky. You've put Bloomfield to bed, that's for sure. CHOMSKY: Thank you, sir. I was thinking I might proclaim myself an unimpeachable expert on every other goddamn thing while I'm at it. DEAN: Be my guest.

Paging @whenisbirths.bsky.social