Though not a fan of the sport myself, there are a surprising number of truly terrific boxing films. Off the top of my head: • RAGING BULL • FAT CITY • REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT ALI is almost great but it doesn’t quite gel cohesively.

I started revisiting "Yes, Minister" last night and I had forgotten how incredibly funny it was at its best. Nigel Hawthorne was peerless as Sir Humphrey. He knows that MPs may come and MPs may go but he'll be around forever.

Sunday sketch — “A Good Girl” (fountain pen on paper.)

Is that Jared Kushner just behind Trump’s right shoulder or is that a loaner from Madame Tussaud’s?

It's so depressing. The ethos and aesthetics of professional wrestling have literally taken control of the US government.

Sunday sketch — “A Good Girl” (fountain pen on paper.)

George Smiley is a masterclass in characterization. This is a man who is profoundly good at his job and equally a deeply unhappy man. His wife basically despises him and he derives scant happiness from life. He muddles through because...what else is there?

What is style in prose? To me style is a combination of elegance and efficiency. It is the usage of the right words that you need to express your intent. That neither infers minimalism nor prolixity. Stylish writing expresses precisely what is needed.

An evening spent with a John le Carré novel is an evening well spent.

I'm awed by people who have swam miles in the sea. The deep ocean engulfs me with terror. I enjoy being near it, even being in it when the coast is within sight. But when there is nothing but a vast, open expanse of water? NO THANK YOU.

The following famous people have been very nice to me in person. See if you can guess the fake one. • Clive Barker • Mstislav Rostropovich • Sir Michael Gambon • Colm Tóibín • Robertson Davies

Well the SportsBall was deeply satisfying today. I shall make some art.

Even by NFL standards, the commentators for this match are astoundingly awful.

This is disquieting. The last time the Colts were good, I was young, rakish, had long hair... HANG ON A MINUTE.

For people who don’t know Chicagoland, Naperville is posh. It’s properly affluent. Think something like Godalming, Surrey. This is where people with money live.

Run D.M.C. Don’t stop running. I can’t lie to you about your chances…

If a government bans a popular, easily manufactured product, that instantly creates a black market. Prohibition was a veritable bonanza for organized crime.

CW: SportsBall. My football team is doing inexplicably well. This is making me as uneasy as a good Aickman short story.

At some point, there is going to be a fearsome reckoning with the fact that a small ultra-wealthy cabal of tech oligarchs have basically permanently poisoned the information supply in the U.S.

I’m restricting replies on a thread because randos are going out of their way to critique something I didn’t actually write.

Hey, do me a solid. If you're a "Shudder" subscriber, toss me a recommendation or two. I trust you lovely people more than I trust an algorithm. 🙏

I have a strong suspicion that the primary cohort of workers who genuinely miss being in the office are certain older Gen-Xers and up (think born no later than 1970) who are in some strata of middle-management. For them, the office *IS* their entire social life.

First: this is very cool. Second: I've seen UNDER PARIS and am waiting for the shark to arrive.

Quote post an unfiltered pic & say your age. 7^2

Plato's Republic is like Augustine's City of God. An interesting place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

If I were philosopher king, I'd impose a significant "Pied-à-terre Tax" on all unoccupied rental properties. Don't like it? Sell the property or set an affordable rent level so they can become occupied.

Ozone: the mysterious region between 'N' and 'P'.

I'm working on a "Top Ten List of Things that is Deliberately Designed to Enrage Peevish Readers Owing to what it Omits." I think there's a market for this...

If you learned music, were you taught "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor" or something else for learning the treble clef? (Personally, I like "Empty Gin Bottles Depress Fred" but I don't think it'll catch on.)

Something that shouldn't bug me but strangely does: incomplete means "not complete" but inflammable means "flammable".

There are some intelligent people who suffer from a compulsion to be "The Smartest Person in the Room" in any discussion. I don't think they have a single clue as to how they come across.

the Internet would be significantly more usable if before one clicks "Reply All" one were presented with a modal window saying "Are you absolutely certain you want to do this?" and set a 120 second timer before the "OK" button is clickable.

Nobody wants to 'Wang Chung' tonight, and that's sad.

I know that Leighton Buzzard is an actual place, but my brain is trying to insist that it's a character in a Western, possibly a seller of quack "patent medicines" portrayed by Walton Goggins.

I see that I'm going to have an excellent excuse to listen to "Autoamerican" on Wednesday.

In the unlikely event that this occurs, I will wager you $.02 that they'll make it a misdemeanor to put a filthy traffic cone on the statue's head.

Alejandro González Iñárritu foxes me. As a director, I admire his craft, but by god, I haven't truly enjoyed any of his films that I've seen. He leans towards the portentous and pretentious (don't get me started about BIRDMAN) and he desperately needs a ruthless editor.

Considering what a dark film WATERSHIP DOWN is, the song "Bright Eyes" is remarkably...dare I say it...drippy. It's very pretty but its tone is 180º away from the tone of the movie.

A curious bugbear that I have is that action films *LIE* about the weight of gold. When you see a character tossing a bar of bullion as if it were a football, bear in mind that a real one would weigh as much as a bag of kitty litter.

Always fun to start my day by blocking someone who turned up in my replies with an authentically bizarre comment.

I’m going to go to my grave mystified that “Antifa” has become an effective slur amongst right-wing nincompoops. I have family members in my grandparents’ generation who literally beat the shit out of Fascists.

Ooh! We've got a live one here, folks!

Credit where credit's due. I have to give props to Robert Christgau for maintaining a Geocities aesthetic to his website.

What is the best album by Yes and why is it this one? (I'm being a bit silly, naturally, but this is a serious banger.)

Reading a novel by @michaelcisco.bsky.social which is simultaneously baffling and pleasing. This is not an uncommon experience when reading one of Michael's fine books.

Clive Barker was sweet, funny, wise, and warm. An absolute gentleman. Curiously enough, I once loaned the late Sir Michael Gambon a pencil on a transatlantic flight where I'd been bumped to first class, rather astonishingly (I had a lot of frequent flyer miles.)

I enjoyed visiting my roses this evening. These are all from the same rose bush.

My goodness, "Heavy Metal L-Gaim" is a bit of a curio. It's a 1980s mecha anime that is packed with plot but the characters are sort of ill-defined. The creator, Mamoru Nagano would go on to create "The Five Star Stories" and you can see how his design work started here.

Dear people with gargantuan trucks who block an entire parking lot taking three attempts to slowly reverse into a parking space: We all hope you get ingrown toenails.

People acting like Disney being fascist is new should go back and read the company’s history. Disney himself was a Nazi-sympathizer and only got into the US propaganda film game because he was also a staunch Nationalist. Before that he literally hosted dinner parties for Nazis.