🎼 Libraries gave us power…🎵🎶

If you’re in Dundee on the 25th of February there’s a talk on my great grandfather at the Broughty Ferry Community Library. ‘Bob Stewart- The Dundee Folk Hero Who Spied for Stalin’ All details below.

All the Andy Burnham palaver making me forget for a moment that I’m no longer a member of the Labour Party, have not voted for them in over six years and have no intention of voting for them for the foreseeable future. Great soap opera though.

It’s the anniversary of Lenin’s death and 102 years ago my great grandfather accompanied his body back to Moscow as part of a Comintern delegation, Here’s his account of the funeral. breakingthefetters.com/2022/01/21/t...

Today I’m taking five minutes out from indoctrinating Year 7 with Marxism and the woke mind virus to teach them how to do the Eric Morecambe paper bag trick. #bringmesunshine #breadandroses youtu.be/NLdx-FEzE0Q?...

Quiet family night in watching The Wolf of Wall Street.

Just found that my great grandfather Bob Stewart was up in court for sedition (again) in 1926 Angela Lansbury’s dad, Edgar, stood as surety for him.

Exception that proves the rule- Paul Robeson.

"And we now have María on the line who would like to swap a Nobel Peace Prize for the presidency of Venezuela..."

Gone to the hospital for a blood test and stunned there’s a Captain Tom monument. Kick over the statues! Drag it down!

That Martin Kettle Guardian piece all the centrists are loving. “What might have happened in Germany if the 1930s communist movement had tried to work with the social democrats and liberals against the fascists?” Stares in Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

Discovered this week that my great grandfather met Deng Xiaoping as well as Mao Zedong on his 1955 visit to China. I can only echo my brother’s reaction. In writing his biography you long for him to meet someone ace but it’s a parade of bastards for the most part.

This is no slight to the journalist but I would rather stick pins in my eyes than read about the lead singer of Sleaford Mods holding forth on cocaine and porn addiction. The thought of it already making me feel quite ill.

Another pledge broken.

#OtD 15 Jan 1934 the UK tabloid the Daily Mail published an article 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts!' supporting Oswald Mosley's fascist movement. Written by Viscount Rothemere, whose family still own the Mail, its politics haven't really changed much stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8672...

What really annoys me about the YP shit is how bad they are making the left look generally, at a time when you need the left to look good

Poor Mandelson waiting for all his very close pals to come back from a day of sex crimes, wondering why he's never invited.

NATIONALISE PRIVATE SCHOOLS NOW! I can think of few other policies that, overnight, would change this country for the better for generations to come. This should not be seen as a far-out, radical idea; it’s fair and common sense. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Me going back to the car to drive home when I decided I was too ill to stay at work this morning. youtu.be/T6ZVI6Ljg2M?...

Starting the day teaching The Masque of the Red Death while feeling like I’m coming down with the Red Death.

Not holding my breath.

Good Naomi having some new material for a 20th Anniversary edition of The Shock Doctrine is the only good thing that will come out of all of this.

Blows my mind that some of the same journalists who see Trump as a want-to-be dictator at home are earnestly discussing the "challenges" for this same man to "bring democracy" to a country it just illegal invaded. Please grow up.

This is insane.

Introduce yourself with what almost killed you. Hi - I’m pericarditis which I’d have again in a heartbeat over chicken pox because I got four months off work afterwards.

Poorest have got poorer under Labour while richest are better off

Watching clips of Zohran Mamdami and I cannot imagine any political figure in Britain declaring that they would govern as a Democratic Socialist. That there is one in one city in the USA of all places is the smallest glimmer of hope I’ve experienced in a long time.

Lol. At the Brudenell and the guy being Michael Stipe is wearing a swimming cap. Stellar REM set though.

‘The proles.’

I love sparkling water because sometimes what I really want is to be perfectly hydrated but also in a small amount of pain

Calls to strip pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah of his British citizenship pile torment on top of torture. New piece by me on a dangerous and manufactured storm: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Last night me and my brother watched Reds and listened to Dick Gaughan and drank one bottle of vermouth, one bottle of Armagnac, one bottle of tawny port and one bottle of Jameson’s and right now I feel invincible.

Have my 86 year old mother staying over the Christmas and I see that she’s taken a book off the shelves to read while she’s here and it’s ’The Balcony’ by Jean Genet and I don’t quite know what to make of this.

My kid’s just asked me if we had ‘Ziggy Stalin’ on vinyl.

Big Decision by That Petrol Emotion is a total banger.

I had the opportunity to drink my own weight in champagne last night and I seized it with both hands.

Have started the day playing ‘Christmas Wrapping’ by The Waitresses.

Oh, fuck off. We've been telling you this for years. How about you listen instead of "train" us. EVERY SINGLE female teacher I work with has multiple DAILY tales of this, and they're ignored by management because that's the easiest path to take.

Like if you are the public and you don’t understand this.

I’ve just watched The Apartment for the first time and now I have a new favourite film.

Agreed. Unpleasant attitudes to & conduct towards retail/hospitality staff has been the canary in the mine with several people I soon subsequently realised were total, seagoing, weapons grade cunts of the first water in every regard. It’s a litmus test that never fails, I think

Slightly tipsy and can’t afford it but should I book Sex Pistols with Frank Carter Halifax Piece Hall tickets?

This is amazing 🙏

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

RIP John Carey. This book changed my life, and I wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true. 🙏

RIP Stanley Baxter. At one point his TV show was the biggest on UK TV. A story goes that they were cancelled because so much of the budget went on his costumes! Boy, did he love to play dress up! Other than playing the dame he gave us Parliamo Glasgow. www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0rg...

Reading an obituary of Stanley Baxter and learning that the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was known as Every Night Something Awful has made me laugh more than anything else this week.