"To tell you the truth, it’s all about the hype..." Les McKeown of the Bay City Rollers was born 70 years ago today. thelionandunicorn.com/2021/04/22/l...

"Labour history is full of missed opportunities and great leader-that-never-were. But 1980 was the most catastrophic mistake of them all." Michael Foot became leader of the Labour Party 45 years ago today. thelionandunicorn.com/2016/08/06/l...

On the centenary of his birth, here's Richard Burton in an early movie role as an IRA man, jailed for bombing offences, who harbours a discreet liking for his fellow men... thelionandunicorn.com/2023/05/24/f...

"Blue Peter had invited viewers to name a new cat, and then ignored the people’s choice (either Cookie or Pussy, depending on whether one believed the BBC or the Sun), deciding instead to call it Socks" @alwynturner.bsky.social on Auntie's bloopers👇 thelionandunicorn.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/w...

"If every ex-soldier would tell his own children the truth, the whole truth, about war, the war-spirit would be stamped out for ever" — Ernest Mander, general secretary NUX @alwynturner.bsky.social on radicalism and remembrance after the Great War👇 thelionandunicorn.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/t...

"Clumps of crimson poppies, thrusting out from the lips of craters, straggling in drifts between the hummocks, undaunted by the desolation, heedless of human fury and stupidity..." thelionandunicorn.com/2016/11/07/a...

"We are going back to the origin of superstition – to an age when dragons tore each other in their slime." On the anniversary of Bram Stoker's birth in 1847, we remember his second-best novel. thelionandunicorn.com/2020/10/24/i...

"Goldsmith stared unblinking into the camera through his five-minute address, his intense demeanour and ominous message in no way resembling a Bond villain explaining an apocalyptic plan to a terrified world." thelionandunicorn.com/2025/11/07/r...

This time next week, I'll be speaking at the King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace. I'd love to see you there. www.rct.uk/event/alwyn-...

"‘Do you think that this Free Trade stuff is lunacy or criminal?’ enquired Captain de Wilton-ffallow. ‘Definitely criminal,’ replied his senior officer. ‘They’re all in the pay of Moscow.’" Satirical novelist A.G. Macdonell was born 130 years ago today. thelionandunicorn.com/2016/09/10/a...

very few books that are billed as "hilarious" or, worse, "laugh-out-loud funny" actually are. Even some of the greatest comic novels will do well raise a wry smile. This is one of the few that actually made me howl

Even when you catch him unawares in his hotel, he’s maintaining his wardrobe.

I probably won't be able to say this again in my life, but I've got a gig at Buckingham Palace in ten days. Why not come along and join us... www.rct.uk/event/alwyn-...

No other British pop singer has aged with as much style as Kevin Rowland.

"Everything in the Garden of Eden was tickety-boo until the women showed up." Things I've learned from watching period detective show "Foyle's War". thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/31/t...

I probably won't be able to say this again in my life, but I've got a gig at Buckingham Palace in ten days. Why not come along and join us... www.rct.uk/event/alwyn-...

"My name’s Foyle. I’m a police officer..." To mark Michael Kitchen's birthday, @alwynturner.bsky.social has written an episode guide to his best series "Foyle's War". thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/31/t...

Two weeks today, I've got a gig at Buckingham Palace. You should come along - it'll be fun. www.rct.uk/event/alwyn-...

Two weeks today, I've got a gig at Buckingham Palace. You should come along - it'll be fun. www.rct.uk/event/alwyn-...

I'll be talking about Edwardian Britain at the King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace on 13 November. Do come along, if you can. www.rct.uk/event/alwyn-...

"The present government was the weakest in a century. It wouldn’t fight, it wouldn’t defend its interests, even oil. The people was soft and its government softer." Today we shall be remembering thriller-writer William Haggard, who died 27 October 1993. thelionandunicorn.com/2016/11/26/a...

"I didn’t march halfway across the world to put Jerry back in his box for jumped-up spivs to end up running the show at home." Happy birthday to Roger "DI Thursday" Allam, born 26 October 1953. thelionandunicorn.com/2023/01/22/e...

"It’s this time of year, as the clocks are changed, that tends to see Peter Hitchens mount one of his favourite hobby-horses, defending Greenwich Mean Time – ‘real, organic, British time’ – from the departing enemy of British Summer Time..." thelionandunicorn.wordpress.com/2021/10/24/g...

A new @lionunicorn.bsky.social piece from me about Parky and Kenneth and Jimmy Reid thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/23/l...

"Jimmy Savile introducing Jonathan King – this was what Top of the Pops was like in the Golden Age. Or, looked at another way, this kind of plodding package-holiday singalong is what we got for joining the EC" @alwynturner.bsky.social on October 1975👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2020/10/16/r...

Light the lanterns, situate yourself at a nearby hearth and check out @benfinlay74.bsky.social's autumn almanack. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/15/t...

We're wishing a happy 45th birthday to Ben Wishaw, best known as "the voice of the marmalade-sandwich-loving ursid" in the Paddington movies. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/08/10/d...

"The danger when Margaret speaks without thinking is that she says what she thinks." "There’s a lot to be said for the old broad: she makes you laugh." "We weren’t children of Thatcher; we hated her." Some views of Thatcher on the centenary of her birth. thelionandunicorn.com/2017/04/08/b...

"Crowley could cook, wanted a lot of sex with all-day sessions on occasion, and had an abundance of conversation. You got quite a night out from the Beast." Aleister Crowley - magician, poet and 73rd greatest Briton - was born 150 years ago today. thelionandunicorn.com/2022/09/21/a...

"The biggest domestic upheaval since the war has been wiped from memory. Poof. Gone. Evaporated. We were barely out of our masks before we decided never to mention them again." @finlay24.bsky.social on the covid lockdowns of 2020. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

"Much of the film is shot in the Collins Music Hall in Islington, where packed houses rock with laughter at the antics provided by acrobats, performing animals and a drag act." The last Ealing comedy saw Harry Secombe star in Davy (1958). thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/05/f...

Led Zeppelin III was released OTD in 1970. Conceived in a remote cottage in Snowdonia, it is one of the great records that came from the era of bands 'getting it together in the country'. Read about Zep 3 and other albums made in that fashion here: @lionunicorn.bsky.social 👇 #musicsky #ledzeppelin

"He questioned my paternity so I praised his virility..." The great Denis Healey died ten years ago today. thelionandunicorn.com/2015/10/06/d...

It’s October. In America that means it’s National Sausage Month (not to be confused with National Hot Dog Month, which is in July). Here's a literary anthology of sausages, from HG Wells to Rudyard Kipling. thelionandunicorn.com/2024/09/25/s...

"Tony Blair spoke of ‘a potential risk’ of there being larger numbers than had been anticipated, and was immediately criticised: ‘This is pandering to the Daily Mail and Daily Express.’" thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/29/t...

"‘Coming over here, doing the jobs we’re not prepared to do because we’ve all got worthless degrees in media studies,’ grumbled comic Al Murray the Pub Landlord." thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/29/t...

"It was decided to present the figures as good news, evidence of a thriving economy..." This is the story of immigration under Tony Blair. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/29/t...

The American actor Steve Forrest was born 100 years ago today. Here's @hellothisisivan.bsky.social on his most famous show, 1960s action-adventure series The Baron. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/08/20/l...

For those at the Labour conference, I'll be 1 of those talking about 1945 on Tuesday. It was election fought in a different context but don't believe the past is totally foriegn country: there was populism, voters sceptical of promises of change & a leader many in the party thought too moderate. 🤔

"After the May 2019 European election, which produced results with a rather distinct echo in the polls of 2025, Peter Kellner wrote: ‘Britain’s two-party system is in intensive care.’ Six years on, his words ring no less true" From @paulsaffer.bsky.social👇 thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/24/p...

"The time has come for man to hasten his own evolution. For the slow, crude modifications of Nature, he must substitute his own thoughts, his own researches." The great Edwardian novelist Barry Pain was born 28 Sept 1864. thelionandunicorn.com/2016/10/09/o...

"He sees the normalizing of progressive education as a decline, an intellectual straitjacket, and a betrayal of the original premise of the new postwar university system." Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man at 50. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/27/t...

*New Article* "Now it is autumn again..." As Malcolm Bradbury's novel The History Man turns 50, I've written a piece celebrating this great satire of radical leftism and fashionable politics in academia. #thehistoryman @lionunicorn.bsky.social #writingcommunity

Crime novelist Leonard Gribble died 40 years ago today. You'll know him best for The Arsenal Stadium Mystery (1939)... thelionandunicorn.com/2023/12/27/f...

"Now it is autumn again..." As Malcolm Bradbury's novel The History Man turns 50, @benfinlay74.bsky.social celebrates this great satire of radical leftism and post-Marxist doctrine. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/27/t...

"In this country we have always prided ourselves on the good feeling that exists between the police and the public and such action tends to make the people resentful of the acts of the police and inclines them to obstruct the police instead of to assist them."

"These cities may change, but there always remains my obsession." It's Bryan Ferry's birthday today, and - bloody hell! - he's 80. He's one of @alwynturner.bsky.social's glam heroes. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/18/t...

From the relatively familiar calm of August 2015, though the chaos of December 2019 to the ominous and provisional present - @paulsaffer.bsky.social reflects on a decade of political disruption. thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/24/p...

Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour Party fifteen years ago today. What a catastrophic mistake that was. thelionandunicorn.com/2019/05/07/e...

⚽️"Britain did not suddenly discover sport in 2015 as a response to the twin shocks of the Tory election victory & Clarkson’s sacking from Top Gear. As far back as 2005, Tony Benn was complaining: ‘The real English nature is sport rather than politics’"⚽️ By @paulsaffer.bsky.social👇 wp.me/p6lzJb-7CH