Fascinating thread on food preferences. I often go to the cricket with an autistic friend who shudders and says ‘seepage’ at a variety of foods also mentioned here as unacceptable.

Some good reading here, especially about ‘The Sanctuary’ which is new to me. Someone argued with me on here that Konstantin Kisin isn’t a fascist. Reading this, he’s so adjacent it’s hardly worth trying to differentiate.

Everything must go sale. £10 + pp (dependent on where you live) DM or email etc if interested.

Must be a contender for best ever letter to the Times

Astronauts, so hard to photograph but incredible to see.

Well, that was a nail biter. I was sure we’d lost that. Well batted George Bartlett. And it was a real pleasure to watch Sir James Anderson bowl, he’s still a top notch player. What an excellent 4 day game- the narrative you don’t get anywhere else.

🗣️ “Essex is the only club to which I belong and membership has immense value not only for my well-being but for my soul.” ✍️ My column on the return of red-ball cricket and why county membership still matters. Three huge cricketing names on the masthead 😜 #CountyChampionship

This is some restaurant review by Camilla Long. This level of plutocratic dining is, as she says, wildly unnecessary. It’s almost enough to make me look wistfully at socialism.

Throwback Thursday 112 (October 2018): "This is why I love standup, it's allowed me to be the most myself I've ever been." – Comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer Alex English on getting the last laugh

Chapter 25 of my diary is up. Chemo Days 3.1/3.2🙏 njbrannigan-zvxuy.wordpress.com/2026/04/02/d...

Managed to stay away from the news and concentrate on something else for most of the day. And I feel a lot better for it. Last day of the game tomorrow, all results still possible.

The reason I'm so angry at the Green price cap guff (and indeed more so at the inadequate action of the government) is that if you're deeply worried about what's going to be happening shortly, you're still not worried enough:

I will take the opposite RETVRN position the last thing we want is MPs with no business, investment job or any other connection to the real economy. They should spend one day a week doing what they did before they were elected on the same money.

know your limits

Thrilled to announce my new independent media outlet covering all things Northamptonshire Cricket is now live! The Steeler will provide fans with all the latest news, plus in-depth features, interviews, analysis and reaction to events on the pitch. I hope you’ll join me on the journey. #cricket

Where does the freshness and acidity of an old Oloroso sherry come from, if it starts from low-acidity Palomino grapes? #sherry #wine

This week I’ll be sending short dispatches from Havana. Here is the first, on Cuba’s new class system. open.substack.com/pub/jamesblo...

last month I spent a day in Great Neck, Long Island, which is one of the only Persian Jewish neighbourhoods in the world, and I spoke to people there about what it feels like to be torn between America, Israel and Iran right now: www.thenewworld.co.uk/marie-le-con...

Sir James Anderson has now dismissed James and David Sales in his career. Any other examples of one bowler dismissing both father and son in first class cricket? Despite the grim score he’s been a pleasure to watch today.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/c... And so we are with you again..........enjoy!

Live music at the Phipps NBC brewery tap. The other half said ‘why do I feel like I’m in a square state’.

A thread, including this, to be closely followed by certain political parties (you know who I mean, guys).

Anyway, it was a Good Friday because the cricket season has started, and it’s good to be somewhere where it feels timeless and the world outside can do its insanity but for a while it can’t touch you.

Good thread but it’s a sign of the times that Ben needs to make these points. We appear to trying to make ourselves, and politics, stupid. Opportunity cost, the importance of looking at costs and benefits and the idea that people respond to incentives shouldn’t be controversial, but 🤷‍♂️

Good thread, including this.

But if you do something as slowly as possible and we run out of diesel in ten days' time I genuinely don't see how that helps. It seems to me that people respond well to being treated as adults (like at the beginning of the pandemic) rather than as idiots (the partygate part of the pandemic)

trains are pretty full at rush hour, I don't think more fare subsidies can help modal shift. the less said about fuel duty the better. there is simply less oil to go round. we need policies that make us use less of it, you can't solve the problem making things cheaper by fiat.

in this week's newsletter! I've written a long - and I mean long - essay on my weird relationship with New York, a place I both love and don't, but also about what grief does to you, and it's free to read, and maybe you will like it? youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/a-really-b...

This is very good and entirely accurate existentialcomics.com/comic/648

This is what the opposition parties should be advocating, not silly tax cuts as an attempted vote grab for the local elections.

First ball of the season at Northampton.

Unremittingly grim though. Iran's powers of escalation are now greater. Difficult to imagine what now credible scares their leaders. Ground options very unwise and nothing likely to reopen Hormuz. Current gas prices low next to what may be next. New leadership even more hard-line. Etc

Happy Eggmas🥚

🚨NEW BLOGPOST 🚨 The Hormuz crisis has a real chance of causing energy shortages in the UK. The government is insisting it's business as usual, and opposition parties are arguing for fiscal measures that will stoke shortages. Neither is serious. open.substack.com/pub/joxleywr...

I’ve read most of Baldwin’s work, and read loads about him. But I knew nothing about his time in Istanbul, and how important it was for him.

🏏 NEW County Cricket newsletter. Pls share and enjoy 🟣 Previews galore 🟢 Looking at the Championship race and Round One 🟡 Will the England camp be watching? 🟠 Lots of late player moves 🔴 Considering counties in crisis 🔵 Replacements trialled countycricket.substack.com/p/no-178-apr...

Well, this is bonkers. Sharing a few extracts from this gorgeous, and very detailed, review of LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK in The Times. And now I need a sit down with a cup of tea to recover (good thing I'm literally always sitting down with a cup of tea, then).

"tolerance and fellowship"

A very special day for @isaguha receiving her MBE for services to inclusivity and Cricket. Congratulations from all your friends & colleagues in the BBC Cricket team. #bbccricket

I’m travelling to Cuba next week for reporting. I’m planning to send some short dispatches from Havana and elsewhere. These will go to paid subscribers while I’m on the island. If you'd like to receive those dispatches while I'm in Cuba, you can upgrade here: www.forthedeskdrawer.com/subscribe

A big red flag for ever voting Green (unless you are an antisemitic crank). This motion was allowed to go forward to conference, was debated, and failed because filibustered, not because voted against. May yet reappear at a future conference. Just the worst of left antisemitism.

Never forget

If you read one thing today, make it this. We really are in danger of repeating the mistakes of the 1970s by not bothering to understand what happened then.

lot of words in this one, see if you can get to the end of it without checking some shit on your phone. #aprilfoolsday

I’m reading Liza Minnelli’s autobiography, and it’s summoning some serious trauma from 11 years ago…

"Northampton Sky, March". 2026.

every day on this website a bunch of dubiously literate dullards think that some nonlinear conclusion they made up in their own minds is a reason to issue death threats to people and the next day a bunch of other dullards whine and cry when a few people out of the first group get banned

the whimsy bot is out of control

N E W ! I showed my leg to the pharmacist, who screamed... zoubisoudotblog.wordpress.com/2026/03/31/v...

hungary is certainly a model for the american right in the sense that it is a prime example of people who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven