I think I'd like to chuck "lambent" into the fire along with "luminous" as frequently used but empty descriptions of new (usually lit fiction) books* (*presumably those that sit on your bedside cabinet, as yet unread, but faintly glowing)

Episode one of Samuel Barnett’s Unknown — our weekly bonkers investigative podcast — is available to listen to NOW!

Floella Benjamin for DG.

My BBC DG manifesto. 1. CBeebies and CBBC to get two hours on BBC1, from 4 to 6pm so old people get to see something that isn’t about property or tat in the attic. Because not everything has a price, Auntie Joan.

Jesus fucken Christ. I ordered some undercrackers, lads. Nothing came. No despatch email, no delivery confirmation, nothing. So today I check tracking online. Evri "delivered" them to my side garden (just chucked randomly). AND THEN THE FOXES THE FOXES (breathe) ATE MY FUCKEN PANTS

Watching the new B7 documentary. Oh my goodness, Claire Lewis (talking about Zil) is a delight! 😁😍

Love these Record Player Christmas Tree Decorations! One for the #Vinyl fans! share.google/03xn9hLnGPIv...

Which of commentaries on the Blake’s 7 s2 BluRay set are new, please?

Thinking about del Toro’s Frankenstein, and about how excited Universal’s Dark Universe made me before that remake of The Mummy broke it… and why not just give it to him? Give del Toro the whole Dark Universe. The del Toro Gothic Monsterverse.

Blake’s 7: Redemption That Avon / Blake power dynamic

Started the Blake’s 7 s2 Blu-Ray. The second half of Redemption has never been my favourite, but the new SFX does great work making the Alta’s world a more cohesive environment.

Just listened to JODRELL BANK AT 80 from Radio 4 (now on BBC Sounds). This is a *wonderful* prog celebrating JB & Bernard Lovell, with fab interviews & archive stuff. Hannah Peel is a great presenter, suitably awestruck by the telescope, & her specially-written piece is hauntingly beautiful...

You should come back to Twitter instead of staying in a liberal echo chamber

He's so cool

Watching Frankenstein. Thoroughly enjoying the lush imagery and gothic melodrama - and spotting the Edinburgh locations! And surely that’s the Wallace monument in Stirling providing some of the imagery for the Baron’s water tower…?

Really happy to see Counting Crows’ second album Recovering the Satellites is finally getting a vinyl re-release (so I’ll be able to sob along to ‘a Long December’ IN December…)

On the off chance anyone finds themselves short of an actor last minute for pantos (especially in Glasgow or the Central Belt of Scotland), I am VERY available and very good at learning lines REALLY quickly.

NEW RELEASE - OUT TODAY THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH & THE HAUNTED MAN Following the critically-acclaimed release of The Chimes in 2022, Average Romp presents two more full-cast adaptations of Charles Dickens’ Christmas stories; THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH & THE HAUNTED MAN. averageromp.com

Well this is exciting!

I made a “how do you do, fellow kids?” joke to someone in their mid 20s who, it turns out, was too young to have heard of that meme. So “how do you do, fellow kids?” is now an example of “how do you do, fellow kids?”

Was reading DWM’s fascinating Susan / Carole Ann Ford feature and woke up with the phrase ‘Findooclare’s Crospy Pancooks’ …going round my head

An unexpected wee bit of loveliness for Children In Need. What a nice surprise. Thank you Sophie, and all involved.

A tiny bit of the BBC news piece that’s gone out today ✨🔭 The documentary and full piece is now on BBC Sounds & also airs on BBCR4 tomorrow (8th Nov) at 8pm Featuring the brilliant @proftimob.bsky.social at @jodrellbank.bsky.social #JodrellAt80 #JodrellBank

Off to test Husband’s Spanish* by seeing how many Tori Amos Little Earthquakes tracks he recognises *he doesn’t know any, but he does know Tori, and he does know me, so I’m expecting a good strike rate

I’ve spent a fair chuck of this afternoon deep cleaning Evan Dando ten inches—- THEY’RE VINYL RECORDS, BEHAVE…

Momentarily surprised by a Thea Gilmore track I didn’t know - December - turning up on release radar today, but it’s ok, we can all relax, it’s on Strange Communion Special Edition and I’ve now tracked a copy down… *marked safe from incomplete collection angst*

Biscuits and cobbing 💕

Male & female kingfisher plus young otter from the Water of Leith on Sunday. The female kingfisher followed the otter for a while catching small fish disturbed by it. The otter was v bold, hunting close to the bank (& several onlookers). @wolct.bsky.social @rspb.bsky.social #Edinburgh #wildlife

Autumn is the most Enya of seasons, and it's ten years this month since I interviewed Eithne Ní Bhraonáin together with Roma and Nicky Ryan (the other 2/3 of the Enya project) about their avant-garde roots, Celtic Futurism, and 2015's wonderful Dark Sky Island LP thequietus.com/interviews/e...

Lady Cassandra on Snatch Game klaxon. This is not a drill. #DoctorWho #DragRaceUK

Peter Capaldi on Glasgow style, including a visit to a Scottish designer with the Memphis Group in Milan, and some bonkers 80s hairdos from Rita Rusk and Irvine Rusk. youtu.be/54lR3Zs2B7A?...

Pauline Collins was amazing. No more so than in Upstairs, Downstairs as the manipulative, scared, brilliant Sarah. What a talent.

A voice that still carries: Aimee Mann’s greatest songs – ranked!

Heaven. I wrote a whole short story more or less along these lines in ‘1001 Nights in Time and Space’

good morning gang, let’s all suffer together

“A tawny owl is looking down from its high vantage point at the great bonfire” Artist: CF Tunnicliffe Writer: EL Grant Watson

You just know that 3 seconds later the cat pushed him off the edge.

Do ask any Labour MPs or centrist commentators congratulating Mamdani what they can possibly learn from some of his policies. Like these for instance.

The Italian chapel is one of the finest places I have been in Scotland. Need to go back one day soon.

Reform do not currently have enough MPs to form a Cabinet. How can even discuss what their government would look like, beyond bad, if you have no idea how deep their bench will be? Because so far, it’s not like Reform has been packed with talent.

Given that about 10% of Covid cases lead to "Long Covid" maybe making vaccinations free again* might be a thing to try. * Or at least the same price as the fly jab, that would be something.

Such a mystery, what MASS DISABLING EVENT could have happened after 2019 to cause this?

What's the difference between pinching Oscar Wilde's bum and smacking Dwayne Johnson's bum? One's when you're at your wit's end, but the other is hitting Rock's bottom.

I'm mean, I'm no expert on the stability of perilously under-regulated global markets, but I think I might maybe perhaps know how we can fix this...

“First you bug me to go out, and now you want to come right back in? You've been out there for like thirty seconds. Did you at least pee? Tell me you at least peed."

Timeline cleanse.

Why Roy, I'm so glad you asked me that. It's 100 per cent free!

Currently obsessed with a local shelter cat called “Colin Feral”