Just posted on First Folios: Dickens in Europe open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p...?

At Shiny today: @spencro.bsky.social reviews A Day Between Weathers by William J Tait in a new edition from @mikewalmer.bsky.social shinynewbooks.co.uk/a-day-betwee...

Latest on the blog: a look at a classic of the American gilded age. robspence.org.uk/2026/04/20/f...

"a hard time making money" says the owner of this building. I wonder does he think it's easy to leave your family & travel 9000km to work as a nurse in an understaffed hospital while patients hurl racial abuse at you & you pay a third of your salary each month to sleep in a room with two strangers

The best summary I've read of the dismantling of the US government, state & state agencies in the age of Trump 2.0. It will be a long rebuild.

Just published on First Folios: a jaunt up the Thames with Jerome K Jerome. open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p...?

Every council should follow suit.

You really should make it clear that this is an extract from a TV dramatisation of Orwell's life. It's not his "final interview": to claim it is makes you, er, Orwellian.

Excellent evisceration of the useful idiot Varoufakis.

Impossible to disagree with a single word that Ben Rhodes (Obama era NSC official) is saying here:

The loud aggressive litigant pulls the case and pays indemnity costs to the other party, and enters into a compromise which leaves the other party far better off than before the case was brought. Bullying and boasting, but based on blundering and bombast.

The President is openly threatening genocide. A crime against humanity. He must be removed from office. The 25th Amendment must be invoked. If not, Congress has to do our damn job. Speaker Johnson, call us into session. War powers & impeachment. Remove this man from office.

Another classic newspaper QTWTAIN: Could saunas become the 'new pub' when it comes to socialising? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Just posted on First Folios: a look at John Mortimer's immortal creation, Horace Rumpole. rob611.substack.com/p/rumpole

I am old, but feeling older than ever after having to explain the concept of a film camera and the development of photos to a fifteen year old tonight.

Someone nominate Springsteen for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Spinetingling from Bruce youtu.be/ax9ToOo_5tI?...

Just posted on First Folios: a look at Henry Mayhew's account of the lives of the poor in mid-Victorian London. open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p...?

This is an article on the BBC news site. How is this not in breach of the BBC charter? It’s an advertisement, isn’t it? Also, it’s about a Christmas event and it’s March😡 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Latest review; Rebecca Solnit’s timely polemic. shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-beginnin...

Exactly 5 minutes BEFORE Trump announced a 5-day delay in bombing Iranian power plants, someone purchased $1.5 billion worth of S&P futures in a single trade. Someone also sold $192 million in oil futures. Trump and/or his cronies are engaging in market manipulation and insider trading.

A classic QTWTAIN... Would ex-Google boss Matt Brittin be the right person to steer the BBC? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'm seeing a lot of these fake Donald Trump truths being posted on BlueSky (and lesser sites) at the moment. Its pretty easy to check, and you owe it to yourself and other people before sharing it.

Just posted on First Folios: The Complete Sherlock Holmes. open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p...?

My latest dispatch from fifty years ago, going back to the Middle Ages this time: robspence.org.uk/2026/03/15/m...

A publisher's email newsletter begins its description of a new book "Beloved by readers on TikTok..." Is this supposed to convince me to buy it?

Just posted on first Folios: Religion and the Decline of Magic. open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p...?

Postcard found in a second-hand book purchase today. I endorse this message.

Just finished. What an extraordinary book! In awe of Hugo’s mastery of narrative.

open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p...? Latest on First Folios: Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.

Why do US politicians talking about bombing people refer to them as "kinetic strikes"? I mean, any strike is kinetic, because kinetic means it moves. Is it to make it sound like something from a video game rather than something that kills human beings?

This is bizarre. What was the examiner thinking? How could they even allow the test to start? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Replies are off, so can't reply directly, @matthewcobb.bsky.social but I hope you get a response. He's my MP too, and took six weeks to send me a boilerplate bland restatement of the govt's position when I wrote to him about aping Reform's immigration policy.

Just posted on Substack. Shakespeare's Life and World. rob611.substack.com/p/katherine-...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Grim reading, but Ukraine remains defiant.

Latest at First Folios: open.substack.com/pub/rob611/p...

Exactly. This is not a lot of money. And once destroyed you don’t get to rebuild it.

Worth reading, and taking action against the creeping invasion of privacy. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

robspence.org.uk/2026/02/12/t... Latest dispatch from fifty years ago.

Latest from me on Substack: rob611.substack.com/p/tobias-smo...

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I won’t be voting Labour for the foreseeable future - regardless of the other stuff they are doing

Have a read of this. Great scoop, obviously, but it’s also an absolute masterclass in how to report on these jokers. Plenty of London-based hacks could learn a lot from Martin Shipton here. If they actually wanted to… nation.cymru/news/the-new...

san.com/cc/majority-... "It creates a significant mountain of AI-generated self-help slop."

I started posting on Substack. It's all about Folio Society Books. substack.com/profile/3191...?

Striking paper from researchers at Anthropic using a randomised control trial to look at the effects of AI use on skills acquisition. TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’ www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...

Incandescent. One of the best pieces I've read about what university means to people and their communities - and what will happen to a city and people after one closes. The *Labour* government and Jaqui Smith in particular should be ashamed of themselves and shamed into doing something. Deplorable.

@jacquiwine.bsky.social I was intrigued by the idea of the Classics Club, which I found on your blog, so I've made the pledge! robspence.org.uk?p=1386&previ...

Fifty classics: I'm starting along the path to read fifty classics in a few years. It's part of the Classics Club reading challenge, and I'm keen to get started. robspence.org.uk/2026/02/02/f...

imo of all the formal political institutions in US life, the judiciary has given the best account of itself by a pretty large margin (with the obvious exception of SCOTUS) and a younger me was way more dismissive of the courts than history would prove deserved