Trump’s response to the tragic death of Rob Reiner and his wife is utterly deranged. Either he’s a very sick man or he has an appalling staff writing his posts for him.

A bleak start to the week. Still dealing with events in Providence and Bondi Beach and now the news about Rob Reiner and his wife. Reiner was a man full of heart and principles. What a terrible thing to have happened.

Bantz. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

If it wasn't for end-of-year lists, newspapers and news sites in December would dry up.

Stop stealing Palestinian land. https://youtu.be/G957oaAZwhc?si=3ha9qys29uui-jQ0

Just watched Joseph Losey’s Pinter-scripted film ‘Accident’. Jesus, it feels almost Edwardian.

Just watched Godard’s Masculin Feminin again. Who’s making such films about today’s Gen Alpha? https://youtu.be/2DZ2gJLSbzc?si=ZhUgoIGMrd7daaWT

The fact that Labour is still running scared of a Right Wing Press which dumps on them on a daily basis anyway, is baffling. #r4today https://hackinginquiry.org/campaigns/leveson-part-2/

All My Sons at The Wyndham’s is good. Not £400 a seat good but well worth seeing if you can.

Following on from the Australian ban on all social media sites for the under 16s, one wonders when video games that promote the use of weapons will also be regulated.

New blog post. Thoughts on George Clooney's new film 'Jay Kelly' and whether he threw an egg at my house. simonfspeak.substack.com/p/egg-on-his...

Hollywood caught between a rock and a hard place. They hate Netflix but the alternative is a Trump backed, dubiously funded consortium of equally suspect players. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/opinion/netflix-warner-bros-hollywood.html

So glad I was just too old for video gaming (and Star Wars for that matter).

This was as good as I expected and hoped. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/lee-miller

‘Return hubs’. Rwanda schemes in other words. If the EU tightens up on immigration will this give Starmer leverage to shift towards rejoining a SM & CU? https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251208-eu-migration-return-hubs

The absence of mother figures (apart from the one tracking her daughter like “the Russians”) in the film Jay Kelly is clearly intentional, but it does beg the question why?

Knausgaard as a young man in other words. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/06/t-magazine/forensic-art-knausgaard-school-of-night.html

Thanks to Trump the US is unrecognisable now. https://news.sky.com/story/white-house-europe-unrecognisable-in-20-years-or-less-13479931

Jay Kelly. Clooney channelling Cinema Paradiso and Stardust Memories. A high bar. Too high sadly.

Two minutes of Infantino and I hit the off button. #FIFAWorldCup2026

Now that it’s accepted Farage was a vile little racist well into his late teenage years, we’re suppose to believe this in no way affected the anti-immigrant rhetoric he’s espoused the rest of his adult life.

Watching Modi cozy up to Putin and agreeing business deals, you know Trump must be seething that he can't be doing the same.

Happiest parts of London to live in a new survey? Camden and Richmond. No doubt because they’re next to bloody big parks.

So you finish the Sean Combs documentary. Then today you check Google‘s most searched list of 2025. Top music artist is D4VD. Who you then find out is a suspect in a murder case of a 15-year-old girl. And you think…

Where would sports television be without adverts for junk food, booze and gambling?

Watched the Sean Combs doc. Never liked the fucker. Always found it perplexing why people ever did.

Kind of weird that ‘ragebait’ has only now become word of the year when the right wing media and newspapers have been trading in such behaviour for decades. #r4today

Reading David Szalay’s Booker prize winning ‘Flesh’ and a subplot reminded me of this murky moment in recent UK political history. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/24/robert-jenrick-planning-row-the-key-questions-answered

A sad loss. Read his books if you haven't already. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/o...

This is Orwellian. The Total petroleum company is sponsoring Afcon but if you look at their website, you would think they were a Green Eco company. Crazy. https://totalenergies.com

After Moore, Peters and Hurst - Brooking and Bonds were the soul of West Ham United.

Read it and weep. Excellent piece by James Meek on the lack of joined-up thinking in the UK’s industrial policy. Sounds like a dry read but in fact is full of emotion. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n22/james-meek/ten-foot-chopsticks

Enjoying watching this Beatles anthology again. If only for the cleaned up footage. George comes across far better with the passage of time. A true rebel and wit.

See here. Click on link: A short extract from my third and final volume of memoirs 'Lost In America' on my blog. Describes my ill-fated debut gig in the US opening for Cheap Trick. Free to subscribe. simonfspeak.substack.com

I have just published the third and final volume of my music memoirs ‘Lost In America’. It’s the story containing all the famous names. Available to purchase either on Kindle or Paperback. Just in time for Christmas! Link here: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G439PFQX

Extraordinary that the UK is prepared to live with an 8% annual hit to its economy (£90bn) all because of some puffed up little racist who’s still riding high in the polls.

The BBC has turned into a version of The Apprentice (ironic as it broadcasts its own iteration of the show) as anyone who manages to displease Donald Trump now finds themselves at risk of being fired.

Farage was just doing that funny racism.

Depressing how right wing commentators, especially the women, refer to it as 'Rachel's' budget. Don't remember them doing the same with 'Jeremy's'.

It had to be said. open.substack.com/pub/simonfsp...

Bez.

You know the BBC hasn’t learnt anything when in the name of impartiality they reference the opinions of Lord Frost. #r4today

Just watched the Pistols Xmas gig in Huddersfield on YouTube. At their best they were incomparable. There’ll be nothing like it again.

Quicker to read this than listen but the guys make some good points. The main one being if cinema tries to compete with the home entertainment experience it’s buggered. Far wiser to set itself apart.  https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/writers-on-film/id1567023095?i=1000737325983

Christmas Day is on Christmas Day The budget is on budget day. Badenoch’s like a whiny kid pestering her Mum and Dad in the hope of opening her presents earlier.

Oh flowers of Scotland... open.substack.com/pub/simonfsp...

I'm on a roll. open.substack.com/pub/simonfsp...

New blog post: open.substack.com/pub/simonfsp...

Lest we forget: great piece by @lionelbarber.bsky.social

“Whatever they’re legally entitled to do…” could end up as memorable as “I’m not a crook.” #Trump