We’re living in an era of radical subjectivity. Truth has become much less important than what people feel to be true.

Predictable spin on today’s ugly announcement from our fash-hungry media.

There are presents, there are thoughtful presents, and there’s Ian Francis of Birmingham’s Flatpack Festival remembering an article you wrote for @lrb.co.uk three years ago and giving you an original piece of 1970s cinema memorabilia. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Have been waiting for someone to write this piece. This is such a weird and sinister development.

Updated tour itinerary, with three November dates added in the south of France.

When I was about 8, Pete Murray was who I wanted to be when I grew up. As for @joanarmatrading.bsky.social being on BlueSky and only having 305 followers … Come on, people!

Further proof that @susiedent.com is classy.

Not saying I’m feeling gloomy today but I just boarded a plane and when the guy at the desk asked what my final destination was the temptation to answer ‘the grave’ was almost overwhelming.

When I was about 8, Pete Murray was who I wanted to be when I grew up. As for @joanarmatrading.bsky.social being on BlueSky and only having 305 followers … Come on, people!

I had to triplecheck this because I didn't believe it... All of the world's discovered reserves of fossil fuels = the same energy as just 5 days of sunlight hitting the Earth🤯 Solar power is basically unlimited🤷‍♂️

A must-read.

Literary BlueSky! Suggestions please for novels written around 1905-1910 and set in London, which give a good sense of daily life in the city at that time?

Birmingham-bound in October …

Paris! Munich! Vienna! Geneva! Chorleywood! The Proof of My Innocence is going on tour. Full details here: jonathancoewriter.com/events/

This Martin Parr documentary, made 26 years ago and repeated on BBC4 last night, has a striking resonance now in the light of Brexit and England’s current outbreak of flags.

My local campanology group made a recording of this piece. It won the No Bell prize. (Apologies if you’ve seen me make this joke on social media before. Any excuse to wheel it out.)

My husband @mjowen174.bsky.social is a brilliant writer. He’s written for Dangermouse, Private Eye, @almurray.bsky.social and many more… He’s struggling to find work at the moment. AI isn’t helping. If you need a writer have a look at his website and please repost. www.mathew-owen.co.uk Thank you

So now the argument is over which of the British political parties can deport people more efficiently. The Overton window has disappeared over the (rightward) horizon.

NEW! In ep 28 of #FirstLastAnything, author, broadcaster and musician Dr Leah Broad (@leahbroad.bsky.social) joins me to talk about the representation of women composers in classical music, her stupendous award-winning book #Quartet, and the BBC Proms. firstlastanything.co.uk/2025/08/24/f...

A long read by @trillingual.bsky.social, but worth every minute of your time. A detail that leapt out, for me: 'in 2016, the perpetrator of a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida checked Facebook midway through his assault'.

Looking for recent jazz albums with a strong 1970s ECM vibe. All suggestions welcome …

The full version of my essay on my love affair with On Her Majesty's Secret Service can be found in this just-published anthology, along with fine pieces by 15 other writers. You can order it online here: richardskinner.weebly.com/lsquothe-car...

Historians in the future looking back on what’s happening right now should be grateful if there are any historians in the future, or a future.

Is that Gary Burton on vibes?

The Ulster-isation of England. Prepare for segregation and sectarianism

Driving yesterday evening through Barnt Green, the placid village where my mother used to live to the south west of Birmingham, I saw that every lamppost now had a St George's flag tied to it. Even the mini roundabout had been painted with a red cross. Something is happening.

Exceptional piece, one of the best I’ve ever read on Wilder.

I'm hoping that the Satie-esque gags I shoehorned into this piece won't mean that I'm banned from writing for the LRB from now on. I've always been haunted by Peter Blegvad's story that he was 'sacked from Henry Cow for making a joke'.

Turns out that George 'six jobs' Osborne is also a high end vice presidential travel planner on.ft.com/3UuNBG2

Sorry to hear that the great Sheila Jordan has died. I’ve always loved her singing on this beautiful Steve Swallow setting of a Robert Creeley poem.

‘Satie as a Gallic exemplar of the famous British sense of humour? Why not? His mother was English, and with his bowler hat, velveteen suits and collection of hundreds of umbrellas, he resembles no one so much as John Steed in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴.’ @jonathancoe.bsky.social : www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Speaking of which, I don’t want to imply the Proms are programmed by solemn-minded dullards (I’m there at the moment in fact) but why isn’t there a single note of Satie being played on the 100th anniversary of his death this year?

Wrote a terrifyingly vulnerable thing about terminal illness and loss - an extremely rare foray, for me, into something which has no mention of movies. Hope someone somewhere likes it or relates to it, I guess. christinanewland.substack.com/p/a-perpetua...

Outlandish in the Observer today

Location footage fans! Last night Together TV, which screens some incredible 1970s curios at the weekends, unearthed a film from 1974 called Got It Made, described by its sole IMDb reviewer as ‘the most Norwich-centric film ever made’. I wonder if @djtaylorwriter.bsky.social knows about it?

This is such a clear and useful article. Why does the phrase ‘the really important step was taken by David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s coalition government’ not surprise me?

The new Naked Gun movie is a beautiful and necessary thing, a machine for making people laugh for 85 minutes, built by people who love and understand the originals.

Last night's viewing: The Hospital (1971). Thoughts: 1. Shows Paddy Chayefsky's virtues (many great lines) and vices (many long hectoring speeches) 2. Film's attitudes towards rape and Native Americans have dated badly 3. George C Scott amazing 4. Feels like a huge influence on Britannia Hospital

Ten years from now the only film projects capable of securing any finance will be a nine-hour trilogy based on Tom Bombadil's backstory and Emerald Fennell's bukkake version of Pride and Prejudice.

'The authors in today’s contemporary canon ... write in many more languages. Roberto Bolaño, Annie Ernaux, Han Kang and Karl Ove Knausgård are the Franzens and Wallaces of two decades ago.'

Once again, the best film you'll see today is on Talking Pictures, @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social Thursday, 9.05pm, Harold Pinter scripts and Joe Losey directs the lacerating Accident, with Dirk Bogarde, Delphine Seyrig and Michael York in top form. 4/5 #TPTV film-authority.com/2025/08/07/a...

Begun 1983. Published 1992. Out again today.

My review of Ian Penman's brilliant book on Erik Satie, published by @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

My review of Ian Penman's brilliant book on Erik Satie, published by @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

My novel The Proof of My Innocence comes out in paperback on October 2nd. I got bored signing 1,000 copies, so I made one of them slightly different to the others. Let me know if you spot it anywhere!

Excellent blog about a great novelist who was at the forefront of Virago’s rediscovery of women writers fifty years ago but now almost qualifies as ‘neglected’ again.

My take - a series of wrong turns/misfortunes since 1979: - Election of Thatcher - Death of John Smith - Supporting the Iraq War - GFC 2008 - Austerity - 2015 election result - Brexit - Covid Eight body blows in 46 years, some of them just bad luck, some self-inflicted.

Good grief. Thoughts, @philippeauclair.bsky.social ?