I just bought a secondhand book that was listed as "Very Good" but which, on arrival, turns out to be *far better* than that: basically "As New". The seller is clearly new to this lol

I know that saying "Jesus fking Christ" isn't really an appropriate response to this, but that's the response I had, so

Undefeated!

The key element of this is that sexuality is *controlled*. This is why there is no contradiction between this phenomenon and fascists loving the Grok AI revenge porn. It also doesn't mean every individual is obligated to engage with your kink; it means systems of censorship must be fought.

Free book! Haymarket are offering free downloads of the ebook of Light in Gaza, a collection of writings by Palestinian authors (with support from US Quakers) which seeks to imagine a better future for Gaza: www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1861-l...

So, from Mike Tapp's comments quoted in this piece, it looks like the UK government line is going to be that Maduro was "evil" – that old thought-stopping technique for justifying harmful and illegal actions www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This extraordinary passage from Rose Macaulay’s 1950 novel, The World My Wilderness (p.152), feels dispiritingly appropriate for January 2026

Started reading Saint Paul: A Screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini, translated and introduced by Elizabeth A. Castelli www.tumblr.com/considermyca...

“He was no angel”

Letterboxd tells me that my “most-watched nanogenre” in 2025 was “Dancing, Romance, Colorful”. The films I watched in this “nanogenre”: - KPop Demon Hunters - Wicked: For Good - 3 Idiots and, er, - Barry Lyndon

The BBC’s correspondent just described America kidnapping Venezuela’s president and publishing a humiliating photo of him on social media as “meddling somewhat in another country’s affairs”

The book I’m most excited about in 2026 is Hachette’s new edition of Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison, which I read twice last year. I really hope it finally gets the attention and success it deserves – helped, perhaps, by a couple of heavy-hitters on the cover: www.hachette.co.uk/titles/naomi...

Started reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, reproduced in the original size with an introduction and commentary by Sir Geoffrey Keynes www.tumblr.com/considermyca...

Highly relatable stuff from this medieval cleric in Ben Hopkins’ wonderful novel, Cathedral (p.259)

Finished reading Shekhinah Speaks by Joy Ladin – the last book I finished in 2025 www.tumblr.com/considermyca...

Resumed reading (after a brief interruption for Susan Cooper) Temporary Kings by Anthony Powell www.tumblr.com/considermyca...

Finished reading The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper – only the second time I’ve read it, and the first I’ve done so “at the correct time of year” www.tumblr.com/considermyca...

Finished reading Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy by Martha Wells www.tumblr.com/considermyca...

So I saw this TikTok (vm.tiktok.com/ZNR6TopYP/) about Stevie Nicks singing Silver Springs at* Lindsey Buckingham in 1997 (*preposition chosen with care), and thought it was exaggerating until I looked up the YouTube video of the original performance

You might be growing old if… it’s 1 January and you still have some Chocolate Orange left 🙀

Ok Yannick Nézet-Séguin is my new fav. Leaving the stage (to Petroc’s unfeigned bemusement) to conduct the Radetzky March from within the audience? We cannot help but stan. #ViennaNewYearsConcert

Starmer’s speechwriter appears to hate him as much as the rest of the country. “When Britain turns the corner with our future now in our control, the real Britain will shine through more strongly.” You and I would be sectioned if we said that. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Just making sure that 2025 is definitely over

Settling into the #NewYearsDayConcert on BBC2. Excited to see Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting this year – I have a couple of his opera CDs, both fantastic. You can tell he’s an _enfant terrible_ because he has an earring (and because he’s included two pieces written by women)

Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

I once crossed a zebra crossing in South Kensington as Jeremy Corbyn cycled towards it. We made eye contact and he did that look that famous people do when they realise you’ve realised who they are. He was wearing a truly hideous silver-grey tracksuit, absolutely heinous

I'm being glib here but I'm actually very serious about this. I'm tired of every part of culture being about competition. Everything framed in terms of winners and losers, as though life is zero sum. It isn't. We make everything better when we see peers and friends, not enemies.

Just watched Wake Up Dead Man for the second time. In tears twice. The Academy should spare itself the bother and just mail the best “supporting” acting Oscars to Josh O’Connor and Glenn Close. Five stars, heart icon, no notes.

The sheer effrontery of the Right in screaming blue murder about “free speech” when anyone gets prosecuted for online racism or transphobia, then *immediately* pivoting to saying people should *lose their literal citizenship* over Bad Tweets: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

meanwhile the critique of popularism is "your own base will hate you for betraying them, people who really believe in this stuff will go full fash rather than support your half measures, and the waverers will take your capitulation as proof the fash are right" bearing out pretty well so far

I simply cannot take popularism remotely seriously when nobody involved even tries to answer the question "what happened to keir starmer" at best they point to a few policies they don't like, but "move right on social issues and immigration" is his main platform and look what fucking happened!

if I were elected mayor of a city I too would insist that every ceremony took place in an abandoned tunnel or secret passage of some kind

Just been reading about Christina the Astonishing, the unimprovably-named 12thC mystic whose spiritual ministry began in her early twenties, when she came back from the dead at her funeral and ascended to the church rafters to escape the stench of human sin. Nick Cave wrote a song about her:

thousands and thousands of years ago we mourned our children and parents, loved our partners, feared death and suffering, even buried our beloved pets with sentiments of devotion. all of this is clearly attested by the historical record.

Our ancestors understood the world through different lenses, this much is true, and would use language very different from our own to describe their experiences, but there is no reason to doubt that our physical and emotional sensations are identical to theirs.

some of the more insidious consent manufacturing i've ever encountered. subtle enough that you might ingest a few ideas before realizing the whole point of the piece is to tell you that being raped and killed by heartless, soulless thugs is fine, actually, and you like it.

Discworld QOTD, from The Light Fantastic

‘It was that prolonged, flat, cheerless week that follows Christmas …’ One of the great passages on the interval between Christmas and New Year from Anthony Powell … #ADTTMOT

Fact | You can't write something predicated in the utterly ludicrous assumption that white men are being excluded from publishing unless you are racist.

shel silverstein was a prophet

This exchange, from a #DS9 episode first screened in 1997, depicts Earth in 1947 – but it still has powerful 2025 energy

Currently reading The Dark Is Rising (for only the second time! _mea maxima culpa_), and this page is 🤯

Heroic Dog Saves Family Of 5 From Herb-Roasted Chicken https://theonion.com/heroic-dog-saves-family-of-5-from-herb-roasted-chicken/

YEARS ago we drove by a motel outside Gatlinburg TN, and we still laugh about their logo: “Cheaper than some. Cleaner than most”

I've been thinking about this sign for 6 months. a phrase I'll treasure forever. a metaphor with boundless potential

Motor traffic volumes.

It does make you wonder what the redacted Trump content is in the Epstein files, when “Lake Michigan baby corpse disposal accomplice accusation” is one they decided to let through

People interested in this overlap may want to know that the Quaker Disability Equality Group has a Neurodivergent Friends meeting: quakerdisabilitygroup.org.uk

when Judaism exists????