Well, it’s the day after Wallace and Gromit rode again – and it’s the 31st anniversary of the first appearance of the greatest sound effect in the history of the motion picture, so here’s the story of how (I found out how) they made it...

'Allo! 'Allo! (26th December 1985). 'Simple plots are always the best'.

Why is this? youtu.be/Cc-SvdalABs?...

#Ravel at Christmas: Noël des jouets (1904). Fascinating new article by Manuel Cornejo, including detail on the first orchestration going missing because of Pierre Monteux's divorce dezede.hypotheses.org/8002

I am not going to name the publisher, but this week I was offered the chance to ghost edit an AI novel. My reply included phrases such as: ‘I am not the turd polisher you want’; ‘your ethical void will swallow you’; ‘more chance of pushing a pound of butter up your arse with a red hot needle’.

Traces and scratches: in this fascinating article, Bachtrack editor Lawrence Dunn, himself a composer, explores the handwriting of other composers from the 1400s to the present day bachtrack.com/feature-comp...

He ys ridinge a horse He ys emerald and svelte He will get reallye weirde If you lie about beltes The Green Knighte Ys Cominge To Toun

Why is it not an international holiday?

I hate how much I enjoyed this BIG NERD DESIGN ENERGY 🫦

'AI is coming' I tell the museum stakeholders as I proudly cut the ribbon of our new Artificial Insemination exhibition

On Stockhausen's MONTAG in Paris: disgwylfa.substack.com/p/stockhause...

🫡

Whoa. And today I learned about the ondes Martenot.

Lichtenstein is normally very much not my thing but I am at least interested that he seems to have put a shakuhachi in this one.

The fact that the English city of Worcester is pronounced with only 2 syllables may seem odd, but what's really wild is that it comes from an Old English name that had 5 syllables and 15 letters. Watch my video to hear it evolve:

"C’est comme si nous retrouvions dans une cave un tableau entreposé depuis 62 ans, attaqué par l’humidité, abîmé par les champignons, partiellement couvert de graffitis.." Trois questions à Marco Stroppa sur l’électronique de Poésie pour pouvoir : https://ow.ly/puP750XwULb

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

That sound you can hear is my mind boggling

Harrison Birtwistle getting a haircut.

How you expect a call to the Oz visa hotline to go: -hello, our visa application is a couple of weeks past the 90% estimate on the website and I’m wondering if you could give me any information? -strewth cobber, what a bloody nuisance, give us your code and I’ll take a butcher’s at your file!

If any pianists out there are in the market for a German teaching job, there‘s one available here. Please forward to any likely candidates. stellen.hmdk-stuttgart.de/jobposting/5...

Why have I bothered learning to say ‘ich halt dich auf dem Laufenden’ when there are actual Germans who just say ‘ich update dich’

This from @davidbatherwoods.bsky.social's biography of Schopenhauer is sending me

Not the first time I’ve read this and I hope not the last.

May we never stop trying to write cricket bats.

Gosh, I’ve often translated the Bach title as ‘Musical Sacrifice’ for a giggle but here’s an old edition that does it in all seriousness… austinsj.co.uk/products/pro...

TIL that Helmut Lachenmann and Michel Portal were born on the SAME DAY 🤯❤️

"no seriously you think it’s so funny that i saw flowers in winter like oh let’s make fun of the guy who took a risk and put himself out there romantically."

Parkinson (23rd November 1974). Michael chats to Richard Burton.

It’s another age, isn’t it

J'apprends avec tristesse la disparition de Jean-Claude Eloy hier, à l’âge de 87 ans. Compositeur électroacoustique, il est notamment connu pour ses longues fresques (souvent de plusieurs heures) et son intérêt pour les musiques indiennes et japonaises

There are box sets and there are box sets.

Somehow I find this “when” strangely depressing

My latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books pages.

I feel as though these people’s search engine might be a bit improvable.

#apod 2025-11-16 Crossing Saturn's Ring Plane Web page: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251116.html#apod

For the Aussies, the zoologists and the architects out there. 💩🧊🧪 By @chazhutton.com

Leaving out the repeat in the Beethoven 5 finale saves you all of 2 minutes, just saying 🙄

Me: I'm feeling really Sapphic You: Tell me more 😏 Me: ............... and if ......... [thy]me...... .......................... hands.......... [swan, or possibly an extinct species of gourd] .........................s

Honestly, I'm about to waste a £60 ticket for the BRILLIANT French singer Zaho de Sagazan, from 7pm at the Palladium. Please can someone take it. I can't make it. She is amazing. I'm gutted.

Ekmeles and the Mivos Quartet’s (marvelous) premiere of my big piece “O Maria”, from last weekend in New York, can be heard here: on.soundcloud.com/FSe0xSnMVHvw...

A rare glimpse in the wild of the Paris Breakfast Run 2017 T-shirt.

Gosh, it’s Rosenkavalier Act I.

When I was on @looksunfamiliar.bsky.social I chose this sequence from a 1979 Sesame Street episode - probably the first time I ever heard Philip Glass was this exclusive piece he wrote for this animated sequence, Geometry of Circles. It's never appeared anywhere else. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JWw...

I get this a lot

Ouch

Oh wow did you hear about the mysterious fire next week

Remembering Jeremy Brett, born this day in 1933.

Ouch!

colleague "Do we need this new biography" me "No, there's no new information. It just means somebody needs a new kitchen"