RIP the great, the legendary Steve Cropper. He composed (or co-composed) so many wonderful tunes - Soul Limbo, Time Is Tight, Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay and much more. Here's his understated guitar work on the fabulous Green Onions www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD6i...

Any cricket team that needs to pick EIGHT batsmen knows that it isn't good enough before it even starts.

In a pub at Waterloo. Must be 120-150 people in here. Two bar staff only. Every fucker ordering cocktails so 15 minutes wait just to order a pint. £7.70 plus auto 20% tip unless you opt out. What a world we live in. #BahHumbug #TheGrinch

I was 29, watching Grandstand as it played out. I worked with Forest fans who were there. The whole #Hillsborough saga is a massive disgrace to the nation. Hats off to David Conn of the Guardian for being like a dog with a bone on the subject, but in a civilised society he shouldn’t’ve needed to be.

Perhaps we should have a live, televised chess match between Rachel Reeves and Kemi Badenoch.

For the first time EVER I've been invited for Christmas drinks with the bank manager* this afternoon! *Or whatever they are called these days! 🍻🍾🥂🍷

This is how Chris Mason, like a child filled with wonder, described "the choreography and theatre that surrounds a Budget" in Feb 2024, when a male Tory Chancellor was in post. "Plans, or even just options, can be floated... Reaction to them can be tested. Opponents can be teased or wrongfooted." 👀

Crikey, that looks magnificent!

I see that @microsoft.com are putting up the price of Microsoft 365 by more than 30% on February 14th. Happy Valentine's Day.

On a day when every news item (there is only one) is not only utterly depressing but entirely futile too then this is just joyous.

Wow! 👇

What is that Chelsea keeper doing rolling around on the floor there? Did the Arsenal guy actually touch him? It could have been worse, and he was very brave. But the reality is he was barely touched.

Making a chicken and mushroom Dhansak in the slow cooker today. Will get a good 9-10 hours to sort itself out. Need to go for a walk whilst on the go so I return to a house that reeks of The Bengal Lancer* *Other curry houses are available.

Seriously, what is BBC News all about? Two weeks of "the budget will be a disaster and the Chancellor must go". It wasn't a disaster. So.... "It wasn't a disaster, we were misled and the Chancellor must go". I'm a long way from being a Reeves fan but the whole thing is both pathetic and desperate.

Eh? What? Seriously? Donald TRUMP once dated a girl named Celina MidelFART? Truly, I'm blown away.

George Harrison, known as the 'quiet Beatle', died of cancer, aged 58, on this day 2001. Photo by Jane Bown, backstage at East Ham, 1963.

Richard Hawley, live and acoustic on @bbc6music.bsky.social right now. Just wonderful. Tonight The Streets Are Ours

Mansion tax will be paid by less than 1 in 200 homes. 145k out of 30.4m homes. For every home that will pay something under the new tax, 199 won't. It's a tax on the 0.5% and 99.5% of us will not pay it.

Woke up this morning feeling tickety boo. Have not left the house all day and have now retired to bed with an absolutely stinking cold and aching body. Feel dreadful.

The Gospel According to Badenoch.

Just chilling, vino and music, and then. Downtown Train. Tom Waits. What a song. "Will I see you tonight?" For me, the world's greatest living songwriter.

Very revelling, me thinks.

Stoke V Charlton. Commentators proving they don't even bother to watch the EFL weekly goals round up. Thomas has now scored 3 goals from the exact same spot on the touchline, 20 yards up from the corner flag. It's not a fluke, it is a dangerous cross cum shot that sometimes goes in. 3 times already.

lmaooooooooo

Avenues all lined with trees.... youtu.be/VXLTVvuAfso?...

Dear Stokies. Are the Potters on the red button this evening? I'm sure I shall work it out one day.

What a tune....

We are delighted to announce that our support in London on December 16th will be Manchester's NICO HARMONY, described by Louder Than War as "like a Lana Del Ray from a rainy city." This will be Nico's London debut. The stellar skipratmedia will assume DJ duties. 🚀🚀🚀 www.fatsoma.com/p/quatermass3

What an absolutely fantastic performance there by Everton tonight. Deserve both all the points and all the plaudits.

14 words and not a single one wasted 👏👏👏

So Farage now admits he was racist at school just never in a hurtful way. 🤔

Fox NFL showing Eagles at Cowboys from Dallas. Went into the last break playing New Order's Blue Monday and the current break playing Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode. No idea why.

To youngsters struggling with social media - this seems to have been lost, but you can just ignore what the normies are doing. The geeks, weirdos & freaks are generally more interesting anyway. Just do your own thing. It’ll go nowhere but is so, so much more meaningful 💜💜

@gbpackers.bsky.social absolutely brutal today. Men v boys. Vikings look shell shocked.

The football is sooooooo dull. Roll on 6pm and the NFL.

bsky.app/profile/juwe... Can't imagine why this 'young lady' is following me. 🤣

‘No one knows how many Republican corpses ended up in the Valley of the Fallen, the monumental necropolis built to Franco’s orders on a mountain outside Madrid.’ Stephen Phelan on the ‘disappeared’ of the Spanish civil war. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

So the line is that he wasn't getting paid for any of this

Out now: Uncut magazine: Ultimate Music Guide – Joy Division & New Order www.yourcelebritymagazines.com/en-es/collec...

Times report on yesterday's cricket, discussing the English fans and flags "Others got in early. The usual roll call of EFL obscurity. Walsall, Leyton Orient, Mansfield Town, Stoke City."

Playing now on @bbc6music.bsky.social love the Huey show. youtu.be/pfLJvDFXmtU?...

Was told this week, and entirely unknown to me that in his United years George Best drank in The Eagle, Collier Street, Salford. A Joseph Holts classic pub and that in 1984 at least (my first visit) served sensational meat and potato pies.

Fabulous lunch and copious drinks in Manchester today. What a fabulous city. More than refreshed.

Shabana Mahmood's proposal to stop being told to "go back home" is to send people "home". Her proposal to stop black and brown people from feeling like they don't belong, is to bake in to the immigration system that they will never belong.

Update; 4 Stoke flags at the cricket lads 🔴⚪️🔴⚪️🔴⚪️

That photo alone. My word.

Anyway now seems like a really good time to say….who the fuck is Charlotte Owen