Had forgotten how cool this video is.

Psychotic. Genuinely, the man is a monster.

Connections Puzzle #917 Oh, come on! (Redacted) is ALSO a (redacted). I hate it when there’s an element of guesswork. (No excuse for line one though.) 🟩🟦🟪🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟪 🟦🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟪🟪🟪

This is bloody brilliant.

Sharing for a reward. No other reason.

‘Anyone in the audience ever get hit by a car?’

‘Post a favourite work of art from the year exactly 50 years before you were born’. Remixes count. And, wow. youtu.be/pHxstiIybz4?...

Twitter can fuck right off. For the permanent record.

Always disappointed that this isn’t a @darrenhayman.bsky.social cover.

Homophobes given a thorough kicking. Jolly good.

‘I hear from old Heppo’ :) Outside of fanzines, only Smash Hits writers could get away with stuff like this.

My non-fiction recommendation will always be HHhH by Laurent Binet. Seriously, read it.

As if Weird Al’s intent was ever in doubt. Still, this is superb.

The ‘Bobby Gillespie’ thing is weird. Back in the day, he was a fanzine superstar. Then he decided to wear leather trousers. Then I remember a Sarah Records insert having a pop at him. Then it all got political. Anyway. Some great records + might be a dick = Van Morrison. Not the end of the world.

I mean, it’s up there…

I hear the creaking of tectonic plates slowly shifting…

Hints of one of my favourite West Wing lines. Sam tells Toby he ‘accidentally slept with a call girl’. ‘Accidentally?’ ‘Yes’ ‘I don’t understand. Did you trip over something?’

#NowPlaying World Party - Goodbye Jumbo Contains two of my favourite ‘listen to this’ moments in early 90s pop. First is the majestic modulation in the first track.

2 December 1938 | A Dutch Jewish boy, Leendert Flip van Amerongen, was born in Amsterdam. In February 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. --- A video showing the ruins of gas chamber and crematorium III: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ipQmBPAlJQ8

Europe is being sold out by this ‘can’t stay awake’ mofo.

Trump dozes while Marco Rubio speaks to him directly next to him. Just insane optics.

Speaking of Christmas. There’s nothing wrong with the original lyric. But I can completely understand why you might prefer the edited version. There. That’s that sorted.

You OK, Radio 1?

Yeah, this from the people who gave us Brexit.

Ooh, one of my favourite times of the year.

Pointless.

Once again, I have questions. Connections Puzzle #901 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩

Started watching Fawlty Towers with the boy, and his 13-year-old reaction, straight away, was ‘awww… I feel sorry for Manuel. It’s not his fault’. I’ve explained that you do start to see a different side to Manuel - and that even from the beginning it’s clear that Polly and Terry are his friends.

This remains the greatest ever visual representation of the poptimism v. experimental conflict inherent in all great music.

Really showing my age here…

Another way of looking at this, of course, is that if you took the triple lock out of the equation, the benefits bill would very likely roughly be increasing in line with projected inflation *if that*

I really wish left-wing people would stop sharing ‘Rachael from accounts’ memes. It’s misogynistic shit.

How anyone thinks killing people helps anything. How much do we have to clarify this?

Oh FFS. Can everything go back to normal now? Please.

When I showed my son (13) that @vsauce.bsky.social was one of the hosts of The Rest Is Science he said ‘what, is he their first guess?’ ‘No, he’s one of the presenters’ ‘What, all the time? That’s SOOOO cool!’

Can’t believe press are still doing stories based on ‘what four or five people say on Twitter’.

Lord, I love Low. Every ‘era’.

When did Wired become the last bastion of great, clever, popular journalism? It’s so, so good at the moment.

Barcelona, menos que un club?

Who at the BBC thought a man who set up a ‘School For Moral Ambition’ would keep quiet about this? To quote Ian Brown, ‘amateurs’.

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 50. Billie Eilish - Birds Of A Feather (US 2024) She’s a classicist really. And she leans into it here with a song your gran would like and a delivery it’s impossible not to love. Plus. Hasn’t it been a great few years for pop music videos? youtu.be/V9PVRfjEBTI?...

#OtD 25 Nov 1941 three Schlurfs were arrested by Gestapo in Austria for destroying a Hitler Youth noticeboard. Schlurfs were working-class youth who rejected Nazism, militarism and the work ethic, and listened to jazz music. More on WWII anti-Nazi youth: workingclasshistory.com/podcast/72-e...

no it isn’t!!! fuck you!!!

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 49. Chica, que dices? Doce puntos… Rosalía - Saoko (Spain 2022) BONUS 12 points A lot of my pop picks have been clean, minimalist affairs. This is the opposite. A taste of everything that makes Motomami so good packed into one song. youtu.be/6o7bCAZSxsg?...

Must sometimes be genuinely terrifying to be a famous young woman.

I messed up A-levels and didn’t get to do Russian and French in Durham. Then realised I could just about get on the NCTJ pre-entry course. Then, a year later, turned down an unconditional offer from Lancaster because I got a £500-a-year pay rise. And I thought 21 was too old to go to uni. Sigh.

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 48. The Beths - Expert In A Dying Field (NZ 2023) I’d had The Cords pencilled in this slot, but nobody’s biting .. so I’m throwing some points behind this great song. Would be bloody smashing to have some New Zealand indie-pop get through. youtu.be/-KACt6YhOyY?...

#TheTwen2ie5 Day 47. Taylor Swift - All Too Well (Taylor’s version) (US 2021) The Taylor lore condensed - no, expanded - into one song. This might be the peak moment of her turning life into art. Seems like Eras tried to draw a line, but this is what we selfishly crave. youtu.be/w0XKa2LKuU0?...

Yay.