Cory Doctorow is incredibly funny, knowledgeable and what he has to say will bring a thousand vague thoughts and discomforts into sharp focus. Listen to this, buy his book www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/produc... open.spotify.com/episode/46PN...

Every year Downton Band walk the village in the days leading up to Christmas, they’re such a great organisation! www.downtonband.org.uk/the-bands/do...

1. Some good news at last. This week’s column is about the amazing thing a couple of us stumbled into three years ago, which we’ve now developed into a global research programme. It doesn’t change everything, of course, but it could help change quite a lot. + 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

The Terje Isungset Ice Quartet @turnersims.bsky.social was exquisite - thank you!

The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think. New piece from me. open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...

This week's column is on Billionaire Brain: the condition which seems to prevent extremely rich people from perceiving the utterly bleeding obvious. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Extraordinarily enjoyable book! Just does everything well: ideas/characters/plot/lovely writing - strong recommend, and looking forward to more from Jordan Prosser and @deadinkbooks.bsky.social

This is a measured, weary, cutting piece. I won't cherry-pick a screenshot, there's enough disdain in here for everyone involved. Read the whole thing.

This is lovely and wise

British.

Loved this! A clever book about class, identity politics, media which unwraps them in thoughtful layers while remaining incredibly entertaining.

Musical prodigy Charles Yang breaking into a heart-rending and soulful cover of Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come.' Yang is an American violinist, composer and singer, and a graduate of the Juilliard School. #music #blues #vocals #soulful

I love that Beckett is still confounding people after all these years. It’s like “I went to see The Rite of Spring. I don’t know what the hell that was but it sure wasn’t music. I felt like rioting. One star”

Just seen the very talented Dik Downey in Opposable Thumb’s new show Don Quixote (is a very big book) and it is Very Funny & Excellent .Catch it at Wardrobe Theatre next thewardrobetheatre.com/shows/don-qu...

R. S. Thomas, ‘The Bright Field’, from Laboratories of the Spirit (1975) #NationalPoetryDay

Spent this morning with lots of great people who are doing lots of great cultural things in Gloucester. Really energising to see the impact ACE funding can have.

Just started this and really enjoying it - reminds me of David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten

This sounds amazing!

Really lovely get together at Salisbury Arts Centre to remember Jill Low today. Catherine’s piece below is perfect. Jill gave @stephaniejalland.bsky.social and I a home for Hoodwink and the Arts Centre felt like home again today with staff, volunteers and artists all there, so good to see everyone.

“Material Worlds: Contemporary Artists and Textiles” from the Hayward Gallery has arrived at The Wilson in Cheltenham and it’s a wonderful exploration of textiles in contemporary art. Really want (need) the wallpaper by Marc Camille Chaimowicz.

Great to see ACE supported work of the best quality getting to our most far flung communities www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/s...

Well done @bsidefest.bsky.social on the launch of The Portland Dress as part of the Big Weekend. Hundreds of local stories embroidered in a very special community textiles project. And beautiful choral work led by Destination Opera to mark the launch at the Old Engine Shed tonight. (1/3)

Enjoyed Pagans by @jamesbluecat.bsky.social very much, highly recommend. Read after the excellent Hild and Menewood by @nicolaz.bsky.social and had a very pleasing historical fiction/alt history continuity

Holiday accommodation lamp winner for all time.

Cycling in Suffolk yesterday, we stopped outside house with an unmanned stall selling jams and marmalades and bought Dark Horse, ‘finely treacled’ marmalade and Oh My God why did I not know about this before?! Absolutely fantastic.

Hey UK, my reality-bending mother-daughter-found-family-multiverse novel is on sale on Kobo. It's about being lost, trying to find the best version of you (literally), the mysteries of our parents, neuroparasites, murder and features two of my favourite characters I've ever written in Dom and Amber

This is my flag.

I would buy this album in a heartbeat (@fakemusic_br instagram) #funk #acdc

1/ In my Gove thread I showed how reform managed inequality rather than solved it. Here’s why “social mobility” itself is the bigger fiction. Another thread.

How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek, And wait the season, and observe the times, And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes, And shape his service wholly to my device, And make him proud to make me proud that jests!

The Music Works is a Gloucester based outreach charity that works to transform the lives of young people through music. It doesn’t matter what skills you have or what you’re passionate about; as long as you want to make music, they can help you make it happen. I visited last week and loved it.

Bit of a treat when one of your favourite authors reviews another of your favourite authors.

Reading the Value of a Whale by @adriennebuller.bsky.social has made me wonder how much time and effort is being wasted in the academic sphere on research that aligns closely with green capitalism, and what knowledge could have been produced instead

For thousands of years, we have been parasitised, exploited and destroyed by elites. Our survival depends on overthrowing them. Fascinating article by @dpcarrington.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Well this by @nicolaz.bsky.social was very good indeed! Feel like I less read than moved in and lived there. Hild herself is an extraordinary creation and to see C6 Britain through eyes mesmerising. The evocation of nature and the complex politics equally accomplished. It made me read so late!

Coming as I do from a BBC comedy background, I have a shitload of suggestions for how to make great television programmes more cheaply (such as not budgeting them at $10m+ per episode) none of which anyone is interested in. They don’t want cheaper TV. They want cheaper people.

What an extraordinary novel, deeply satisfying, beautifully written. Can only hope the oligarchs and oil executives get to pick it up.

I am writing a policy pamphlet. Here are all the ways to demonstrate I don't really have a policy answer, that I need to avoid: a. You call for a "national conversation or debate" b. You suggest that what is needed is “a change in culture” 1/

Across Europe, the financial sector has pushed up house prices. It's a political timebomb | Tim White

Great interview with B Catling, love this on Blake: For me he is not a frocked dreamer wafting about and talking to angels. He is a grafter, a working man, whose small factory was crowded with other beings while he daily had to make crappy prints for other artists.

This is a lovely radio drama www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I’d like to propose an end to embracing uncertainty and beginning to make the weather.

2. We need to do four things all at the same time. A. Ensure that 8, 9 or 10 billion people receive a healthy and sufficient diet. B. Do so without destroying Earth systems. C. Rewild as much land and sea as we can, to stop and reverse 6th Great Extinction drivers. D. Prevent food system collapse.

I must have first read this when I was 18, very excited to be tuning in to a live channel!

In all this Bob Vylan pearl clutching some are conveniently forgetting the IDF is committing genocide.