When I say that @tonywhite.bsky.social Phantom deserves to sit alongside David Peace’s GB84, this is the highest possible compliment I can pay. A phenomenal achievement

There’s a tendency in modern fiction to drop the reader unaided into the story. How long is it reasonable for the writer to continue to withhold info - like who they are, how they’re related, what’s in the big house,what the big secret is that everyone knows except the reader. Asking for a mate.

My wife says I’ve ruined her yoga classes for her because she can’t help laughing at the end of the session now. Yes, I showed her the Larry David Namaste clip.

Criminal behaviour in a city that has enough problems already.

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

*Government: we need a sense of place and stronger regional policy to bring us together! *Also government: it's okay to shut this local uni campus in an area of high deprivation! *Thick-as-mince country. No joined-up thinking anywhere. 🇬🇧 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In Birmingham Art Gallery and had to explain why to one of the warders they need to change this display so that the drive side is facing the viewer and in the big ring. He said he’d pass it on. (He’s not passing it on, is he?)

Just cycled across town on an electric hire bike listening to Donald Byrd’s Street Lady and thought life is pretty good - I’m an easy man to please (some days.)

Just reading fellow N Herts lad Simon Critchley On Bowie (yes, I know I’m late to the party) and went digging for versions of Blackout - this 78 version may well be my favourite. A great Nacho film is always a bonus. youtu.be/eo_vAVCHx4I?...

David Bowie - Blackout - Live 1978

YouTube video by Nacho Video

youtu.be

Can I recommend the early Netherlandish drawings at the BM - an oasis of calm beauty in a burning world

Been re-reading Brookner’s Next Big Thing and can’t help but see it as a companion piece to Bellow’s Herzog - even down to the character’s name: Julius Herz. More do die of heartbreak indeed.

Reading @tonywhite.bsky.social fantastic Phantom of the Feast and this just jumped out at me and gave me a chill. I was at that match and had to sit on the perimeter cos of the crush. I’ve never seen it mentioned before. When Hillsborough happened a few years later I wasn’t entirely surprised

Come for Chaka and stay for the band. I could listen to this all day Rufus: Tell Me Something Good youtu.be/3Fbwok5caD8?...

Tell Me Something Good - Rufus | The Midnight Special

YouTube video by The Midnight Special

youtu.be

What I’ve learnt from the most recent @backlisted.bsky.social - more @iammilliam.bsky.social impressions of authors please. Other Voices indeed.

One for the teachers… As @mickpuck.bsky.social said all those years ago. The term is over and all the holidays have begun.

At my parents’ house looking after them for awhile. In the meantime enjoy: Paul Quinn & Edwin Collins - “Ain’t that always the way” m.youtube.com/watch?v=GmWY...

Edwyn Collins & Paul Quinn - Ain't That Always The Way - Live 1985

YouTube video by ScottishTeeVee

m.youtube.com

This Summer Night. I don’t think Wyatt ever sounded better youtu.be/9bGv13da2ik?...

Bertrand Burgalat & Robert Wyatt - This Summer Night

YouTube video by TricatelVision

youtu.be

Not for the first time I have somehow managed to take loads of pics while my phone was in my cycling shorts. They make quite interesting collages

Essex lanes in High Summer. Cannot be beaten.

You might wear out your index-finger running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word.

'Moonshine' by contemporary UK printmaker Janis Goodman #WomensArt

June reading. Duffy, Fosse, Bowie dominate alongside re-reads of Rhys and Pushkin. Thanks to: @omnibuspress.bsky.social @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social @whiterabbitbks.bsky.social @cipherpress.bsky.social @backlisted.bsky.social

Re-reading Jean Rhys - Good Morning Midnight again. To use modern parlance, I don’t think I’ve ever been ‘seen’ by a writer half as much as by Rhys. It’s such painful writing. Faites comme les autres, damn you.

So, sticking 30 children in a poorly ventilated classroom designed to retain heat, with no AC and windows that barely open, when the outside temperature is actually above skin temperature, is really NOT a good idea. They ain't learning anything in that environment! 14/

Happy 91st birthday to the incomparable Terry Riley, one of our greatest American seekers.

While various sectors of the media are castigating schools for partially closing or sending out sensible advice about hydration and generally caring about kids, I’d like to point out there’s a massive recruitment crisis and all that noise is not helping encourage people to join the profession.

“Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

I used to be an irresistible force Now I’m an immovable object.

I save these up for my bike rides. I nearly had to stop today as I kept welling up. This is writing of the highest quality, moving, funny, wry, clever and wise. Thanks Andy.

I remember Hockney scoffing at people saying ‘these aren’t the best of times!’ His reply was ‘these are the only times we’ve got, we have to make the best them!’