There’s a new Cecil Beaton exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery
Regular readers will probably be bored with me saying that my Granny was his cleaner
Pic: catalogue for Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World exhibition at the NPG. 9 October 2025 - 11 January 2026
I think many people will instead be comparing the duo to the Judean Peoples Front, and the Peoples Front of Judea
Zarah Sultana has said she and Jeremy Corbyn have patched up their combustible co-leadership of a new leftwing party, with the MP comparing the duo to Liam and Noel Gallagher. Zarah Sultana says she and Corbyn have reconciled and can co-lead new party
Retirement project #4 (possibly)
A psycho-geographic, hyper-local history of some runs I’ve done e.g.
The Big Half
- “The ship was named after Cutty-sark, the nickname of the witch Nannie Dee in Robert Burns’s 1791 poem Tam o' Shanter.”
- Ratcliff Highway murders - Wikipedia
- Cabot Square - John Cabot was actually Giovanni Caboto
I’ve still got no plans to retire though.
Pic: John Faed, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
I switched over for the last 10 minutes or so of the Scotland match.
One of my better recent decisions â˝
Also trying out Micro.blog’s new movies thingy
Saw this again a couple of weeks ago….a candidate for my favourite ever film
Watched: Brief Encounter đż
Also trying out Micro.blog’s new movies thingy
Saw this again a couple of weeks ago….a candidate for my favourite ever film
Watched: Brief Encounter đż
A petition to stop the playing of music when Chelsea score at Stamford Bridge
The sound of the crowd is music enough!
Change.org - Stop Music Being Played After Chelsea Score At Stamford Bridge
The Labour Party wasn’t always entirely pro-business
Fifteen years earlier, having been invited to address the annual conference of Britainâs Advertising Association, the Labour politician Aneurin Bevan had told them that advertising was âone of the most evil consequences of a society which is itself evilâ. They were, he said to a stunned silence, âharnessed to an evil machine which is doing great harm to societyâ, leaving the consumer âpassive, besieged, assaulted, battered and robbedâ.
Currently reading: The Great British Dream Factory by Dominic Sandbrook đ
Neil Hannon on why having all the stats can be a mixed blessing
âOn Spotify it gives you all your demographics, and thatâs fascinating and also quite disheartening,â Hannon says. âThe vast majority, I mean 80 per cent, of listeners are between 35 and 55, basically my age or a bit younger. We also have a lovely 10 per cent of over-65s and then I love the plucky little three per cent of under 18s. Well, good on you. I mean, you must get ridiculed at school!â
From Classic Pop magazine
Podcast episodes I liked over the last month - Bonnie and Clyde, 60 songs that explain the 90s, 9/11 and Gander, the Pyramids, Nile Rodgers, the Panama Canal, Susannah Hoffs, Vlad the Impaler, Llareggub, Thonis-Heracleion, pilot's voices, Saint Cris
This was stuff I found interesting in various podcasts over the last month
There more at the links below
Short History of…… Bonnie and Clyde - W.D. Jones, a member of the gang who lived long enoughto see the 1967 film, said it “made it all look sort of glamorous, but like I told them teenaged boys sitting near me at the drive-in showing: ‘Take it from an old man who was there. It was hell.'” It’s interesting to me that he saw the film at a drive-in.
Rolling stone podcast - ‘60 Songs That Explain the ’90s’ - there are mentions of the Prodigy, KLF, Radiohead and the Spice Girls but none of Oasis, Blur or Pulp. Made me realise how ‘Brit’ Britpop really was
Witness History - 9/11 The generosity of Gander - about the true story behind the musical Come From Away. The ‘witness’ here is Beverley Bass, who is represented in the show. I think she says that pharmacists in Gander prepared 2000+ prescriptions in one night for people who were stuck on the planes on the runway
Short History of……the Pyramds - the year that Cleopatra was born is closer to the completion of the Empire State Building than it is to the completion of the first pyramid
Bullseye - Nile Rodgers - “the song is just an excuse to get to the chorus, the chorus is just an excuse to get to the breakdown”
Short History of….The Panama Canal - there was a lot of sickness amoung the builders of the canal. There was a problem with ants in the hospitals. To stop the ants getting onto the patients’ beds, they stood the legs of the beds in bowls of water. This fixed that problem, but, sadly, the bowls of stagnant water were a bredding environment for mosquitos
Broken record - Susannah Hoffs - I did know that the Bangles hit Eternal Flame was inspired by the eternal flame memorializing Elvis at Graceland. I didnt know it was specifically inspired by the Bangles visiting Graceland at a time when the Eternal Flame had gone out.
A short history of….. Vlad the Impaler - an account of Vlad Dracula’s life said that he dipped his fingers in the blood of his executed enemies. This was mistranslated as dipping his bread into their blood, which gave rise to the idea that he consumed blood
The Rest is Entertainment - The Real Rich List - Marina says that the cosmetics industry got a boost during the pandemic from people seeing their own faces on Zoom and thinking they needed more cosmetics
That Reminds Me - Nerys Hughes - Nerys Hughes says that she’s played every female role in Under Milk Wood bar one. The play is set in a Welsh village called Llareggub, which is slightly rude backwards
History Extra - The Princes in the Tower: has the mystery been solved? - Philippa Langley, whose work helped to locate the bones of Richard III under a Leicester car park, discusses whether he had the Princes murdered
Witness History - Discovering the ancient city of Thonis-Heracleion - I’d not heard of this - a lost city, mentioned by Herodotus, that has been found 7km off the coast of Egypt
Revisionist History - This Is Your Captain Speaking - podcast about why all pilots sound similar. This reminded me of a relative who did announcements on the railways - his normal voice was completely different from his railway voice. More significantly, the podcast includes the original audio from the aeroplane that landed in the Hudson
The Rest is Entertainment - South Park vs Trump - I didn’t know that the CEO of Paramount was the son of Larry Ellison, who was CEO of Oracle
Shakespeare: Past Master | 1. Henry V History Extra podcast - Jerry Brotton says that the repeated references to Saint Crispen’s Day in the famous speech are an invocation of the working classes, Saint Crispen being the patron saint of shoemakers
How tickled I am - Arthur Askey - Askey was a scouser but had to get rid of his accent to get on in show business. He popularized the idea of Diddy Men, and jam butty mines before Ken Dodd picked them up. I’m not sure whether Askey invented these things, or whether they were part of Liverpool culture.
Talk â90s to me: Friends! Could a TV show be any more influential? - ‘Friends’ was originally going to be called ‘Couples’
The Rest Is Politics: Leading: 150. Nicola Sturgeon: What Really Happened In The Scottish Referendum (Part 2) - during the referendum campaign the ‘No’ campaign argued that Scots would no longer be able to watch EastEnders if they left the UK, and that they would not be able to be part of the European Union
KKPCW, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
I’ve started to get into the habit of shutting down my laptop properly when I finish for the day.
I didn’t do that last night, and coming back to it this morning felt vaguely grubby…like getting into an unmade bed
Pic by maxronnersjo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
I really enjoy this podcast. Armando Ianucci (The Thick of It, Veep, and the Death of Stalin) talks about political language
In this ep, though, he’s mystified by Kier Starmer’s imho accurate assessment of Farage as a ‘plastic patriot’.
The reason Armando is mystified is that, AFAIK, he doesn’t follow football, whereas Kier is a fan of Arse**al. ‘Plastic’ is a common insult in football. It implies that someone is not a ‘proper fan’, that they only turn up for big games, or that ‘they only sing when they’re winning’.
I’m not sure whether this means Starmer need to find different words for the Brexit boys
I heard someone on a podcast use the word ‘behemoth’ , and I realized that I didn’t really know what a behemoth was.
It turns out it’s from the Book of Job, although it reads like it’s from a fairy tale
Take now behemoth, whom I made as I did you; He eats grass, like the cattle. His strength is in his loins, His might in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stand up like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are like tubes of bronze, His limbs like iron rods. He is the first of Godâs works; Only his Maker can draw the sword against him. The mountains yield him produce, Where all the beasts of the field play. He lies down beneath the lotuses, In the cover of the swamp reeds. The lotuses embower him with shade; The willows of the brook surround him. He can restrain the river from its rushing; He is confident the stream will gush at his command. Can he be taken by his eyes? Can his nose be pierced by hooks? ââJob 40:15-24
The film poster below has the Behemoth as a ‘sea monster’. It’s traditionally very much a land monster, with Leviathan as a sea monster, and Ziz as a monster of the air. Great poster though.
Pic: Eros Films, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
It was bad luck for second goal, and bad luck taking off EstĂŞvĂŁo and then Palmer going off injured
Their tails are up, and our heads are down :(
â˝ #ChelseaFC #cfc
Patrick Kielty interviewing up and coming singer-songwriter Cammy Burns (?) on the radio
CB: People have started singing my songs back to me
PK : Wow, what does that feel like?
CB: I started crying my wee Scottish eyes out
I just heard Paddy Kielty on the radio use ‘Bo Peep’ as rhyming slang for sleep
In all the years I lived in London I don’t think I ever heard that. Not sure if that’s just me not noticing, or if it’s a new bit of slang
Natalie Haynes on science, art and the Muses
You need to read this from the top, but the last sentence is both true and funny
A second point to note is that the Muses for all their focus on the arts - are also involved in scientific endeavours. If you want to be a successful astronomer, it will be Ourania to whom you must appeal. The Muses have chosen to inspire scientists as well an artists. We’re so accustomed to a dialogue which pits these two areas of study against one another utility versus beauty and yet the Muses wouldn’t recognize this division. Why wouldn’t you want your scientific pursuits to be beautiful? And why wouldn’t you apply forensic accuracy to your dance or song? The distinction that only sciences are useful and only arts are spirit-enhancing is a nonsensical one. I couldn’t write much without scientists designing my computer. And some of them must want to read about Greek myth after a long day at work. These Muses always remind me that scientists and artists should disregard the idiotic attempts to separate us. We are all nerds, in the end.
Currently reading: Divine Might by Natalie Haynes đ
