I hope Newcastle hang on. From what I’ve seen they’ve been much the better team.
It’ll be revenge for ‘74 😃
#LivNew
I’ve seen Russ Noble a couple of times and I think he’s a genius. I can imagine this happening at one of his shows
What is the strangest thing that has happened at one of your live shows?
At one show, there was a guy in the audience who was my doppelganger, so I was chatting to him. It was a sold-out theatre, so there were no empty seats at all. His friend, who was sat next to him, drunkenly got up and staggered out to the toilet. So I gave the guy who looked like me one of my shirts from backstage – we dressed him like me and he stood on the stage while I sat in his drunk friend’s seat in the audience. I kept performing into the mike, while this guy mimed and walked around like me on stage.
So the drunk guy came back and looked up at the stage. He hadn’t clocked it was his friend up there. Eventually he came over, looked down and saw me sitting in his seat. His head exploded.
I love pictorial maps
This was in a hotel room. It’s by a chap called Justin Eagleton. His website is here:
I just finished Zero Day. There are good things in it, but it felt like there was a simple story but then they threw in X, and Y, then a bit of Z until it was a bit like one of my less successful chillis. YMMV.
My words or the day from 2015 to 2022, from absurd to yonder
ILike a poor man’s Suzie Dent I used to post a ‘word of the day’ on Twitter. They were words I liked the sound of, or the meaning of, or words that just kept popping up in my brain
I’ve just now cobbled together some powershell commands to pull stuff out of my downloaded Twitter archive. This list is the first fruit of that dubious achievement 😃
- ramshackle
- skullduggery
- mawkish
- rigmarole
- discombobulate
- happenstance
- skedaddle
- gush
- ruffled
- amok
- chortle
- edible
- reverberate
- shuck
- musty
- impinge
- bosky
- dawdle
- curdle
- staunch
- wobbulator
- rigmarole
- rambunctious
- the vig
- higgledy-piggledy
- Laggards
- haunch
- gizzard
- shtick
- tatterdemalion
- interstitial
- skulduggery
- hugger-mugger
- scamper
- ruffian
- genial
- bramble
- truffle
- hankering
- scrimp
- absurd
- flounce
- flummox
- extrusion
- scramble
- pestle
- rancid
- scrofulous
- saunter
- wondrous
- befuddled
- spud
- machinate
- resonate
- gratitude
- scruple
- besmirch
- tardy
- slumber
- dimple
- bustle
- befuddled
- sinister
- husky
- razzmatazz
- tingle
- crepuscular
- gesticulate
- frazzled
- tamp
- grapple
- truckle
- rigmarole
- amicable
- gargle
- griddle
- gusty
- modicum
- miscreant
- dumpling
- liniment
- chevron
- snigger
- merge
- wrought
- gumption
- rabble
- ponder
- maritime
- surge
- meander
- blustery
- bliss
- rowdy
- pith
- damp
- machination
- chirpy
- engrossed
- ocelot
- frisson
- triumph
- drench
- griddle
- shudder
- quandary
- gloop
- ping
- furlong
- squirm
- reverie
- camaraderie
- lunge
- patter
- jaunty
- trundle
- linnet
- agog
- flounce
- brisk
- froth
- tinge
- lagoon
- curdle
- fizzle
- glee
- burst
- finagle
- pernickety
- stipple
- miscreant
- flummox
- tumble
- mellifluous
- stooge
- wry
- precipitate
- hirsute
- rascal
- wistful
- manky
- chaff
- skittle
- quench
- nuzzle
- ineffable
- poodle
- vestibule
- mishmash
- twelve
- chivvy
- snooze
- flannel
- giggle
- gusty
- parish
- vanquish
- startle
- muffle
- mischief
- pebble
- roughage
- jibber-jabber
- gabardine
- perspicacious
- munch
- quandary
- crumble
- reckon
- .
- merriment
- slobber
- musket
- mumble
- ragwort
- resurgence
- glimmer
- turnbuckle
- perch
- halcyon
- drizzle
- ethereal
- curdle
- shoestring
- bungalow
- skittish
- dream
- kelp
- reverberate
- mitigate
- miscreant
- jittery
- gleam
- shimmer
- convivial
- marmalize
- groove
- ochre
- swelter
- skirmish
- oblivious
- sprinkle
- moreish
- hankering
- pundit
- amok
- happen
- mulch
- flutter
- brunt
- sprightly
- happenstance
- baffled
- prattle
- crumple
- scatter
- sinew
- cherub
- abundant
- autumnal
- bedraggled
- fisticuffs
- trickle
- jaded
- crinkle
- lucid
- melody
- dozen
- muffle
- expunge
- rubble
- mirage
- cribbage
- palaver
- corroborate
- scrawny
- jot
- heft
- crepuscular
- digit
- scruffy
- embroiled
- guttering
- smudge
- rummage
- ado
- balustrade
- cattle
- stubble
- askance
- wanton
- jostle
- capacious
- scamper
- adamant
- frost
- purloin
- crackle
- tinsel
- kindling
- dunk
- mariner
- gist
- mollusc
- growl
- chirpy
- exuberant
- mumble
- creosote
- gesticulate
- hocus-pocus
- sprout
- satsuma
- stroll
- schism
- skew
- trickle
- ditto
- scrimmage
- middling
- epitome
- tabernacle
- spruce
- rickety
- mooch
- mishmash
- tomfoolery
- diffident
- twill
- crumple
- febrile
- chrysalis
- styptic
- griddle
- machinate
- swarthy
- wrinkle
- ceramic
- chipper
- antiquity
- stirrup
- thistle
- sanguine
- rife
- sprinkle
- pithy
- frothy
- nebulous
- truckle
- resin
- mulch
- hunkering
- batten
- codger
- shiplap
- fricative
- blossom
- desultory
- grinning
- skint
- valve
- behest
- parish
- filibuster
- dazzling
- snout
- malleable
- daub
- jettison
- tumultuous
- sombre
- nincompoop
- hillock
- grizzled
- chuffed
- stockade
- hue
- outwith
- jovial
- glitch
- mulch
- drizzle
- myriad
- flange
- fiddlesticks
- divot
- russet
- gravel
- albeit
- dunk
- totter
- Blighty
- guttural
- slumber
- foible
- cusp
- jettison
- effervescent
- yonder
- trot
- simmer
- clavicle
- behest
- manifest
- stickler
- fickle
- calypso
- tingle
- stove
- temper
- incorrigible
- peregrine
- bickering
- smidgen
- musty
- vestibule
- tryst
- glitch
- drowsy
- aghast
- luminous
- divulge
- shimmering
- mull
- cadge
- stanchion
- cleft
- hubbub
- tryst
- stymied
- combustion
- squat
- squabble
- festoon
- resplendent
- raddled
- natterjack
- swelter
- gormless
- schmuck
- toggle
- scamper
- giggle
- wallop
- balustrade
- sparrow
- lilting
- sniff
- hustings
- slake
- parsnip
- raddled
- nobbled
- paraphernalia
- hankering
- sizzle
- fricative
- smattering
- scant
- warble
- qualm
- buddy
- heft
- waif
- dromedary
- batten
- froth
- conkers
- gladden
- ribbon
- purport
- dithering
- scurry
- fume
- knuckles
- autumnal
- turmoil
- slouching
- wreak
- foist
- follicle
- raucous
- speckled
- tustle
- gabardine
- commensurate
- paradiddle
- muffle
- chilly
- piffle
- harbinger
- bangle
- gantry
- caper
- saunter
- vacillate
- tardy
- banjaxed
- hoik
- minion
- tousled
- nostrils
- amalgamate
- garnish
- skiff
- tad
- declamatory
- plinth
- rumbustious
- stucco
- strum
- hush
- bubble
- plangent
- rankle
- lustre
- mulled
- tinsel
- ponderous
- footfall
- tidings
- swaddling
- eggnog
- myrrh
the most incisive pass so far has been a ricochet. ⚽ #CfcCph #ChelseaFC
I’ve got A Big Run coming up
I couldn’t represent Wiltshire, as a runner, nor Salisbury.
Nor even my end of our road
…..but I could carbo-load for England
I just heard an old parody of this old advert
With due respect to Proust and his cakes…there is no more powerful blast of nostalgia than old TV adverts, especially, as in this case, for a company for which you used to work
I’m watching Robert de Niro in ‘Zero Day’s
I’m hoping it’s going to make patching servers seem really, really glamoyand cool 😃
I’m having one of those mornings when the typo’s are outnumbering the non-typo’s
The coolest pop star on the planet is on Desert Island Discs atm
There’s nothing as good as a good night at the theatre. There’s also nothing as bad as a bad night at the theatre.
Last night for me was the latter
However, everyone else was enjoying it, so it wasn’t the theatre, it was me.
There’s a young chap started for Chelsea tonight who’s 40-odd years younger than me
I think my chance of being a professional footballer has probably gone
⚽ #ChelseaFC #CphChe
I passed lots of kids on their way to school this morning, and they were all dressed up for World Book Day.
I feel like I should have made the effort really.
Finished reading: Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers 📚
I enjoyed this, but I shouldnt have done it as an audiobook. The sound was a bit muddy, and there was a seemingly interminable section about wills which I’d have skimmed in print
20 years ago I lived in a road called India Avenue. At the end of the road was another called Christie Miller Road. Both were normal roads. Kids, old people, postmen, my mum’s hairdresser.
7 years ago Vladimir Putin had someone smear Novichok on a door handle in Christie Miller Road
5 days ago President Trump said he can trust Putin
I think he’s wrong
I’m not doing much politics on here but I can’t resist a good #PoliticalMetaphorOfTheWeek
“A second revealing element was Vance’s role. Many noticed just how bellicose he was in the Zelensky meeting, playing a combined Crabbe and Goyle to Trump’s ageing Malfoy”
Substack - Lewis Goodall - Starmer says Trump is a reliable ally. The problem is nobody believes him
Finished reading: Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris 📚
Enjoyed this a lot, although I’m always a bit frustrated by the gap between the history and the fiction in historical fiction.
Podcast episodes that I enjoyed in February - Micky Flanagan, moshing, Independence Day UK, the best single of all time, Dylan, Comic Relief, Jay-Z, Ken Dodd, Chaplin, Mengele, New Order, Flat Earth, Hattie Jacques etc
BBC - Micky Flanagan: What Chance Change? - episode 1, the 1970s - Micky Flanagan talking about class. He talks to a sociologist (I think) who says something like ‘school is an interruption to working class culture’
Decoder Ring - What’s Really Going On Inside a Mosh Pit? The etiquette, science, and enduring appeal of a concertgoing ritual - the word ‘mosh’ possibly derives from someone mishearing Bad Brains saying ‘mash it down’
BBC - Independence Day UK - this is something of a curiosity. A 1996 “audio drama ‘midquel’ of the film Independence Day”. It’s fun to listen to both for the story, and to hear the radio personalities and sounds of the time
Word in your Ear - Alexis Petridis - esteemed music critic Alexis Petridis says that Steppin' Out by Joe Jackson is the best single of all time. I can’t see it myself.
Word in Your Ear discussing ‘Pledging My Time - Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members’ with author Ray Padgett - Bob Dylan is asked why he signs autographs left-handed. Answers “if I signed right-handed they’d analyze my handwriting and find out all about me”
BBC - Whats so funny about….Comic Relief - the highest rate of donation during Comic Relief isn’t when the comedians are on, it’s when there’s a musical interlude. I guess people can more easily listen to music and donate at the same time. The highest ever rate of donation was while Adele sung Somebody Like You
‘Fresh Air’ celebrates 50 years of hip-hop: Jay-Z - I like to hear successful people crediting their school teachers, both because its good that teachers get a bit of credit, and because it implicitly recognizes the luck involved in the person’s success. The happenstance of the right person having the right teacher at the right time. Here Jay-Z recognizes the impact that his English teacher, Miss Lowden, had on his life.
Sodajerker on Songwriting - Keven Rowland - the main guy from Dexys Midnight Runners talking about songs. He says he writes down the point he’s trying to get across at the bottom of the page before he writes the words for a song.
Revisionist History Guns Part 1: The Sudden Celebrity of Sir John Knight - part of the reason that Americans have guns is because, in 1686, a guy called Sir John Knight took his gun to a church in Bristol, although he seems to have left it at the door. On the podcast they say it’s a Common Law thing.
BBC Mastertapes - Paul McCartney - McCartney says part of the attraction of relocating to Kintyre was that it made it impossible for him to get to business meetings arising from the breakup of the Beatles
How Tickled Am I? - Ken Dodd - BBC - I regret not going to see Ken Dodd. At the time of typing this show isn’t available…but hopefully it will reappear at some stage
Dan Snow’s History Hit - Charlie Chaplin - Chaplin had his first real success as a ‘drunk act’. He sat in a box in the theatre and interrupted and interacted with the performers. His biographer, Paul Duncan, compares it to the old guys, Waldorf and Statler, in the Muppets
On the trail of a Nazi war criminal - History Extra podcast - Josef Mengele was, for a time, listed under his real name in the phone book in the Argentine town in which he lived
BBC book club - Philip Pullman - Northern Lights - I’d either forgotten, or I never knew, that the title of Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy comes from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. “Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,”
Will Hodgkinson on 70s Singalong Pop - Word in your Ear - Middle of the Road, who had hits with Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and Soley Soley, were for a time Sophia Loren’s backing band. The story goes that she started listening to their music after going to complain about the noise
Midnight Meets - Stephen Morris - “[Blue Monday] was great for DJ’s because it was so long they could put it on, then go to the toilet. So it worked on many levels”
Little Atoms 847 - Anna Funder’s Wifedom - interesting and persuasive suggestion that Animal Farm was, to a greater or lesser extent, a joint work by Orwell and Eileen O’Shaughnessy
Did our ancestors really think the world was flat? History Extra with James Hannam - Aristotle proved the earth was shaped like a ball, not like a disc, or any other flat thing
BBC Great Lives - Sophie Scott on Hattie Jacques - Hattie Jacques was nicknamed ‘Hattie’ either because she liked hats, or because in blackface she was supposed to resemble Hattie McDowell
Full Disclosure - Polly Toynbee - Ms Toynbee says something like “Ever since Ancient Greece people have been in love with the idea of democracy, but they have despised the people that do it”
Word in your ear - Robbie Robertson, Billy Connolly, Bridge Over Troubled Water and the “fake history” of Punk - Michael Parkinson’s last interview with Muhammad Ali didn’t go well. Parkinson’s dad was a big fan of Ali, and agreed it was a poor interview. Parkinson asks his father what he thinks he should have done differently….“you should’ve thumped him”
There’s more, much, more at
In a week of controversy, I hesitate to post this in case it sparks a pineapple-on-pizza level of division and rancour.
Chilli is better with broccoli in it
