Профиль

Yes! You know what’s coming and yet your hairs still stand on end when he finally plays the hook!

And the Guangzhou performance of Careless Whisper. 😍

Just so many threads to it: the band; the tabloid press; Lindsay Anderson and the original documentary team; the mixture of cynicism and intrigue that informed the decision to play China; the cultural diplomacy; the impact on Chinese youth; the real focus on breaking the US.

Ok, so WHAM! 10 Days in China is brilliant.

ICYMI: My piece on Ian Fleming’s The Living Daylights, the ambiguities of the Cold War, professionalism and hierarchy in the intelligence services, and the masculinity and misogyny of James Bond. All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated. x

ICYMI: My piece on Ian Fleming’s The Living Daylights, the ambiguities of the Cold War, professionalism and hierarchy in the intelligence services, and the masculinity and misogyny of James Bond. All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated. x

Good luck, Marie - I really hope it works out well for you. x

I’m planning to go and see the film this week!

I thought this what Cyprus and Malta were for.

July's blog post is now up: ‘Popular “football music” of our time’, inspired by a chance discovery in the loft, the FIFA men's World Cup, and the sad news of Kevin Keegan's death #football #music #nostalgia #worldcup #thistime martinpolley.co.uk/2026/07/27/2...

New blog post! #20booksofsummer continues with three different sets if novels: a satire on our obsession with romance & sex, a biography of one of the world's most prolific art thieves, and a feminist SF classic from 1975 drlauratisdall.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/2... #20bos2026 #booksky

Had a really weird dream that a local Conservative party dressed mice up as people to canvass on their behalf for the council elections, but that the campaign video they made was ruined because the mice chewed through the tape.

Live from Philly, where both LeBron & I took our talents this week (although I'm headed back to Boston later today), here’s my 286th #ScholarSunday thread of great writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share widely, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ +

Miraculous and unexpected levels of calm.

Outrageous that it’s free for kids to travel on Transport for London services but I just had to spend TWENTY THREE POUNDS to get my three National Rail return tickets to central London. Andy Burnham says he wants a Britain in which no one‘s left behind. At £23 he’s lucky I didn‘t leave them behind.

This is fascinating, especially as I’ve recently being looking at Blair’s choice of Ivanhoe as the book he’d take with him to a desert island (which prompted pretty extensive comment).

Private Eye tells me that How Green Was My Valley is one of Andy Burnham’s favourite books. Oh dear. I write a PhD on 1930s Welsh mining novels, including a whole chapter on Llewellyn’s work. I even read the terrible sequels. It really, really isn’t a story of working-class solidarity etc.

That’s not their name

It forms part of a wider body of research I've been doing into Ugandan Asian narratives of expulsion and resettlement; you can read some of my other posts on that topic here.

This is the follow-up to my piece on how Govindia - ex-leader of the party's flagship Wandsworth council - reflected on Asian life in and expulsion from Uganda; I'll be completing the trilogy soon with a piece on what his career tells us about the history of British Conservatism since the 1970s.