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Diane Abbott here speaking at a Stop Some Wars rally, calling Putin's continuing brutal war against Ukraine "the NATO campaign against Russia". FFS. youtu.be/SMBjoiMskxA?...

Diane Abbott MPYouTube video by StoptheWarCoalitionyoutu.be

Friday evening enlivened by Elastica posting "we're back" on their instagram. Two of my favourite albums of all time, and The Menace is a much-neglected absolute banger. Fingers crossed! thequietus.com/news/elastic...

Elastica to Return? | The QuietusElastica have suggested that there is to be some future activity in a cryptic post on their Instagram today, 31 July. Underneath an old photograph of the band they wrote “Missed us? We’ve been busy be...thequietus.com

V good by @monsterbobby.bsky.social on failure of NFT distribution and the "flash-in-the-pan technologies dangled with the promise to ‘save’ music through one neat technological trick" that have dominated music festival discourse programmes over the past decade: . artreview.com/the-blockcha...

The Blockchain Fantasy is DyingSoundCloud’s recently announced acquisition of NFT music platform Nina Protocol sounds the death knell for the illusion of tech’s utopianism in the artsartreview.com

Vive La France! Sous le 18th hole, la forêt!”

Yet another reason to abolish private schools and rewild / build on the excessive number of golf courses in the UK www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘It’s alright for them’: private schools and golf courses stay green despite England’s hosepipe bansAs parks turn brown and paddling pools go unfilled, exemptions mean sports pitches can stay lush – even in school holidayswww.theguardian.com

LNER clerk, bank clerk, typist/dinner lady, housewife.

Those in the North keep posting on here or telling me on WhatsApp that it's raining. Oh sweet envy, you deadliest of sins! A few mm were forecast for E4 next Tuesday, but alas diminishing all the time. London really is horrible in this weather, 20,000 streets crusted with dried dog & fox urine.

In this hot weather the outlines of the prefabs built for families bombed out in the war are visible in the park grass. Also, Humphrey’s cafe, home of the one quid tea, is in the last remaining building from the prefab complex

Went to the allotment to dig up the first radish for Monty

More superb reporting on the state of things by @timburrows.bsky.social, who always manages to connect with the complexities of a place and the the people who live there, and why they think and act as they do: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

‘Farage’s got to come clean or clear off’: what voters on Clacton beach think about their MP – and the countryNigel Farage’s constituency takes in genteel resorts and one of England’s poorest villages. With a snap byelection approaching, what do the residents want from the Reform UK leader – or the bin who’s ...www.theguardian.com

30 years ago today Suede released Trash. I went into town to buy it on cassette from Our Price. Sexuality, small town ennui, at odds with lad culture – Suede spoke to me in a way that nobody had before & changed my life. Everything I've done since comes from this 🖤 www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PdK...

Suede - Trash (Official Video)YouTube video by Suede HQwww.youtube.com

Yes! A huge swarm of them outside (and then inside) our kitchen this evening, thought something must have died but no whiff of it

As a writer and editor who has spent years learning and working incredibly hard for no and then not exactly much fiscal recompense I really resent this "oh AI just improves what I do, it's great" crap when it comes to text. If you don't have the skill, why should you be able to cheat to gain it?

Fascinating, these comedians who turn out to be wronguns, and for whom the genius of their characters – Fawlty, Father Ted – feels like a repression of their true instincts emerging in bleak but brilliant comedy, but then at some point they break and you just get the boring, bitter version

Like @harrysword.bsky.social, I love the andouillette, even if the smell is reminiscent of being stuck behind a tractor hauling a muck spreader in autumn. He’s written a superb ode to this most particular sausage & why he was a fool to have one sent from France: open.substack.com/pub/harryswo...

The Andouillette Does Not TravelMisadventures with a sausage.open.substack.com

Sad news about Bill Oddie, one of those figures who was always present throughout the 80s/90s childhood, firstly with his binoculars and later, winding up Alan Partridge www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Bill Oddie, naturalist and broadcaster, dies aged 85Coming to fame in The Goodies, Oddie was later known for his wildlife expertise and presented BBC Springwatchwww.theguardian.com

This is glorious: it is 1961, and a Frenchman is in Southend to report on local customs. He patiently enquires about plans for lunch, is perplexed by candyfloss, and is unfailingly polite until his final, brutal, damning verdict. via @timburrows.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRab...

1961: A Frenchman Explores SouthendYouTube video by Frontline by ITNwww.youtube.com

Maybe quite nice crackers but Branston’s pickle is a crime against chutney and “wooden spreader” sounds both perverted and very unhealthy

One of my favourite Jonathan Meades is Severn Heaven, in which he visits the plotland outside Bewdley - a haphazard development of old railway carriages etc. *finally* got to travel through it on the Severn Valley Railway today & happy to see some of the original structures remaining

Drop a crush from your youth* *bisexual edition, you get two, I don't make the rules