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MACCA GOES WEIRD! Join me on BBC 6Music’s The Freakzone Playlist at midnight, 6th August. I’ve selected plenty of Paul McCartney’s stranger things. Giddy for this to air. Reposts appreciated. Tune in, Paul! @reaktionbooks.bsky.social @stuartmaconie.bsky.social #6Music #PaulMcCartney

I’ve got that bloody B.A. Robertson song stuck in my head now.

‘And cynics will marvel and say, 'we confess, There were times when we thought it was just an address.'’ Some of my favourite Paddy lyrics in that song.

If I had to pick one out I reckon it’s Under the Volcano for me. Both All the Devils Are Here and the Stephen Fry De Profundis episodes both come immediately to mind too. But then yes there’s the Patrick Hamilton one, oh and there’s….

Ha! Jammy gits..

We have a similar plan! Just haven’t worked out how to afford it yet..

Cadaqués! My favourite place.

In Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, the priest and the mayor, on their road trip, park up their ancient SEAT 600 each lunchtime and picnic on the finest manchego cheese and wine.

Yes! Well put. One of my favourite novels.

The New York skyline before curtain wall glass skyscrapers.

The Doors. Because some pricks I knew briefly 40 years ago wanged on about Jim Morrison’s poetic brilliance. And Leonard Cohen come to that. I realise I’m the one missing out but I still can’t go there.

I can see why Americans like this stuff, high-fiving novelty, “awesome job” and all that, but surely we piss taking Brits won’t tolerate such bollocks? Please let them end up in ditches, or upped on their backs like stuck sheep, corralled by traffic cones, graffitied beyond use and recognition.

Oh Margo. I adore that photograph. Wonderful Penelope Keith. I for one am not happy about the past receding like this. RIP.

Fly the angel sleeves of your hostess dress at half mast, dim the standard lamps of all suburbia and please be seated at the telephone table to make the gossipiest call you can from a landline in memoriam💙

From Philip Larkin’s ‘Cut Grass’, one of my favourite poems: ‘Lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace, And that high-builded cloud Moving at summer's pace.’

Cheers!

Yep, wonderful stuff.