From this wonderful 1993 interview youtu.be/n1rJD-Y-YeE?...
06.03.2026 12:01
👍 8
🔁 1
💬 0
📌 0
for World Book Day
Glasgow Pub Quiz, the final £1000 question is:
"Take That's first Album had a four word title. The first two words were, 'Take That' -- what was the full title?"
After a long pause the quiz team captain says, "Was it 'Take That Ya Bastard'?"
(Mike Kulezich)
Dirty Linen is now available to buy in the US. Here is a review by Geoffrey Cobb in the New York-based Irish Echo.
www.irishecho.com/2025/9/gut-w...
My copy of Silence by John Cage - the front cover and the blank spine.
After moving house I spent a long time searching for this. It turned up yesterday. Missed it I believe because the spine is blank... blank...
Concert pianists are notorious thieves: Citizen M knows
By the Ming dynasty, soldiers' beer cans around the Great Wall were creating a serious litter problem.
art: Lei Xue
The furore over the new Wuthering Heights film has brought old rivalries to the fore and in Haworth now, youth fights often break out among violent enthusiasts for the work of the different Brontës.
Here an Annite gang member brawls with a Charlottian.
Chingford has long been recognised as the natural home for English eschatologists.
'Wuthering Heights' the film has apparently launched a new round of Brontemania, which reminds me of this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAHR...
Thanks to Brian Groom for alerting me to the fact that today is the anniversary of John Wesley's death.
These extracts from his journal are remarkably like one of my book tours apart from the afternoon of June 2nd
Well, y'know, it's expected that poets should get all enthused about this season. Stuff grows, whoop-de-f***ing-doo.
The "Bookish Beck" blog likes "Dirt Rich" - you might like it too...
Blodeuwedd always made the coffee on St David's Day . . .
I need a bull's eye line for my new poem.
This is how my search for it is going.
The Repair Shop, Ireland
If two Irish people meet and they don't establish someone they both know and/or are related to within 45 seconds, this is what happens
'And now I'd like to share a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, who famously said "Je est un otter" . . .'
This is the level of commitment artists need to show in their own game if they are to be successful. I bow to the (partially) sober 1982 Offaly team and their manager Eugene for this heartfelt celebration of their (limited) sacrifice.
St Margaret of Antioch protected herself from the dragon in her cell by telling it ghost stories. It found these so frightening that she had to lend it a security blanket to fend off panic attacks.
🙏💙🤍
"I told you not to mention that there was going to be a poetry reading tonight!"
I was at the Brudenell Social Club often when he was a regular so possible. He will have been able to live a pretty quiet life in Leeds if that was important to him: artists can disappear here, like Joash Woodrow and John Riley. I'm such an old fart I knew nothing of Mr Doom till you posted. Thanks!
Thanks to @jntod.bsky.social for putting me on to this fascinating podcast series: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Enjoying this podcast. I was not expecting to hear MF Doom chatting to Clive Anderson, but it’s here c.12 mins www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
from Tit-Bits magazine (1892)
"Yes. I remember Adlestrop."
"I love this little guy (hic). So what if our bosses have fallen out -- must we slavishly follow their lead? Give peace a chance I say (hic)."
If you’d like to hear Maria Stepanova and me talk about The Disappearing Act you could sign up for this online conversation: 21 March 12pm EST / 5pm GMT brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2026-0...
The Morrígan, Irish war goddess, was particularly irritated by mansplaining on the battlefield.