Movie posters: The Untouchables, Point Break, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Firm.
I am the degenerate who doesn't do star ratings. Also, I've regressed to a teenage boy, apparently.
#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
If you're not buying an atlas today, you're doing World Book Day all wrong.
Really enjoying Edible Economics on BBC Sounds. Ha-Joon Chang's book tells the story of economics through memoir and meals. Fascinating to hear how food journeys - our now staple ingredients - are rooted in Africa, exploitation, and class. Worth a listen. 📚
#BookSky #AmReading
Drove home, realised the trees have their spring blossoms. Scrapped 20,000 words and started over.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMxR...
Think I'll go to the gym and practice running to the nuclear fall-out shelter (a mattress propped against a wall).
Found out a friend died, and even though we haven't spoken in years, it's knocked me sideways. She was a truly genuine person, a radiant human being with an amazing laugh and a wicked sense of humour, and so much love. The world was a better place while she was in it.
IP trends I've noticed via server logs, analytics, and security software - not just India ofc but one of a few countries / patterns that skew genuine stats. VPN blocking from personal use.
Personal experience and not US, but I've experienced a huge surge in bot and malicious activity from "Indian" IPs. And, ironically, using a VPN doesn't help me as a reader, because they too are increasingly blocked. On both sides, it's bad actors who make it harder for everyone.
That would be a relief, to honest. I like that Farewell is so astonishingly singular (or as I like to say, bonkers)!
I'll have to add the Mitchum version to my watch list. The cinematography of the earlier one will take some beating though.
You've added it now, but I've heard you can request series additions on Letterboxd, and they add them quite quickly. And while it may be one platform too many, Fable (usually for books) has a search function for TV / streaming series as well.
Watched Farewell, My Lovely for the first time and it's so eerily like a movie made in the '70s. It has a realism that even noir rarely nails.
boxd.it/d2KScf
The piece also notes, however that "there are legitimate debates to be had about immigration and crime," so at least we've established that...
I'm struck, as I feel I am more often lately, how this piece doesn't confront an AI agent provocateur about his deeply racist ideas. Instead it asks if he's concerned about racist reactions to his creations, and positions him as an artist eliciting reactions.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Just heard the first ice-cream van jingle of 2026, which means snow next week. It's 8 degrees, feels like 4, by the way!
🚨 Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor Arrested on 66th Birthday
A seminal moment for accountability. The King's brother is in custody and searches are being carried out at his Berkshire and Norfolk homes.
Wouldn't it just be easier for the UK government to just ban children from using the internet. Or just ban children. I'm not sure what the end goal is. It could be either at this point.
The book I was listening to on the BBC sounds app has, somewhat predictably, been removed with two episodes to go. I wouldn't mind but you can't run and read a paperback.
Thanks for the location note; always fascinating to compare the two.
Book cover: a vintage style photo of a young girl standing over a bicycle that's far too big for her.
"Over the years I did my best to win a prize; some wish to better the world and still scorn it. But I never succeeded; there's a formula, a secret, I don't know what, that people who have been to public school or Brownies seem to understand."
Jeanette Winterson,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
I just find it astonishing that someone has been "writing about Nigella for more than 20 years." The interest in Celebrity has somewhat passed me by, I expect.
Funnily enough I realise I self corrected in my post and wrote "try to" but the dedication does indeed say "try and," so I may have been similarly terrorised at a young age. The author was someone I knew at the time so I won't blab it here :D
Title page of Selected Poems by Roger McGough, signed with the author's name.
Black handwriting reads: Try and get further than this page. Best of luck.
Having a "clear out," i.e., looking in boxes and drifting away, and found some signed books. One by Roger McGough - who was lovely! - and the other, which reads "Try to get further than this page. Good luck." Reader, I didn't, but I've prized it nonetheless :)
Four film posters: Deliverance, Nuts in May, Murder my Sweet (a.k.a Farewell My Lovely), and Crossfire.
#LetterboxdFriday
#LastFourWatched
#Filmsky
There's been a crop of think pieces on immigration, and why the robber barons aren't to be trusted. But they're in the kinds of outlets read by people who already think this, and in words that don't speak to all. Feels like we're having distinct conversations that never meet in the middle.
So sorry to hear that John. Look after yourself.
Reading a call for submissions for an anthology, where the prompt for writers includes "the migration problem."
Lovely news: my short story is runner up in the Northern Broadsides + @arvonfoundation.bsky.social Winter Tales 2026 writing competition. Congrats to the winning story, recorded by Julie Hesmondhalgh! Listen here: www.northern-broadsides.co.uk/winter-tales...
#writers #writingcommunity #amwriting
Writers, have you read Sian Meades-Williams's piece on "The complicated business of writing prizes"? Like freelancing in general, writing competitions can be bit of a Wild West, with experiences varying wildly. Sian's piece is worth a read: substack.com/home/post/p-...
#AmWriting #Writers
There are two types of people: those who return the trolley to the trolley park, and those who spit out chewing gum and leave it in the little shelf of the treadmill in a communal gym.
