David Belbin
@davidbelbin.bsky.social
Nottingham novelist. Poetry reader. Music nerd. Movie lover. From October 25-March 26, I'm publishing 'Greeneland' a serial novel set 100 years ago, covering Graham Greene's 4 months in Nottingham davidbelbin.substack.com. A dog, a job, a woman & a church.
Pinned
Greeneland | Substack
A serial novel set a hundred years ago when the author Graham Greene moved to Nottingham, where he trained to be a journalist, lived among the working classes, cared for a puppy, wooed the woman he lo...
davidbelbin.substack.com
Positively the last pre-publication plug for Greeneland, my serial novel about the critical four months Graham Greene spent in Nottingham - each chapter free: 100 years to the day after the events it describes. On Friday, I’ll publish the title page, epigraph and prologue.
davidbelbin.substack.com
davidbelbin.substack.com
My first short story was published in Ambit 36 years ago. They put 'Dave' on the story but 'David' on the cover. The realisation that just because everyone called me Dave didn't mean I had to go along with it & that David was taken more seriously got me to change the name on my debut novel's cover.
My dad got so sick of being called David when he was palpably a Dave that he changed his name - by deed poll - to “Dave”.
November 7, 2025 at 12:30 PM
My first short story was published in Ambit 36 years ago. They put 'Dave' on the story but 'David' on the cover. The realisation that just because everyone called me Dave didn't mean I had to go along with it & that David was taken more seriously got me to change the name on my debut novel's cover.
Reposted by David Belbin
Looking forward to this @serenbooks.bsky.social online event 18 November 7pm: An evening of poetry celebrating the publication of ‘Hôtel Amour’ by Deryn Rees-Jones @notjustdancing.bsky.social, with readings by Deryn and guests Menna Elfyn and Olivia McCannon. @pavilionpoetry.bsky.social
Poetry Book Launch | Hôtel Amour by Deryn Rees-Jones
Join us online for an evening of poetry celebrating publication of ‘Hôtel Amour’ by Deryn Rees-Jones.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
November 5, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Looking forward to this @serenbooks.bsky.social online event 18 November 7pm: An evening of poetry celebrating the publication of ‘Hôtel Amour’ by Deryn Rees-Jones @notjustdancing.bsky.social, with readings by Deryn and guests Menna Elfyn and Olivia McCannon. @pavilionpoetry.bsky.social
The prologue to my serial novel about Graham Greene in Nottingham 100 years ago, 'Greeneland', appeared today. There's still time to sign up & get it all delivered to your inbox, free over the next four months. Also, yes, I know that isn't how you spell Berkhamsted. open.substack.com/pub/davidbel...
GREENELAND
David Belbin
open.substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 8:02 PM
The prologue to my serial novel about Graham Greene in Nottingham 100 years ago, 'Greeneland', appeared today. There's still time to sign up & get it all delivered to your inbox, free over the next four months. Also, yes, I know that isn't how you spell Berkhamsted. open.substack.com/pub/davidbel...
Fascinating Neil Kinnock letter about Bob Worcester in today’s Guardian. Labour is misguidedly opposed to Electoral Reform but should know better. Under FPTP it lost the 1992 General Election by just 1,240 votes.
October 29, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Fascinating Neil Kinnock letter about Bob Worcester in today’s Guardian. Labour is misguidedly opposed to Electoral Reform but should know better. Under FPTP it lost the 1992 General Election by just 1,240 votes.
Jack DeJohnette drummed on so many of my favourite albums - with Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett amongst others. A genius of jazz. RIP.
Jack DeJohnette, just one of the deepest musicians ever, and a personal hero. Here is my obituary for NPR Music.
Jack DeJohnette, dynamic and instantly recognizable jazz drummer, dies at 83
Jack DeJohnette, of the most daring and singular jazz drummers of the last 60 years, died on Sunday.
www.npr.org
October 27, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Jack DeJohnette drummed on so many of my favourite albums - with Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett amongst others. A genius of jazz. RIP.
Positively the last pre-publication plug for Greeneland, my serial novel about the critical four months Graham Greene spent in Nottingham - each chapter free: 100 years to the day after the events it describes. On Friday, I’ll publish the title page, epigraph and prologue.
davidbelbin.substack.com
davidbelbin.substack.com
Greeneland | Substack
A serial novel set a hundred years ago when the author Graham Greene moved to Nottingham, where he trained to be a journalist, lived among the working classes, cared for a puppy, wooed the woman he lo...
davidbelbin.substack.com
October 25, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Positively the last pre-publication plug for Greeneland, my serial novel about the critical four months Graham Greene spent in Nottingham - each chapter free: 100 years to the day after the events it describes. On Friday, I’ll publish the title page, epigraph and prologue.
davidbelbin.substack.com
davidbelbin.substack.com
Public service announcement: the best ghost film so far this century, Alejandro Amenábar's sublime The Others, is on BBC4 & iPlayer next week. If you like ghost stories and haven't seen it before, I envy you.
October 23, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Public service announcement: the best ghost film so far this century, Alejandro Amenábar's sublime The Others, is on BBC4 & iPlayer next week. If you like ghost stories and haven't seen it before, I envy you.
Just seen a terrific production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf directed by Cara Nolan, at Curve studio in Leicester. Tremendous ensemble: colour blind casting. Cathy Tyson & Patrick Robinson never once making you think of Liz & Richard. Holds up as a classic. www.curveonline.co.uk/whats-on/sho...
October 22, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Just seen a terrific production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf directed by Cara Nolan, at Curve studio in Leicester. Tremendous ensemble: colour blind casting. Cathy Tyson & Patrick Robinson never once making you think of Liz & Richard. Holds up as a classic. www.curveonline.co.uk/whats-on/sho...
Trying to find a way to keep using Word without paying over 40% PA extra (increase due to AI, which I abhor, for obvious reasons). But the 'classic' compromise no longer seems to be available and the AI chatbot at Microshit will only offer me a £120 license that works on just one device. Any advice?
October 20, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Trying to find a way to keep using Word without paying over 40% PA extra (increase due to AI, which I abhor, for obvious reasons). But the 'classic' compromise no longer seems to be available and the AI chatbot at Microshit will only offer me a £120 license that works on just one device. Any advice?
'This is your brain on autocracy.' A poem from Tony Towle's new collection 'Late Sketches and Studies'. John Ashbery wrote, 'Tony Towle is one of the New York School's best-kept secrets'.
October 19, 2025 at 3:09 PM
'This is your brain on autocracy.' A poem from Tony Towle's new collection 'Late Sketches and Studies'. John Ashbery wrote, 'Tony Towle is one of the New York School's best-kept secrets'.
Reposted by David Belbin
Jalen Ngonda was all we hoped he’d be at Nottingham Rock City. Sweet soul with a brilliant falsetto, a cracking band and a warm, wonderfully diverse, adoring crowd. Go see.
October 17, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Jalen Ngonda was all we hoped he’d be at Nottingham Rock City. Sweet soul with a brilliant falsetto, a cracking band and a warm, wonderfully diverse, adoring crowd. Go see.
Reposted by David Belbin
John Lucas, the least online person I knew (never used email, or any other aspect of the internet), managed to leave an online archive of over 60 pieces for London Grip, which is a valuable resource for the sort of writers published by small presses. Lovely article. londongrip.co.uk/2025/10/john...
October 18, 2025 at 3:17 PM
John Lucas, the least online person I knew (never used email, or any other aspect of the internet), managed to leave an online archive of over 60 pieces for London Grip, which is a valuable resource for the sort of writers published by small presses. Lovely article. londongrip.co.uk/2025/10/john...
Reposted by David Belbin
I cannot recommend you enough to install the Wikipedia app on your devices and use it like you would any search engine. Nowadays they even have tabs so you can open many articles at once.
And, if you can, please donate to the foundation. It has survived the internet enshittification that way.
And, if you can, please donate to the foundation. It has survived the internet enshittification that way.
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 2:41 PM
I cannot recommend you enough to install the Wikipedia app on your devices and use it like you would any search engine. Nowadays they even have tabs so you can open many articles at once.
And, if you can, please donate to the foundation. It has survived the internet enshittification that way.
And, if you can, please donate to the foundation. It has survived the internet enshittification that way.
John Lucas, the least online person I knew (never used email, or any other aspect of the internet), managed to leave an online archive of over 60 pieces for London Grip, which is a valuable resource for the sort of writers published by small presses. Lovely article. londongrip.co.uk/2025/10/john...
October 18, 2025 at 3:17 PM
John Lucas, the least online person I knew (never used email, or any other aspect of the internet), managed to leave an online archive of over 60 pieces for London Grip, which is a valuable resource for the sort of writers published by small presses. Lovely article. londongrip.co.uk/2025/10/john...
Jalen Ngonda was all we hoped he’d be at Nottingham Rock City. Sweet soul with a brilliant falsetto, a cracking band and a warm, wonderfully diverse, adoring crowd. Go see.
October 17, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Jalen Ngonda was all we hoped he’d be at Nottingham Rock City. Sweet soul with a brilliant falsetto, a cracking band and a warm, wonderfully diverse, adoring crowd. Go see.
Reposted by David Belbin
Philip K. Dick’s wife Tessa is in desperate financial straits and struggling to keep her home. If you can donate anything at all to her GoFundMe it would be great. gofund.me/ee00d19de
Donate to Keep my home, Tessa Dick, organized by Tessa Dick
You've helped me to keep my home over the years, and I've had some repairs done that were badly ne… Tessa Dick needs your support for Keep my home, Tessa Dick
gofund.me
September 11, 2025 at 5:07 AM
Philip K. Dick’s wife Tessa is in desperate financial straits and struggling to keep her home. If you can donate anything at all to her GoFundMe it would be great. gofund.me/ee00d19de
Reposted by David Belbin
Charity shop jazz: a thing I haven't seen before. The owner has (I'm presuming) meticulously recorded each time he played the CD. Looks like he (and surely it's a 'he') got his money's worth.
October 15, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Charity shop jazz: a thing I haven't seen before. The owner has (I'm presuming) meticulously recorded each time he played the CD. Looks like he (and surely it's a 'he') got his money's worth.
Charity shop jazz: a thing I haven't seen before. The owner has (I'm presuming) meticulously recorded each time he played the CD. Looks like he (and surely it's a 'he') got his money's worth.
October 15, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Charity shop jazz: a thing I haven't seen before. The owner has (I'm presuming) meticulously recorded each time he played the CD. Looks like he (and surely it's a 'he') got his money's worth.
The Holy, Beat, and Crazy Next Thing. A signed Jack Kerouac episode from On The Road, written in London, was found in the estate sale of a 40-year dead, murdered mafia boss. You couldn't make it up (and Kerouac didn't, he only changed the names). Here's page one. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...
October 10, 2025 at 12:44 PM
The Holy, Beat, and Crazy Next Thing. A signed Jack Kerouac episode from On The Road, written in London, was found in the estate sale of a 40-year dead, murdered mafia boss. You couldn't make it up (and Kerouac didn't, he only changed the names). Here's page one. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...
Bloody hell but House of Dynamite is tremendous. In 1981, I used to show Dr Strangelove or Failsafe to public meetings for CND. Today, I’d show this 2 demonstrate how easily nuclear war could happen. On Netflix soon but really worth seeing on big screen. Props to Kathryn Bigelow for getting it made.
October 9, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Bloody hell but House of Dynamite is tremendous. In 1981, I used to show Dr Strangelove or Failsafe to public meetings for CND. Today, I’d show this 2 demonstrate how easily nuclear war could happen. On Netflix soon but really worth seeing on big screen. Props to Kathryn Bigelow for getting it made.
Salt Books is an excellent publisher who put out exciting books that most multi-nationals wouldn't go near. Think I've bought more @saltpublishing.com titles than any other Indie (bar the ones that publish me, anyway) Why not help them grow? gofund.me/f8293c76d
Donate to Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026, organized by Christopher Hamilton-Emery
Help Salt Publish Brilliant New Books in 2026
For twenty-… Christopher Hamilton-Emery needs your support for Keep Independent Publishing Alive – Support Salt Books 2026
gofund.me
October 7, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Salt Books is an excellent publisher who put out exciting books that most multi-nationals wouldn't go near. Think I've bought more @saltpublishing.com titles than any other Indie (bar the ones that publish me, anyway) Why not help them grow? gofund.me/f8293c76d
In which a 13 year old predicts the demise of Elvis while his 48 year older self writes 'Show Some Emotion was as important to me as Spiral Scratch and do you know what, it still is.' Me too, Marcello, me too.
Young Punctum blog update, and we get into 1977. The first month of it, anyway:
funthirty.blogspot.com/2025/09/janu...
funthirty.blogspot.com/2025/09/janu...
JANUARY 1977
I didn’t go into 1977 thinking this was going to be an auspicious year or for that matter anybody’s “year.” How could I have done? I was...
funthirty.blogspot.com
October 4, 2025 at 11:40 AM
In which a 13 year old predicts the demise of Elvis while his 48 year older self writes 'Show Some Emotion was as important to me as Spiral Scratch and do you know what, it still is.' Me too, Marcello, me too.
Reposted by David Belbin
Last Orders. A poem by my dear friend, John Lucas, published in 2000. John was a fine poet, professor, critic, novelist, cornet player and publisher. He died a few days ago, at 88. It's his poetry he'd most want us to remember him by, and we still have that. But oh how much I'll miss his friendship.
October 2, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Last Orders. A poem by my dear friend, John Lucas, published in 2000. John was a fine poet, professor, critic, novelist, cornet player and publisher. He died a few days ago, at 88. It's his poetry he'd most want us to remember him by, and we still have that. But oh how much I'll miss his friendship.
Last Orders. A poem by my dear friend, John Lucas, published in 2000. John was a fine poet, professor, critic, novelist, cornet player and publisher. He died a few days ago, at 88. It's his poetry he'd most want us to remember him by, and we still have that. But oh how much I'll miss his friendship.
October 2, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Last Orders. A poem by my dear friend, John Lucas, published in 2000. John was a fine poet, professor, critic, novelist, cornet player and publisher. He died a few days ago, at 88. It's his poetry he'd most want us to remember him by, and we still have that. But oh how much I'll miss his friendship.
Just finished this terrific two parter, and today learn that Chris Dreja, the original Yardbirds bassist (whose reunion version I saw perform and who very nearly joined the band that became Led Zeppelin), has died, aged 79, after a long illness. RIP.
The new episode of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is now up! This one looks at the formation of Led Zeppelin, and looks in detail at the inspirations behind the songs on their first album.
Song 180: “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin, Part Two — “Inspiration is What You Are to Me”
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a two-episode look at the song “Dazed a…
500songs.com
October 2, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Just finished this terrific two parter, and today learn that Chris Dreja, the original Yardbirds bassist (whose reunion version I saw perform and who very nearly joined the band that became Led Zeppelin), has died, aged 79, after a long illness. RIP.