This is exceptional - a clear take from 5 years ago on the malign forces that cohered to such effect this week.
A piece I wrote about the manufactured ‘impartiality’ panics that greeted Tim Davie’s arrival just over 5 years ago, when GB News was still a glint in Robbie Gibbs’ eye www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
William Davies · Short Cuts: Woke Conspiracies
A British equivalent of Fox News, wherever it may come from, would have its own distinctive character – less...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 11, 2025 at 8:41 AM
This is exceptional - a clear take from 5 years ago on the malign forces that cohered to such effect this week.
About 90% of Small Faces records are shoddy compliations, of course. But this was my first contact with them, age 16. It was a cassette. It was perfect.
November 10, 2025 at 5:02 PM
About 90% of Small Faces records are shoddy compliations, of course. But this was my first contact with them, age 16. It was a cassette. It was perfect.
If you see this, post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it.
November 8, 2025 at 10:10 AM
If you see this, post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it.
And so Aerial is 20. Here’s a thing I wrote as it turned 18, about what it felt like to first hear it on the cusp of parenthood, and reflect as my eldest son stood on the cusp of adulthood. Uncertainty, change, domestic life, choices. I love this record so much.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
On the edge of the labyrinth
Aerial by Kate Bush turned 18 late last year. It has a lot to tell us about how to live as a grown-up.
open.substack.com
November 8, 2025 at 9:32 AM
And so Aerial is 20. Here’s a thing I wrote as it turned 18, about what it felt like to first hear it on the cusp of parenthood, and reflect as my eldest son stood on the cusp of adulthood. Uncertainty, change, domestic life, choices. I love this record so much.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
Comma police, arrest this woman
God casting a vote for Mamdani felt so good.
November 4, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Comma police, arrest this woman
Aura, but nice. It’s a helluva combo.
November 4, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Aura, but nice. It’s a helluva combo.
Not sure why I’d never seen The Haunting before but it was an absolute treat for the Sunday night of Halloween weekend. Creepy, unsettling and ambiguous. Currently on iplayer.
November 3, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Not sure why I’d never seen The Haunting before but it was an absolute treat for the Sunday night of Halloween weekend. Creepy, unsettling and ambiguous. Currently on iplayer.
My word, this is an electrifying listen. On telling the story of civil rights, and how tragedy allows for optimism in the fight still to come. Brilliant. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...
Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope
Podcast Episode · Open Source with Christopher Lydon · 28/10/2025 · 53m
podcasts.apple.com
October 30, 2025 at 8:08 PM
My word, this is an electrifying listen. On telling the story of civil rights, and how tragedy allows for optimism in the fight still to come. Brilliant. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...
Chekov’s Gun only it’s a yellow card shown on Match Of The Day.
October 19, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Chekov’s Gun only it’s a yellow card shown on Match Of The Day.
A pre-weekend bump for this, a celebration of the joy and silliness and all-round artistic impulse of the Beta Band. Was so good to have them back…
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
Review: the Beta Band, O2 Academy - 'As playful and wilful as ever'
The band return for an emotional reunion 12 years after their split
www.bristol247.com
October 3, 2025 at 3:40 PM
A pre-weekend bump for this, a celebration of the joy and silliness and all-round artistic impulse of the Beta Band. Was so good to have them back…
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
Went to see the Beta Band for @bristol247.bsky.social the other night. Twenty years on they’re still a magical blend of the cerebral and the silly. Art as a form of play, and all a bit totes emosh, actually.
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
Review: the Beta Band, O2 Academy - 'As playful and wilful as ever'
The band return for an emotional reunion 12 years after their split
www.bristol247.com
October 2, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Went to see the Beta Band for @bristol247.bsky.social the other night. Twenty years on they’re still a magical blend of the cerebral and the silly. Art as a form of play, and all a bit totes emosh, actually.
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...
Favourite 10 TV comedies, in no particular order.
Cheers
Parks & Rec
The Day Today
Modern Family
Arrested Development
The Larry Sanders Show
Last Week Tonight
Fry & Laurie
Police Squad
Frasier
Cheers
Parks & Rec
The Day Today
Modern Family
Arrested Development
The Larry Sanders Show
Last Week Tonight
Fry & Laurie
Police Squad
Frasier
Favourite 10 TV comedies, in no particular order.
Cheers
The Phil Silvers Show
Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads
Porridge
First Ten Years Of The Simpsons
New Girl
30 Rock
Hancock
The Larry Sanders Show
Better Things
Cheers
The Phil Silvers Show
Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads
Porridge
First Ten Years Of The Simpsons
New Girl
30 Rock
Hancock
The Larry Sanders Show
Better Things
Favourite 10 TV comedies, in no particular order.
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
Hancock's Half Hour/Hancock
Community
The Day Today
First ten years of The Simpsons
How Do You Want Me?
The League of Gentlemen
Ever Decreasing Circles
Dad's Army until James Beck dies
Big Train S1
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
Hancock's Half Hour/Hancock
Community
The Day Today
First ten years of The Simpsons
How Do You Want Me?
The League of Gentlemen
Ever Decreasing Circles
Dad's Army until James Beck dies
Big Train S1
September 21, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Favourite 10 TV comedies, in no particular order.
Cheers
Parks & Rec
The Day Today
Modern Family
Arrested Development
The Larry Sanders Show
Last Week Tonight
Fry & Laurie
Police Squad
Frasier
Cheers
Parks & Rec
The Day Today
Modern Family
Arrested Development
The Larry Sanders Show
Last Week Tonight
Fry & Laurie
Police Squad
Frasier
In which I write about David Hare’s new play at the @theatreroyalbath.bsky.social starring Ralph Fiennes as Henry Irving. I think it asks what should theatre be, it made me wonder where it ends.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
Serving Irving
On Friday I saw David Hare's new play, Grace Pervades, starring Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison.
open.substack.com
July 17, 2025 at 7:38 AM
In which I write about David Hare’s new play at the @theatreroyalbath.bsky.social starring Ralph Fiennes as Henry Irving. I think it asks what should theatre be, it made me wonder where it ends.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
I don’t write about theatre very much because I don’t go to the theatre very much. But David Hare’s Grace Pervades has been buzzing round my head since I saw it on Friday.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
Serving Irving
On Friday I saw David Hare's new play, Grace Pervades, starring Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison.
open.substack.com
July 14, 2025 at 5:58 PM
I don’t write about theatre very much because I don’t go to the theatre very much. But David Hare’s Grace Pervades has been buzzing round my head since I saw it on Friday.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
#nowplaying
1974 Chet Baker. Look at that line-up. I think I was hoping Funk In Deep Freeze would cool me down, it only sounded more sultry. So good.
1974 Chet Baker. Look at that line-up. I think I was hoping Funk In Deep Freeze would cool me down, it only sounded more sultry. So good.
July 12, 2025 at 7:21 PM
#nowplaying
1974 Chet Baker. Look at that line-up. I think I was hoping Funk In Deep Freeze would cool me down, it only sounded more sultry. So good.
1974 Chet Baker. Look at that line-up. I think I was hoping Funk In Deep Freeze would cool me down, it only sounded more sultry. So good.
Reposted by James Caig
Goddamn, what a review.
FFC review: SUPERMAN (2025), by Walter Chaw (@mangiotto.bsky.social). filmfreakcentral.net/2025/07/supe...
Superman (2025) - FILM FREAK CENTRAL
****/****starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegiwritten and directed by James Gunn by Walter Chaw I’m in the bag for Superman, I admit it. I grew up in a small town, Go...
filmfreakcentral.net
July 10, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Goddamn, what a review.
What an insightful, enriching discussion @davidnaimon.bsky.social made happen with @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social. Free-flowing but precise, highly literary, and about the power of language to shape not just describe the world. A must-listen to go with a must-read.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
Robert Macfarlane : Is a River Alive?
Podcast Episode · Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry · 27/06/2025 · 2h 12m
podcasts.apple.com
July 6, 2025 at 2:57 PM
What an insightful, enriching discussion @davidnaimon.bsky.social made happen with @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social. Free-flowing but precise, highly literary, and about the power of language to shape not just describe the world. A must-listen to go with a must-read.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
Imagine not playing Columbia
July 5, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Imagine not playing Columbia
Delighted to note that the work taking place to remodel Overton Road here in N Bristol is moving along both slowly and imperceptibly. Fine satirical work, council.
June 23, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Delighted to note that the work taking place to remodel Overton Road here in N Bristol is moving along both slowly and imperceptibly. Fine satirical work, council.
Another bump for my piece on Sly and Brian. It’s about the role voices had within their respective sounds, and what that tells us about the vision each was trying realise.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
Listen to the voices
What made Brian and Sly unique.
open.substack.com
June 17, 2025 at 12:11 PM
Another bump for my piece on Sly and Brian. It’s about the role voices had within their respective sounds, and what that tells us about the vision each was trying realise.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
The cosmic symmetry of Brian and Sly and what set them apart. It’s all there in the voices. Purity vs freedom.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
Listen to the voices
What made Brian and Sly unique.
open.substack.com
June 15, 2025 at 10:56 AM
The cosmic symmetry of Brian and Sly and what set them apart. It’s all there in the voices. Purity vs freedom.
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...
open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...