Jonathan Coe
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jonathancoe.bsky.social
Jonathan Coe
@jonathancoe.bsky.social
Writer. New novel is THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE. Previous titles include WHAT A CARVE UP!, THE ROTTERS' CLUB, MIDDLE ENGLAND, MR WILDER AND ME ...

https://linktr.ee/coelinks
Telegraph: This Christmas, there's only one way to save humanity - Keir Starmer must commit harakiri live on GB News.
December 21, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Craig Brown spends a whole page parodying the Telegraph in the current Private Eye but even he can't invent headlines as mad as the real ones.
It’s all so pathetic isn’t it
December 21, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Really enjoyed Nouvelle Vague. Much more than I enjoyed A bout de souffle, in fact.
December 17, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
Why can't immigrants who come to the UK integrate as well as this?
December 17, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Morons on X are salivating over the prospect of Trump destroying the BBC so that its role as state broadcaster can be taken over by - yes, GB News.

That would be the GB News that produces such great documentaries, drama, comedy, light entertainment, local radio, national radio ...
December 17, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
And now I find out that The Salt Path wasn't even published by a real penguin.
December 17, 2025 at 6:37 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
LAST ORDERS PLEASE!

You’ve got until Wednesday 17 December to order small prints, cards, wrap and slipmats for Christmas delivery.

www.gailmyerscough.co.uk
December 15, 2025 at 8:37 AM
I did love the adventures of Jupiter Jones and friends.

???
December 12, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Me talking about books in The Guardian. As usual, the piece is a bit more nuanced than the headline.
Jonathan Coe: ‘I was a Tory until I read Tony Benn’
The author on getting hooked on Flann O’Brien, reassessing Kingsley Amis, and why his grandfather was outraged by Watership Down
www.theguardian.com
December 12, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Word.
As to RVW, I couldn't care less whether he's a 'minor' (*) composer or not. His music touches the audience with an immediacy and an honesty which makes such adjectives irrelevant. It is "good" music - music pouring out from the soul of a good man.
December 11, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Hard to think of anywhere that shaped my musical and literary personality more strongly than Birmingham Central Library in the 1970s. Designed by John Madin in the Brutalist style, now sadly demolished. Great to see it being celebrated in these Christmas cards by @gailmyerscough.co.uk
Birmingham Central Library Christmas card - pack of four | Gail Myerscough
Send some brutalist festive cheer with our pack of four Birmingham Central Library Christmas cards.
www.gailmyerscough.co.uk
December 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Lots of resonances for me in this long essay on (mainly) British comedy. Very much looking forward to the novel itself.
December 10, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Fancy a bit of Greek sunshine in your life this December?

Cheaper than flying to Crete, the e-book of my novel Mr Wilder and Me is currently 99p on both Amazon and @bookshop.org.

Here's the Bookshop link (buying from them gives support to indie booksellers.).
Mr Wilder and Me: A sun-soaked historical coming-of-age set behind the scenes of a Hollywood film production
A sun-soaked historical coming-of-age set behind the scenes of a Hollywood film production
uk.bookshop.org
December 9, 2025 at 12:01 PM
I only ever had one Rupert annual - this one. (I was five.) Extraordinary to see this again - one of the key visual memories of my childhood.
The remarkable end-papers for 1966’s Rupert Annual, by Alfred Bestall.
December 8, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
The calls from America this weekend to "abolish the EU" are for one simple reason: the EU is the only thing that can keep European nation-states from becoming Russian or American vassals.
The US has declared rhetorical war on the EU
The calls from America this weekend to destroy the EU are revealing. They hate the union because it's the only thing that can keep European countries from being Russian or American vassals.
davekeating.substack.com
December 8, 2025 at 8:05 AM
I assumed that by now I knew all the good music from my formative years, but I was alerted to this song yesterday by this must-follow account, and it turns out to have one of the all-time great riffs.
December 8, 2025 at 11:45 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
The EU discourse is perfect because there's something in it for everyone. First of all, the European Union genuinely does have a lot of problems. But more importantly, a lot of people hate it for largely unrelated and often contradictory reasons. It's a great enemy
December 8, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
December 7, 2025 at 1:18 PM
RIP the great Martin Parr
December 7, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
Happy to see a character in The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe agreeing with me on “cosy crime.”
@jonathancoe.bsky.social
December 2, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Don't think I can remember a Bafta awards season where so many of the films are adaptations of recent British literary sources. There's a Deborah Levy, a Jim Crace, a Maggie O'Farrell, a Kazuo Ishiguro, an Adam Mars-Jones, a Helen MacDonald (@hjm.bsky.social) and two (!) Max Porters.
December 1, 2025 at 9:18 AM
This is brilliant. An amazing - if confusing - album begets an amazing - if confusing - review.
Charles Shaar Murray's review of 10cc's "The Original Soundtrack" is one for the ages. He's... confused by it. I do like the line "The trouble with 10cc is their sweet songs are all booby-trapped".
November 27, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Anyone enjoying the current re-runs of vintage Call My Bluff on BBC Four might like to check out the show's cameo appearance ten minutes into this barking mad NF Simpson parody. I remember watching this in 1973 and being flabbergasted.
Elementary My Dear Watson (1973)
YouTube video by TV Gold
www.youtube.com
November 25, 2025 at 9:46 AM
The excellent @birminghamdispatch.bsky.social (which has done such great reporting on the flag epidemic over the last few months) delivers the goods again today with this deep dive into the Midlands mythology of Penda's Fen.
Penda’s Fen reinvents Mercia for the modern age
How an experimental British 1970s television play pioneered a folk horror revival
www.birminghamdispatch.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Is the Telegraph finally acknowledging that Thatcher wrecked British society?
November 14, 2025 at 10:42 AM