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mattleys.bsky.social
Matt Leys
@mattleys.bsky.social
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mattleys.bsky.social
Matt Leys @mattleys.bsky.social · 19d
Episode 1. A stolen gong, a dead cockapoo and a cutout of Dirk Bogarde. If you like your comedy silly and full of jokes, step inside...

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Reposted by Matt Leys
rembrandtrijn.bsky.social
Self-Portrait https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2021672/resource_document_mauritshuis_840.html?utm_source=api&utm_medium=api&utm_campaign=j4AoMQNzp
No seventeenth-century artist made as many self-portraits as Rembrandt did. This self-portrait dates from 1669, the year Rembrandt died, so it may be the last he painted. The expressive freedom of style shows that Rembrandt was certainly not exhausted at the end of his life. The way he painted the face with strong brushstrokes is remarkable. With thick layers of paint that are almost modelled, Rembrandt suggests a man of flesh and blood. This is a true masterpiece.
November 11, 2025 at 6:46 PM
mattleys.bsky.social
Getting blocked a lot today, presumably because I criticised St Jolyon
November 11, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Matt Leys
mutablejoe.bsky.social
barista: can i take your name
james bond: the name's bond
barista: ok
james bond: james bond
barista: well i've written bond now
james bond: it's ok don't
barista: i can get a new cup
james bond: no it's fine
barista: it's not a problem
james bond: just go with bond
November 11, 2025 at 3:49 PM
mattleys.bsky.social
'Word of mouth' coming in last place is objectively funny
robfordmancs.bsky.social Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 7h
Finally, a bit of a reality check from our 2024 election book (out soon!) for everyone hyperventilating about collapsing public trust in the BBC - free to air TV (mostly the BBC) is still the most widely consumed and widely trusted source of news - blows print, online & social media out of the water
November 11, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Reposted by Matt Leys
rsmythfreelance.bsky.social
ooh get her
November 11, 2025 at 9:07 AM
mattleys.bsky.social
A thread in which my "Fuck off" got louder with every post
goodlawproject.org Jolyon Maugham KC @goodlawproject.org · 12h
Revealing division in my timeline between (1) my insider friends who have lived privileged lives who are very keen that we defend the BBC and think it's important it survives and (2) my outsider friends who feel (at best) ambivalent about the BBC's survival.
November 11, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Matt Leys
johnsimpsonnews.bsky.social
Nowhere in the hysterical pile-on against the BBC in the British press has anyone mentioned that BBC News now has 77 million viewers & listeners in the US and has established itself as the second most trusted news source there.
November 11, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by Matt Leys
sambyers.bsky.social
Wonderful BBC archive clip about black magic in Norfolk in 1964 - soot-blackened sheep’s hearts, weird effigies, and isolated fenland villages.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWTw...
1964: A Curious Case of Black Magic in Norfolk | Tonight | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive
YouTube video by BBC Archive
www.youtube.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:49 AM
mattleys.bsky.social
For Armistice Day, here's a letter my great uncle wrote to his old school in 1914 about the Christmas truce
November 11, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Matt Leys
sundersays.bsky.social
It is utter bullshit that the mistaken splicing of two bits of his January 6th 2021 speech on Panorama in October 2024 had any significant impact whatsoever on the reputation of Donald Trump in Britain, or globally, and the claim for $1 billion damages is bullshit and bullying by the US president
November 10, 2025 at 10:09 PM
mattleys.bsky.social
Unusually I have read the Booker Prize winner and yes, top work, excellent
November 10, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Reposted by Matt Leys
groomb.bsky.social
Boy destroying a piano, Pant-Y-Waun, south Wales, 1961, photo by Philip Jones Griffiths (1936-2008).
November 10, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Matt Leys
stevedoherty.bsky.social
Episode 4 this week. And no ... we won't stop banging on about it. Here's a little preview clip brilliantly pulled together by @mattleys.bsky.social and hot off the digital "press"

This week, Dennis and Lee go INTERNATIONAL.
Eps 1, 2 & 3 await you on BBC Sounds. If I can still say BBC.
November 10, 2025 at 4:21 PM
mattleys.bsky.social
All true, but I wish they cared quite a lot more about children's 😕
itsjoels.bsky.social Joel @itsjoels.bsky.social · 1d
If you don’t like the BBC, I suggest that you go to America and watch their TV for a day. It gives you a migraine. The BBC also keeps the standards of the other outlets relatively high. If you think we watch shit now, imagine it with no BBC. And they actually care about drama, children’s, factual.
November 10, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Matt Leys
gregjenner.bsky.social
There are many subtle and complex arguments one can have about the future of the BBC — but I guarantee you that no other channel or streaming service will be as committed to factual programming, children’s education, history shows, religious discussion, poetry, arts, or state of the nation debate
November 10, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Matt Leys
tom-phillips.com
I do like how, in the bit of Prescott's memo where he criticises the BBC for editing together different parts of Trump's speech, his own quote of "what Trump actually said" is... edited together from different parts of his speech.
Two paragraphs from Michael Prescott's BBC memo: In reality, the first part of Trump’s speech: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you,” came 15 minutes into the speech. The second half of the sentence that was aired by Panorama, “and we fight. We fight like hell....” came 54 minutes later. Fifteen minutes into the speech, what Trump actually said: “We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” It was completely misleading to edit the clip in the way Panorama aired it. The fact that he did not explicitly exhort supporters to go down and fight at Capitol Hill was one of the reasons there were no federal charges for incitement to riot. Four paragraphs from NPR's transcript of Trump's January 6th speech: Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you, we're going to walk down, we're going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
November 10, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Matt Leys
regretteruane.bsky.social
Was really struck by what a lovely inspiring exercise this is, like a primary school version of Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it
Page from a 1960s primary school English textbook with a lovely cartoonish illustration of a red haired white girl in blue shirt looking at a cockatoo on a black perch. It is in the centre bottom and takes up about a third of the page, above is black serif text which reads Have you ever noticed? Every day we "see" things without really looking at them at all. On the way to and from school look at just one thing that you have often passed but never looked at very closely - it may be a street lamp, a small plant in a hedgerow, someone's front gate, the wall and windows of an ofice building, the balcony of a house, an object in a shop window. You are a secret service agent, and exact knowledge of this object is your password. Your life depends on it. Learn it by heart, and then describe it to the fellow agent who has to test you by your knowledge.
November 10, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Matt Leys
rblandford.bsky.social
Wish the BBC was still staffed by loony lefties who'd call you a thicko in the Radio Times if you didn't like their plays.
November 10, 2025 at 7:49 AM
mattleys.bsky.social
Incredible scenes
November 10, 2025 at 8:19 AM
mattleys.bsky.social
Good piece by Katie Razzall on this unholy mess
November 10, 2025 at 8:15 AM
mattleys.bsky.social
Exactly, so the BBC didn't need to shoot themselves in the reputation by editing it that way. But they did, and here we are
smotus.bsky.social 🦃 Seth Masket 🦃 @smotus.bsky.social · 2d
He explicitly encouraged the Capitol riot
November 9, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Reposted by Matt Leys
mikecooperrp.bsky.social
This was my favourite episode of the series so far. Great work @mattleys.bsky.social and @trenamanmartin.bsky.social. (And @stevedoherty.bsky.social , of course).
November 9, 2025 at 4:35 PM
mattleys.bsky.social
Quick dog comfort level check, yep all good
November 9, 2025 at 11:54 AM
mattleys.bsky.social
Always a pleasure to see Restore Trust get shown the door
sundersays.bsky.social Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 2d
National Trust council elections saw a defeat for the Restore Trust campaign.

35k members voted to re-elect a slate of council candidates endorsed by the nominations committee

12k - 13.5k voted for candidates on Restore Trust slate

Non-slate candidated
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/who-we-are/a...
Voting results from the AGM
Read about the National Trust's 2025 Annual General Meeting and the results from the day.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk
November 9, 2025 at 12:19 AM
mattleys.bsky.social
I put together a piece of non-Ikea flatpack furniture today and have never had more respect for the Ikea designers
November 9, 2025 at 12:16 AM