Tomás Murray
@tomasjmurray.bsky.social
Lean left • Tom is fine • Far from the west of Ireland now • Fond of cats, jazz, old films, paintings, poetry, stout, & Sylvia • Sylvia most of all
🎷🧵 https://tinyurl.com/3bvnbyfb
🎬🧵 https://tinyurl.com/47stke59 • https://tinyurl.com/2jan4tzd
🎷🧵 https://tinyurl.com/3bvnbyfb
🎬🧵 https://tinyurl.com/47stke59 • https://tinyurl.com/2jan4tzd
Pinned
My wife, Sylvia, died this morning. 💔
“When the door
scraped shut, it was the end
of all the sounds there are.
You left me
beside the quietest fire in the world.”
“When the door
scraped shut, it was the end
of all the sounds there are.
You left me
beside the quietest fire in the world.”
“Those interminable latter days of the dying year create an interval, as it were, of moral suspension: one form of life already passed away before another has had time to assert some new, endemic characteristic.”
December 30, 2025 at 4:23 PM
“Those interminable latter days of the dying year create an interval, as it were, of moral suspension: one form of life already passed away before another has had time to assert some new, endemic characteristic.”
Reposted by Tomás Murray
Carol Reed, Director, Producer, #BornOnThisDay in 1906, in Putney, London
December 30, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Carol Reed, Director, Producer, #BornOnThisDay in 1906, in Putney, London
Rudyard Kipling, Writer, #BornOnThisDay in 1865 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India
“I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.
Now I, too, follow these.
It is fever, and not the fight—
Time, not battle,—that slays.”
🎨 Sir Philip Burne-Jones (1899)
“I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.
Now I, too, follow these.
It is fever, and not the fight—
Time, not battle,—that slays.”
🎨 Sir Philip Burne-Jones (1899)
December 30, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Rudyard Kipling, Writer, #BornOnThisDay in 1865 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India
“I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.
Now I, too, follow these.
It is fever, and not the fight—
Time, not battle,—that slays.”
🎨 Sir Philip Burne-Jones (1899)
“I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.
Now I, too, follow these.
It is fever, and not the fight—
Time, not battle,—that slays.”
🎨 Sir Philip Burne-Jones (1899)
Stan Tracey, Jazz Pianist, Composer, #BornOnThisDay in 1926, in Denmark Hill, London
‘Starless and Bible Black’: youtu.be/Frnd-wuhBic?...
‘Starless and Bible Black’: youtu.be/Frnd-wuhBic?...
December 30, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Stan Tracey, Jazz Pianist, Composer, #BornOnThisDay in 1926, in Denmark Hill, London
‘Starless and Bible Black’: youtu.be/Frnd-wuhBic?...
‘Starless and Bible Black’: youtu.be/Frnd-wuhBic?...
Dublin. Undisclosed location. 28 December.
December 28, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Dublin. Undisclosed location. 28 December.
Reposted by Tomás Murray
Rory missed his friend.
December 27, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Rory missed his friend.
Marlene Dietrich, Actress, #BornOnThisDay in 1901, in Schöneberg, German Empire
📸 Edward Steichen (1932)
📸 Edward Steichen (1932)
December 27, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Marlene Dietrich, Actress, #BornOnThisDay in 1901, in Schöneberg, German Empire
📸 Edward Steichen (1932)
📸 Edward Steichen (1932)
Reposted by Tomás Murray
A beautiful and quiet morning in the woods with the Branch Manager
December 26, 2025 at 1:34 PM
A beautiful and quiet morning in the woods with the Branch Manager
Reposted by Tomás Murray
My older brother, this Christmas season, set himself the task of organizing my mother‘s holiday recipes and testing out, for the first time in many years, all of her cookies.
He started simply, with the sugar cookies, cut using her cutters into all the familiar shapes, iced with her trademark…
He started simply, with the sugar cookies, cut using her cutters into all the familiar shapes, iced with her trademark…
December 24, 2025 at 9:28 PM
My older brother, this Christmas season, set himself the task of organizing my mother‘s holiday recipes and testing out, for the first time in many years, all of her cookies.
He started simply, with the sugar cookies, cut using her cutters into all the familiar shapes, iced with her trademark…
He started simply, with the sugar cookies, cut using her cutters into all the familiar shapes, iced with her trademark…
Terence Rattigan (1954)
December 23, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Terence Rattigan (1954)
Reposted by Tomás Murray
Taken in a hurry but sometimes you only need one shot. The light in the rain outside London Bridge station yesterday evening.
#Shardenfreude
#ReasonsToLoveLondon
#Shardenfreude
#ReasonsToLoveLondon
December 22, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Taken in a hurry but sometimes you only need one shot. The light in the rain outside London Bridge station yesterday evening.
#Shardenfreude
#ReasonsToLoveLondon
#Shardenfreude
#ReasonsToLoveLondon
‘Crossing Delancey’, ‘The Browning Version’, ‘Obsession’, ‘The Shopworn Angel’, ‘A Canterbury Tale’, ‘One Way Passage’, ‘The Shop Around the Corner’, ‘How Green Was My Valley’ ❤️
The films of the year: 26 discoveries, 10 old favourites, 7 bad movies, 6 re-appraisals and 5 obsessions. Feat. all your faves: Linda Fiorentino, Joan Micklin Silver, Sinners, Wallis Island, Argentinean child noir, and really quite a lot of John Ford. advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/revi...
December 22, 2025 at 3:29 PM
‘Crossing Delancey’, ‘The Browning Version’, ‘Obsession’, ‘The Shopworn Angel’, ‘A Canterbury Tale’, ‘One Way Passage’, ‘The Shop Around the Corner’, ‘How Green Was My Valley’ ❤️
Reposted by Tomás Murray
By coincidence, today is also the anniversary of our adoption of Hank and Hildegard!
December 22, 2025 at 12:45 PM
By coincidence, today is also the anniversary of our adoption of Hank and Hildegard!
Reposted by Tomás Murray
Someone just liked these photos so I’m taking the opportunity to repost them. STB died just under two years ago. He was the loveliest cat, a streetwise rescue who could not get over the existence of soft furnishings and liked to have a bedtime story read to him. Still miss him.
December 22, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Someone just liked these photos so I’m taking the opportunity to repost them. STB died just under two years ago. He was the loveliest cat, a streetwise rescue who could not get over the existence of soft furnishings and liked to have a bedtime story read to him. Still miss him.
It’s Peggy’s birthday tomorrow.*
(*I will be travelling tomorrow so what I post tonight may be the sum of it.)
📸 Howard Coster (1935)
(*I will be travelling tomorrow so what I post tonight may be the sum of it.)
📸 Howard Coster (1935)
December 22, 2025 at 12:39 AM
It’s Peggy’s birthday tomorrow.*
(*I will be travelling tomorrow so what I post tonight may be the sum of it.)
📸 Howard Coster (1935)
(*I will be travelling tomorrow so what I post tonight may be the sum of it.)
📸 Howard Coster (1935)
Reposted by Tomás Murray
Anthony Powell, Writer, #BornOnThisDay in 1905, in Westminster, London
“Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.” (‘The Valley of Bones’)
📸 Antony Armstrong-Jones (January 16, 1978)
“Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.” (‘The Valley of Bones’)
📸 Antony Armstrong-Jones (January 16, 1978)
December 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Anthony Powell, Writer, #BornOnThisDay in 1905, in Westminster, London
“Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.” (‘The Valley of Bones’)
📸 Antony Armstrong-Jones (January 16, 1978)
“Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.” (‘The Valley of Bones’)
📸 Antony Armstrong-Jones (January 16, 1978)
Diana Athill, Editor, Novelist, Memoirist, #BornOnThisDay in 1917, in Kensington, London
December 21, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Diana Athill, Editor, Novelist, Memoirist, #BornOnThisDay in 1917, in Kensington, London
Maud Gonne, Revolutionary, Suffragette, Actress, Muse, #BornOnThisDay in 1866, in Tongham, England
December 21, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Maud Gonne, Revolutionary, Suffragette, Actress, Muse, #BornOnThisDay in 1866, in Tongham, England
Reposted by Tomás Murray
It’s a funny old world when just the idea of the mayor-elect of New York City can make one sob uncontrollably.
We so desperately need good news wherever we can find it…
We so desperately need good news wherever we can find it…
This is the sweetest thing and I hope they keep hanging out periodically
December 20, 2025 at 10:47 PM
It’s a funny old world when just the idea of the mayor-elect of New York City can make one sob uncontrollably.
We so desperately need good news wherever we can find it…
We so desperately need good news wherever we can find it…
Reposted by Tomás Murray
Kaiju and I have set out in the manner in which we intend to go on for the next two weeks. (Not pictures: the Oscar Peterson Christmas tunes we are listening to.)
December 20, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Kaiju and I have set out in the manner in which we intend to go on for the next two weeks. (Not pictures: the Oscar Peterson Christmas tunes we are listening to.)
Reposted by Tomás Murray
He's been! Here's everything I read this year (and a few things I wrote): Henry James! Joseph Heller! Penelope Fitzgerald! A biography of the unsuccessful 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, Al Smith!
advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/Book...
advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/Book...
December 20, 2025 at 3:56 PM
He's been! Here's everything I read this year (and a few things I wrote): Henry James! Joseph Heller! Penelope Fitzgerald! A biography of the unsuccessful 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, Al Smith!
advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/Book...
advicetothelovelorn.blogspot.com/2025/12/Book...