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
Not a half-baked gesture at all. Tidal has much better quality and pays artists four times as much as Spotify.
I just switched from Spotify to Tidal as a half-baked ethical gesture and maybe this is some sort of aural placebo effect but the difference in sound quality is startling, as though Spotify plays everything through a sock. Or am I just imagining this
November 10, 2025 at 7:59 PM
This is such a graceful post, from someone I worked with forty years ago (before she was a published poet or I was a published novelist) and whose work I admire very much.
I have found this whole episode incredibly distressing and isolating, so I'm grateful to see Rory Waterman's analysis shine a light on both the poetry and the poison. Whatever your views, we need a more courteous and humane public discourse, from and for all parties. Please.
My comment, for @pnreview.bsky.social, on the Len Pennie & Sarah Doyle affair - or Canongagegate, as I like to think of it. Honourable mentions: @naush.bsky.social, @thetimes.com.

Feel free to share, to attack me with your little jelly pitchforks, or to ignore.

www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/rema...
November 10, 2025 at 7:37 PM
This does an excellent job of summarising a novel which (in my recent experience at book events) is very hard to summarise.
I reviewed my favourite reads of 2025 for Shepherd Books: Year of the King by Antony Sher from @nickhernbooks.bsky.social, Karla's Choice by @nickharkaway.com and The Proof of My Innocence by @jonathancoe.bsky.social. I was asked to rank them, but all are first class...

shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/...
November 8, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Kindle edition is £1.99 today until midnight.
www.amazon.co.uk/Proof-My-Inn...
November 2, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
The Proof of My Innocence by @jonathancoe.bsky.social is a bargain £1.99 on Kindle today #affiliatelink
amzn.to/4oUrfuV
The Proof of My Innocence: A hilarious new novel from the bestselling author of Middle England
amzn.to
November 2, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Thank you Apple, but the file I’ve just downloaded is a text file so ideally I’d like you to find a way for me to read it, not ‘use it as my ring tone’.
October 30, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Unfortunately, 'ideology over sense and pragmatism' has been the credo of the British right since 2016.
Ideology over sense and pragmatism
'Net migration will fall very sharply in future years... Any political benefit the government may gain from this fall in immigration could be jeopardised by the economic damage that it causes'. Some eye watering estimates here from @jamesbowes01.bsky.social ukandeu.ac.uk/the-coming-c...
October 30, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
10/29/70: Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Considered his most personal project
More:
@jonathancoe.bsky.social [AU of Mr. Wilder & Me]: theguardian.com/theobserver/...
@cineoutsider.bsky.social: www.cineoutsider.com/reviews/blur...
@aadowd.bsky.social: avclub.com/forty-years-...
October 29, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Finally caught up with One Battle After Another and those have to be 165 of the most enjoyable and exciting minutes I've ever spent in the cinema.

Thought it played at times like a mash-up of Running On Empty and Midnight Run, two of my favourite films of the 1980s.
October 24, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
AI “art” is boring because it can do anything, but means nothing. It’s as tedious as other people’s dreams or drug experiences. There’s no art without human connection and shared feeling.
October 21, 2025 at 9:16 AM
This is a great film, well worth recording. Naunton Wayne (minus Basil Radford) especially good as the laconic detective. Surprised to learn it must be at least twenty years since I've seen it!
#blackandwhitefilm of the day: Obsession, 1949. Rarely shown British #FilmNoir, last on TV 20 years ago. Psychiatrist Robert Newton plans the perfect murder of his wife's US lover, but the cops are closing in as suspense rises on @talkingpicturestv.bsky.social at 10.05pm youtu.be/YBW2zg6cHdA?...
Noir Alley - Obsession (1949) intro 20220911
YouTube video by Noir Fan (not affiliated with Eddie Muller or TCM)
youtu.be
October 20, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
I've had a few new followers today so if you're already starting to regret it and looking for an excuse to unfollow, here's some shameless self-promotion to make it easier for you.
October 18, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
Pete Townsend and Prince in this ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ show from the great Arthur Jafa at Sadie Coles HQ and Karma Ashadu at Camden Arts Centre...loved these shows @theobserveruk.bsky.social @timadamswrites.bsky.social

observer.co.uk/culture/art/...
Arthur Jafa is a sound-and-vision genius | The Observer
The multimedia artist creates hypnotic, cinematic forms of homage to music greats from Pete Townshend to Prince. Plus, Karimah Ashadu’s meditation on men
observer.co.uk
October 19, 2025 at 8:36 AM
My 14-year-old self would never have guessed that, in 50 years' time, all the world's music would be available at the click of a button, you'd navigate the globe by carrying a tiny computer around in your pocket, and the US President would post a video of himself shitting over American citizens.
October 19, 2025 at 9:34 AM
X is incredible these days. We all know social media erases nuance, but X has taken this much further. It's not enough to express a loud opinion there now: to get heard, you have to couch everything in terms of riot, civil war, societal collapse, the end of civilisation, apocalypse. It's exhausting.
October 18, 2025 at 5:13 PM
I've had a few new followers today so if you're already starting to regret it and looking for an excuse to unfollow, here's some shameless self-promotion to make it easier for you.
October 18, 2025 at 4:18 PM
I've had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mishal Husain three times. One of the most intelligent and accomplished people I've ever met.

Here's Nigel Farage trying to shut her down with the words "Listen, love ..." like it was still the 1970s. I'd say it was unbelievable, only it isn't.
Nigel Farage says"gotta shoot" down Russian jets | The Mishal Husain Show
YouTube video by Bloomberg Podcasts
www.youtube.com
October 18, 2025 at 1:11 PM
A bleak dystopia where Sharia law predominates, while economic and cultural divisions mean that the different communities live parallel, segregated lives.

Oh, wait, that’s Dubai …
Mind how you go...
October 18, 2025 at 8:24 AM
A Vintage Obscura track from the Obscure Records label. Beautiful setting of James Joyce (from an artist namechecked in my Rotters’ Club).
October 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
a truly amazing song
October 14, 2025 at 11:46 AM
It's not out until Boxing Day, but last night I was lucky enough to see Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value. An amazingly moving, near-perfect family drama: up there with the best of Bergman. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, this absolute beauty comes up over the end credits ...
Labi Siffre - Cannock Chase
YouTube video by Groovy Attack
www.youtube.com
October 14, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Jonathan Coe
I am once again begging you to boycott Tesla
October 14, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Very interesting piece on why ‘free speech’ might have become the stick the American right has chosen to beat the British left with.
"Until now, public knowledge about the relationship between Reform U.K. and the A.D.F. was limited to a single quote Mr. Farage gave to the group, which they pushed out in a press statement. But the A.D.F. has quietly been courting the party since at least 2024."

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...
They Helped Topple Roe v. Wade. Now Their Sights Are Set on Britain.
www.nytimes.com
October 13, 2025 at 10:47 AM
They also need better subs. Surely ‘European Union’ in this headline is a typo for ‘Daily Telegraph’?
Since the Brexit referendum, the Telegraph has become the Pantomine Dame of confected outrage against the very thing it fought for and continues to uphold. The new Schengen Entry and Exit System isn’t sound border management but a “pointed insult”. Hilarious.
October 12, 2025 at 12:52 PM