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Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

51K followers 4.8K following 14K posts

#1 Sunday Times bestselling author, because apparently that matters. New Statesman, New World, Oh God What Now, The Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything, Paper Cuts (RIP). Londoner. *Not* an American.

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Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

It's a disused airfield. There is no solution that will make everyone happy - if there were, we'd have done it, politicians love those. Agree we should have more social housing but we still need to push it somewhere, and I'm sorry, but prioritising the view of a disused airfield over homes is sick.

November 11, 2025 at 12:42 AM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

Important to be clear here that the proposed homes wouldn't mean demolishing the 18th century garden - it's just that they might possibly be visible from it. What appallingly selfish behaviour.

November 10, 2025 at 10:10 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

November 8, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

(No spoilers except re vibe btw)

www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv/2...

he moment I knew I was going to enjoy The Traitors was a moment I suspect a lot of people felt the same: when Nicky, the faithful banished at the very first roundtable back in 2022, explained that the reason she hadn’t raised a glass to join a toast in a manner that so many of her fellows found so deeply suspicious was because she – wait for it – literally didn’t have the necessary arm. As an insight into prejudice, herd behaviour and mind-blowing human stupidity, you’d really struggle to top that.

The moment the show went from guilty pleasure to uncomplicated love, though, is something you’re less likely to remember. A man named Rayan was having a claustrophobia-induced panic attack at the thought of being momentarily buried alive for a task. This was not exactly unreasonable – my heartrate spiked just thinking about it – but the reason it sticks with me is because another faithful, Hannah, who had not to that point impressed with her sensitivity, responded by gently telling him that nobody would judge him if he found he couldn’t do it.

And it made the edit. In a show named The Traitors.

This, I think, is a big reason the show is as compelling as it is. Sure, it’s essentially a gameshow about suspicion and prejudice, lies and betrayal, and contains more funereal imagery than a Halloween party hosted by some goths. And yet for all that, it’s surprisingly… nice? You’d think those who appeared on it would end up hating each other and unable to trust anyone ever again, but not a bit of it: post-show interviews and Instagram feeds alike suggest they all end up bonded for life through the deeply weird experience they’ve shared.

November 6, 2025 at 5:11 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

Stratford International, in a regeneration-hungry corner of industrial east London, was the first stop up the line. That, though, didn’t open until 2009, the year that Southeastern began running high speed domestic rail services on HS1. This is not in itself weird – Stratford International is only a few miles from St Pancras, and forcing Eurostars to stop when they’d barely got started would mean delaying journeys for no obvious benefit. The St Pancras services were never the international trains that were meant to stop there and justify the station’s name. The ones that did that were these:

then a tube-style map of the european rail network, including a giant regional eurostar connecting from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cardiff to Marseille

November 6, 2025 at 2:45 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

jonn.substack.com/i/178090506/...

November 6, 2025 at 12:58 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

That poll in that screenshot is utter bullshit. One in eight New Yorkers are gonna tear up their entire lives, just because their city elected a mayor with left wing views? Views which, in many cases, he won’t even have the powers to translate into policy? You’re actually going to do that, are you? Oh, grow the f*ck up. We all lose sometimes, get over it. This is either an iffy poll, snowflakes whining or, in all probability – since it comes from J. L. Partners and the Daily Mail – both.

Some of this is hysteria about socialism; but a lot of it is hysteria about Islam. An entire quarter of the global population are, to some degree or another, Muslims: it is objectively mad how many people assume that they’re all secretly Osama Bin Laden. At some point we’re gonna need to have a proper conversation about how Islamophobia is treated like a reasonable, mainstream position.

I know you don’t need me to tell you this, but as ever I think it’s sometimes just worth saying the thing.

November 6, 2025 at 10:18 AM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

November 5, 2025 at 11:48 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

November 5, 2025 at 8:22 AM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

Absolutely the fuck not.

November 3, 2025 at 9:52 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

November 2, 2025 at 1:18 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

big, if true

November 2, 2025 at 1:00 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

jonn.substack.com/p/some-notes...

Some notes on the non-existence of purple
The colour light forgot.
Jonn Elledge
Nov 01, 2025
Paying subscribers got to read this in August.

Did you know that purple doesn’t exist? The internet certainly knows that. Google the phrase “purple doesn’t exist” and you will find articles explaining the fact published by everyone from Mail Online to Unilad to the Economic Times of India. And little wonder: the internet loves to tell you that everything you know is wrong, and what better “well, actually” could there be than “that colour you’ve been able to identify since you were five years old isn’t really there”?

So: the colour purple doesn’t exist. Alice Walker lied to you.

Except – it does. It obviously does. Everyone from Cadbury Chocolate to the UK Independence Party to the artist at one time known as Prince has made use of purple in their branding. Emperors stretching from Rome to Japan have clad themselves in purple, because a particular rare dye made from the secretions of sea snails – Tyrian purple – made it the most exclusive of all colours. There’s a fairly reasonable chance that, if you look around, you’ll spot something purple right now. (I did – it’s a massive pillow.) Purple absolutely definitely exists. You apologise to Alice Walker, right now!

To explain how purple can be legitimately said not to exist, even though it very

November 1, 2025 at 11:54 AM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

I'm wo glad someone asked, I'd actually forgotten the cousin marriage part

October 31, 2025 at 11:54 PM

Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

finally managed to get some terrible footage of the no. 106 bus whose driver constantly blows bubble out of the window, and who brings me a lot of job