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Phil Dore

@philjdore.bsky.social

Last night I went to the Puca Festival in Trim, Ireland.

It's all fun and games until someone unleashes a giant demonic hare.

November 2, 2025 at 7:45 AM

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Anon Opin

@anonopin.bsky.social

We all really should be snapping up media like CDs, DVDs, Blurays, books and so forth. What else are you going to do with your time when the digital apocalypse happens? Right now CDs/DVDs/books are so unpopular that charity shops sell 3 for a quid. I reckon we've lost our minds.

October 29, 2025 at 8:55 PM

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ivory1.bsky.social

@ivory1.bsky.social

She's the only one that gets her own season. 🎃

Cartoon by Joe Lennon of the five members of the Spice Girls in their stage costumes. Beside them stands a sixth figure with weathered limbs, a yellow patched dress, and a pumpkin for a head. Text says: Although initially unpopular, Pumpkin went on to become the most successful of the Spice Girls.

October 29, 2025 at 10:44 AM

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John Self

@john-self.bsky.social

Will I be allowed to remain on Bluesky if I listen to Lily Allen's album and don't adore it?

October 29, 2025 at 11:04 AM

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Simon Price

@simonprice.bsky.social

The BOGOF Ban is a nauseating class-targeted initiative, and patronising as Hell. If you really care about the diet of the poor, then legislate to reduce the price of healthier foods, rather than basically doubling the price of their (our) few affordable pleasures in life. Get to absolute fuck.

October 1, 2025 at 5:34 PM

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John Self

@john-self.bsky.social

“Worthy fellow writers, critics with pious and generous hearts! What a pity that no one is thinking of setting up a little inquisitorial literary tribunal in which you would be the torturers!”

George Sand has a pop at literary critics in the introduction to her 1831 novel Indiana.

I WROTE Indiana in the autumn of I831. It was my first novel.
I wrote without any plan, without any aesthetic or philosophical theory in mind. I wrote at the age when one writes instinctively and when reflection serves only to confirm our natural tendencies. People wanted to see it as a carefully thought-out argument against marriage. I was not trying to do anything like so important and I was completely surprised by all the fine things that the critics found to say about my subversive inten-tions. Criticism is far too clever; that is what will be the death of it. It never judges straightforwardly what has been done straightforwardly. It looks for midday at two in the afternoon, as the old saying goes, and it must have done a great deal of harm to those artists who pay too much attention to its opinions.

Under all régimes and at all times, moreover, there has been a race of critics who, bringing their own talent into contempt, have imagined that they ought to ply the trade of denouncers, of suppliers of information to the authorities. What a strange role for men of letters in relation to their fellow writers!
Governments' strict regulations against the press have never been enough for these ferocious critics. They would like such regulations to be directed not only against works, but against persons as well, and if they were listened to, some of us would be forbidden to write anything at all. At the time I wrote Indiana they brought accusations of Saint-Simonism against everything. Later on they brought accusations of all sorts of other things. Some writers are still forbidden to open their mouths under pain of seeing certain journalist guardians of the law pounce on their work to bring it before the official police authorities. If a writer makes a workman express noble feelings, it is an attack against the bourgeoisie; if a girl who has strayed is rehabilitated after expiating her sin, it is an attack against virtuous women; if a scoundrel assumes titles of nobili…

army; if a woman is ill-treated by her husband, it is an argument for promiscuity. And so it is with everything. Worthy fellow writers, critics with pious and generous hearts! What a pity that no one is thinking of setting up a little inquisitorial literary tribunal in which you would be the torturers! Would you be satisfied with tearing the books to pieces and burning them in a slow fire or, at your own request, could you not be allowed to give a taste of torture to the writers who allow themselves to have other gods than yours?
Thank God, I have forgotten even the names of those who tried to discourage me on my first publication and who, unable to say that this humble beginning fell completely flat, tried to turn it into an inflammatory proclamation against the peace of society. I did not expect so much honour, and I think I owe these critics the thanks that the hare addressed to the frogs when, on seeing their alarm, he imagined he was entitled to think himself a warlike thunderbolt.
Nohant, May 1852

September 20, 2025 at 12:29 PM

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Andrew Bibby

@andrewbibby-writer.bsky.social

The excellent #Todmorden Book Festival has just published its 2025 programme. Pleased to be there sharing the stage with @gritstonebooks.bsky.social colleague @andrewmccloy.bsky.social and @anitasethi.bsky.social. We'll be celebrating the 60th birthday of the Pennine Way.

September 5, 2025 at 4:27 PM

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John Harris

@johnharris1969.bsky.social

Really honoured to say that on Friday November 7th, I'll be at the Todmorden Book Festival, talking about my book Maybe I'm Amazed, music, autism.... and the Beatles, Kraftwerk, Funkadelic, The Clash...
www.ticketsource.co.uk/todmorden-bo...

September 4, 2025 at 5:57 PM

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Andrew Male

@andrewmale.bsky.social

My impression of Ed Sullivan was formed by rock music; the conservative scold who censored rebellious performers. I was far less aware of how this working-class Harlem-born journo was at the forefront of putting Black artists on US TV. This Netflix doc educated me.

www.netflix.com/title/82048609

Watch Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan | Netflix Official Site

Ed Sullivan broke barriers by booking Black artists on his Sunday night variety show. This documentary spotlights the TV pioneer's legacy of equality.

www.netflix.com

September 2, 2025 at 9:34 AM

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ivory1.bsky.social

@ivory1.bsky.social

Back to school time!

Cartoon by unknown artist.
Title: Why alien abductions happen only at night. A green alien sitting in a chair says to a smaller green alien: It's 9 p.m. and you're just now telling me you need a human for school tomorrow?!

September 2, 2025 at 10:47 AM

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Swift Press

@swiftpress.bsky.social

Author of #GreenInk @stephenmay1.bsky.social is in conversation with Sophie Haydock on 18 October at @ilkleylitfest.bsky.social to discuss how they reimagined real life historical figures and events in their latest novels.

Buy 🎟️ shorturl.at/0kQBB

August 28, 2025 at 3:03 PM

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John Self

@john-self.bsky.social

"Barker can turn on a traditional novelist’s skills. But mostly she chooses not to follow the trad path. She would rather be the Picasso of fiction, breaking the rules to see what comes out."

Me on Nicola Barker's energising and exasperating new novel, TonyInterruptor:

Viral madness and jazz riffs: a chaotic comedy for our times

Weird vibes, eccentric characters, odd punctuation — it’s all here in Nicola Barker’s energising and exasperating novel, TonyInterruptor

www.thetimes.com

August 16, 2025 at 8:58 AM

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Andy Zax

@andyzax.bsky.social

Happy 56th anniversary to this all-time banger headline.

New York Daily News, August 16 1969: “TRAFFIC UPTIGHT AT HIPPIE FEST”

August 16, 2025 at 5:43 PM

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Alice Roberts

@profaliceroberts.bsky.social

Thanks google AI but I meant to type “shut”…

August 10, 2025 at 7:09 PM

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John Self

@john-self.bsky.social

"Here is a thing to carve in pokerwork and hang over your typewriter. 'No one will ever complain because you have made something too easy to understand.'

"And here is another thing to remember every time you sit down at the keyboard: a little sign that says 'Nobody has to read this crap.'"

Adam Rutherford @adamrutherford.bsky.social · Feb 12

It is with great sadness to hear that the great Tim Radford has died. He was, unequivocally, the best science journalist, and a kind and generous man. I used his Manifesto for the Simple Scribe in lectures for student this very week. It’s faultless.

www.theguardian.com/science/blog...

A manifesto for the simple scribe – my 25 commandments for journalists | Tim Radford

Former Guardian science editor, letters editor, arts editor and literary editor Tim Radford has condensed his journalistic experience into a handy set of rules for aspiring hacks

www.theguardian.com

February 12, 2025 at 11:30 AM

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Old UK Print Ads

@oldukprintads.bsky.social

Apropos of nothing, here's a picture of Frankie Howerd being strangled by the Sugar Puffs Honey Monster... from November 1980...

August 9, 2025 at 8:02 PM

@stephenmay1

@stephenmay1.bsky.social

Scandalously cheap

Swift Press @swiftpress.bsky.social · Jul 2

#GreenInk by @stephenmay1.bsky.social is an Apple Books deal 📖

'Clever and playful' @thetimes.com

Read for £1.99: shorturl.at/btmt2

July 2, 2025 at 7:46 PM

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Marie Phillips

@mariephillips.bsky.social

I had my doubts about Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover, but now I realise she was parodying Arturo Martini’s fascist art of the 1930s as a commentary on these times, and not recreating Spinal Tap’s Smell the Glove

June 25, 2025 at 8:42 AM

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Swift Press

@swiftpress.bsky.social

We're Hiring!

Marketing and Publicity Executive / Manager 📖

Find out more: tinyurl.com/6jn22wrk
#PublishingJobs #JobsInBooks

We are hiring a Marketing and Publicity Executive / Manager | Swift Press

Purpose of role: The job is to drive and manage all parts of marketing for Swift Press and to manage occasional publicity campaigns.

tinyurl.com

June 19, 2025 at 9:29 AM

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Reaky, It’s Cold Outside

@reaky.bsky.social

Typically insightful piece by @andrewmale.bsky.social Twelve of Brian Wilson’s greatest songs – from surf to psychedelia and beyond www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

Twelve of Brian Wilson’s greatest songs – from surf to psychedelia and beyond

Elaborating classic pop and doo-wop into divinely beautiful and inimitable hitmaking, these are some of the late musician’s most unmistakable masterpieces

www.theguardian.com

June 11, 2025 at 5:55 PM

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David Avrom Bell

@davidavrombell.bsky.social

Astérix et Ozempix

May 27, 2025 at 6:32 PM

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John Self

@john-self.bsky.social

"At certain times in one's life anything more emphatic is murderous."

David Hayden @seventydys.bsky.social · May 14

Duncan Fallowell's April 1972 review of Nick Drake's Pink Moon (in Records and Recording magazine).

May 14, 2025 at 12:39 PM

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Dr Rachel Clarke

@drrachelclarke.com

Nails it 👇

Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · May 13

My column in today's paper: Labour's white paper is part of an old, old story of how democracies react to waves of migration. But the UK, as with the rest of Europe, is now trying to do it while being an old, old country: