Yasmin Ali
yasminali.bsky.social
Yasmin Ali
@yasminali.bsky.social
Writer and critic
The BBC must stand up to Marie Antoinette!
November 11, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Ben Jennings in The Guardian.
November 11, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Bobandroberta Smith
November 11, 2025 at 9:37 AM
I was flicking through a copy of George Borrow’s Wild Wales in a second hand bookshop when I cane across this bookmark.

Other times. Lost opportunities.
November 10, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Happy Halloween!
October 31, 2025 at 10:48 PM
In your guts you know he’s nuts.
October 30, 2025 at 11:26 PM
They’ve packed up, moved on. And so have their bots.
October 25, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Time for solidarity with Jess Phillips. Elected in 2015, winning the seat from the Lib Dems, this was the week in which Theresa May had called a snap election. Jess had just published her first book, but might well have feared that her career was over. It wasn’t. (I’m the interviewer in the shot.)
October 23, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Now that’s how to paint pedestrian crossings.
October 12, 2025 at 6:28 PM
The tragic flagmen descended on our High Street and covered the lampposts with Union & St George flags, which soon started wrapping themselves around CCTV cameras. Yesterday the council removed the flags from the commercial stretch of the street, and these homespun efforts started to appear.
October 12, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Jonathan Coe discusses his hugely enjoyable novel, The Proof of My Innocence at the Birmingham Literature Festival tonight, with me. If you haven’t yet read it, do it.

It’s the first in the long awaited series, The Tufton Street Murders.

I made the last bit up. Possibly.
October 10, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Oops!
October 6, 2025 at 9:52 PM
One of the best political - and most engaging literary - novels I’ve read recently.
September 19, 2025 at 12:27 PM
TV news is getting me down. Too orange, too depressing.

So here’s a bin.
September 17, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Goldie Looking Autocrat.

It’s so tawdry.
September 9, 2025 at 10:34 PM
1979.

Time for a revival.
August 26, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Private Eye
August 20, 2025 at 9:23 PM
I assume that death threats are fine. It’s just other stuff that PM McSweeney clamps down on?
August 16, 2025 at 9:57 PM
The advice around mutton chops for breakfast is intriguing.
August 8, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Bought this today to add to the Matthew Goodwin wing of my library. The main character’s son, “All American in outlook” is tortured by his “dual heritage”. Can’t say that mine has ‘tortured’ me, but hey ho….
July 9, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Light relief
June 29, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Cheered me up.
June 26, 2025 at 10:21 PM
The party of ‘pull yourself together’ common sense is rooting out ‘woke’ nonsense. As this new councillor ably demonstrates.
June 19, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Obviously I don’t approve this message. Much.
June 15, 2025 at 10:48 PM
This is so cringe, so amateur!

Here in the UK (yes, we are actually called a Kingdom!) we don’t parade tanks. We use elegant horses pulling gilded carriages.

Ever seen a golden tank? Loser!
June 14, 2025 at 10:23 PM