To the boozer or the movement and gig, Tom? :-)
'Here at the frontier, there are falling leaves. Although my neighbours are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are always two cups on my table.' https://somemelodiousplot.blogspot.com/
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To the boozer or the movement and gig, Tom? :-)
I usually find myself half-fascinated with psychoanalysis, and half-eye-rolling. But this essay came firmly down in the former column.
Yikes, that’s very Unlucky Alf.
There’s something slightly ethereal about the light tonight.
Bloody hell. That staircase is gloriously mad.
The pavements all wet with rain, London looking glorious in its Monday evening rags, and my new book - Caroline Fraser’s Murderland - in KX’s finest boozer.
His new stuff gets a mention. Love that song.
They have got to be one of the most joyous bands ever.
David Byrne on Adam Buxton's podcast, putting me in a right good mood today. That & playing 'This Must Be the Place', 'And She Was' and 'Nothing But Flowers' after it finished. Cool fact: Byrne was asked to do the theme to Mad Men but they rejected it. Fools! www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts/82d...
😃
Top deck, front seat photo in the rain number 76.
At the BFI for ‘Mishima: a Life in Four Chapters’. I do love a bit of Paul Schrader, but seeing this on the big screen will be all about that Philip Glass score.
It was majestic. That Parmesan!!!
I usually wouldn’t touch Borough Market with as bargepole on a Saturday. But if it’s raining it tends to keep the crowds away. Nevertheless, straight in and straight out. 😅
Since finishing off The Bear I’ve been craving a magnificent sandwich, something with the reputation of that show’s sadly fictional masterpiece. I think I’ve just had it. ‘The Best One’ from The Black Pig at Borough Market.
Happy birthday!
I really enjoyed it. Great writing, Wayne. And bits of ‘TB Sheets’ are just devastating. Also re: you citing the bins anecdote, had me recalling Van’s general seduction technique, as highlighted on ‘And the Healing Has Begun’ and his immortally awkward “Got some decent sherry!” 😅
It’s Friday. Treat yourself!
I don’t know but I’m adopting it. :-)
Two day week and it’s the weekend already. Rare evening coffee (and canolli) at Bar Italia to get me started. I’ll be home by eight, no doubt! 🧐
I've put it to my university colleagues and we are all aghast.
This is a great Quietus piece on weird Van Morrison tracks. Yet the weirdest and most glorious of all, isn't there. 'Summertime in England'. I mean, 'T.S. Eliot chose England ... T.S. Eliot joined the ministry' and all that. And that anecdote about hiding in bins! thequietus.com/interviews/s...
:-)
Glad to hear I'm not alone on this.
Isn't it just.
Absolutely. Not something that my boy would entertain either.
Leaving work last night, I found myself waiting for the bus next to this ad, and it left me feeling quite sad. I do think the current generation of youngsters are much kinder than previous ones, and the ad struck me as misjudged and cruel. It would have put me right off Freshers Week. Oversensitive?
Definitely!
I went to Aarhus when I was about 22 … I seem to recall a big long Viking boat and a funky amusement park. :-)
A real shame, Eugene! It would have been lovely to meet up.
Back in Blighty after a wonderful week in Denmark. Been visiting for over 35 years now, but have only just got around to descending and then ascending the magnificent Møns Klint. My poor knees.
Early start a few hours ago. Road trip to Legoland Denmark.
It’s such a fantastic space. And that bit of coast is so special, gazing across to Sweden. Lovely place for a chilly dip too.
Today in Copenhagen. Heading up the coast to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and the amazing Robert Longo exhibition. Hard to believe what he’s doing with charcoal.
It’s ridiculously big! 😅
Danish towns ending in Borg. My answer of Bjorn Borg didn’t get the laugh I felt it deserved.
Living it large! Gorging on French Fancies and Tunnocks Teacakes whilst watch Danish Pointless.
Ooh, it is isn’t it. You don’t want cheesy yogurt. 🤐
Copenhagen breakfast supplies. Earworm at the till … Marabou Marabou Marabou Ooh Repent Repent
‘Couple dans une gare parisienne’ (1959).
Agnès Varda, ‘Autoportrait dans son studio, rue Daguerre’. Nominative addresses? :-)
Reflections on the quay, Sète, vintage print, 1950.
I know it’s not a photograph, but this shot reminds me that I really ought to get around to seeing Varda’s film ‘Cléo from 5 to 7’.
Delving into the photography of Agnès Varda with the @lrb.co.uk. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Get thee behind me, Satan! 😅
Annual leave. Let’s celebrate by scoffing six of these. Also, where’s Lacey?
Richard Nixon, George Bush Sr, Joan Crawford and John Peel were all in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated
I'm going to look those versions up, Ian. In the book, Michael Symmons Roberts, does quite a good analysis of the different versions, and in particular, how Messiaen doesn't seem - in the recordings in which he is present - follow his own instructions.
One of her tutors made the gown for her guide dog ♥️ www.bbc.com/news/article...
Those eyes!
I loved the moment when ‘Shostakovich’ barged through the Arena, spotlit (probably so no prommer would get shirty with him) and hit the stage perfectly timed on a crescendo.
I loved the moment when ‘Shostakovich’ barged through the Arena, spotlit (probably so no prommer would get shirty with him) and hit the stage perfectly timed on a crescendo.
Raising a glass of milk (sic!) to Terence Stamp.
Rob Newman’s Honest Playlist in the Guardian today. This has left me with something in my eye … and not just because it’s a perfect song. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/a...
Have a fabulous morning, Angela. I really enjoyed the introductory half; thought it was clever and spot on.
Sunday morning, out west. Canada geese heading upstream.
In fact, it wasn’t just playing standing up. A few members of the @auroraorchestra.bsky.social were playing horizontally … whilst being carried and twirled around.
Fabulous night with The Aurora Orchestra and Shostakovich 5 at the Proms. Marvelling how most of the orchestra keep standing throughout the whole performance. That would stop me from being a member. That and my absence of skills with a musical instrument.
It’s a good one. Not read his other book.
I’ll come here again. Cats, Macaws, and finger wagging.
Time to kill before tonight’s Shostakovich prom. Reading my book opposite this stunning Art Deco fireplace in the V&A. Charles Sargeant Jagger’s ‘Scandal’ from 1930.
New book Saturday. Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection. I’m belly laughing as I read. Not sure I should be belly laughing though. :-)
I’m going to have to move. I went out into the garden a few hours ago and didn’t turn the telly off. I come in to find it blasting out Mrs Brown’s Boys. What will the neighbours think? The horror, the horror!
That movement - Neue Kraft fühlend - is my favourite in *all* of classical music. And I hear what you mean. That holding of breath. The writer Geoff Dyer writes amazingly about it in The Last Days of Roger Federer (it’s a book about late works / late genius).
Unwittingly, my reading has done a little bit of that today. Finishing off Philip K. Dick’s barking mad The Divine Invasion this morning, had one of the characters serving up a Zinfandel. I thought … Ooh, I’ve never knowingly tried a Zinfandel. So voila!
Look at the perma-phone clutch. She ain’t escaping nowt! 😅
Just a pair of haemorrhoids.
Sat in Soho Square, the weekend ahead. There’ll be Shostakovich and My Beautiful Laundrette and a bottle of Zinfandel. But first a tin and queuing the tunes. Chin chin, shipmates.
Olivier Messiaen's 'Quartet for the End of Time'. Music, grief, and birdsong. somemelodiousplot.blogspot.com/2025/08/mess...
I haven’t been on here a lot lately. But you can hit up my alter ego on Substack if you have an account. If you don’t have an account, create one.
Isn't it. I love the opener to the album too, called 'Priestess'. I'm a bit annoyed as he's playing Bush Hall in London next week, but I'm off to Denmark. I'll catch him next time though.
Fifth listen today. This is so lovely. 'I Never Dream About Trains' from the new Cass McCombs album. www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9yi...
Tiger feet
Oh, I love that! New York, via Istanbul, via Rochdale, here I come! :-)
The air attack warning sounds like … This is the sound … When you hear the air attack warning, you and your family must take cover.
Michael Symmons Roberts and his wonderful book on Olivier Messiaen's masterpiece 'Quartet for the End of Time'. Full of tangents and wormholes and, after the birds have fled the noise and bombs, butterflies taking over London during the Blitz. somemelodiousplot.blogspot.com/2025/08/mess...
Sally Hawkins' performance as a deranged counsellor is simply extraordinary, and it's only the widespread sniffyness about genre films that makes me fear it won't win her the awards she deserves. Paddington is lucky he didn't run into her in this guise.
Going to drop off listening to the Prom from earlier tonight. Hoping to still be awake for the Bolero, but have no chance of making Spring. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Loved that. The battle against solemnity.
With the state of my barnet these days, I’d just settle for a chapeau melon!
You’ll fix it, I’m sure!
Give it a few days and then try and repair it. ❤️
Also from that wonderful piece on Satie, I've learned that The Avengers (not the Marvel dullards) is still shown weekly on French telly. And it's called Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir.
It makes my furniture seem rubbish though! I need a Modernist makeover. :-)
Not entirely unrelated to that statement, but I was reading a piece on Leonard Bernstein earlier this year, and how he was massively responsible for bringing Mahler back into the 'repertoire'. So that sense, that he was wasn't being taken seriously by the Modernists certainly rings true.
Oh, but what a magnificent bookend. #Mahler
Homeward bound and a lovely Jonathan Coe piece on Erik Satie to get stuck into. @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
An influencer slating it. BOC should wear that as a badge of honour. :-)
Today in our office reminiscing about comics of yore, did we imagine it, or did Mick Hucknall turn out for Fulchester United in Viz?
Stick it on a buttered roll and you'll crack the 100%! :-)
Never noticed this poem in the compound of the Hampstead Heath Men’s pond before. ‘Like diving into champagne’.
That’s a plan. And some biscuits to deflect questions.
Gone for a ‘vape’! 😅 Ahh, what’s this? It’s the ‘Pond Bus’, infinitely superior to the Vengabus!
The need to sneak out the office and hit the Men's Pond on Hampstead Heath is very strong right now. Perhaps I can just leave my computer at my desk overnight and make out that I'm just heading to the bathroom. Or disappearing for a vape. Even though I don't vape.
Finally got around to this piece on JD Vance. Ruthless, hypocritical and terrifying. Fantastic essay title too! 👏 www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
Ffs 🙄
Obviously, well before he went on to write the Inspector Morse novels.
