ARBird

Neal Ascherson | No Kings England doesn’t know how to say: ‘No Kings.’ Instead, it says: ‘Not this one, but perhaps his brother or his son...

‘Here’s a snide way of summarising modern British history: a 400-year campaign by the propertied classes to make the English forget about the 1640s.’

Neal Ascherson on England’s monarchism problem:

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/de...

YouTube video by STARS OF THE LID Stars of the Lid in Europe (2016 Tour Diary)

SOTL posted a 2016 tour diary this week. I never mourned someone famous i had never met until Brian died, there’s a void in my heart knowing I will never see this band again. truly I hope everyone in this world feels this way aboit one artist at some point in their life. youtu.be/I5zCV7RJR50?...

I put it to you that Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” is not merely the worst Christmas song but is also in fact the worst song in the history of recorded sound.

Only…

However you look at all the options, you need a pretty generous pay packet AFTER tax.

If you have to commute…Have you seen the peak time train fares from Ramsgate to get anywhere for work? London, only 1 hr 15/20 minutes away, costs £83.20 for a return EACH day. Afford that even with a reasonably paid job.

A rare occasion when the brothers are together (fearful of our calico just out of shot)
#caturday

YouTube video by Open Mike Eagle spotify bought whosampled and we're all going to jail.

youtu.be/w5FzdTE1k1Q

We really need a Link Wray historical marker at the old Fredericksburg VA armory where he performed Rumble for the first time. I always think about his line in Shine A Light about stopping at a country store on Route 301.

Salami Advent Calendar, Czech Republic. podnikovka.cz/uzeniny_c103...

Indeed none of those MP3s. What I meant is, sometimes, the download on offer technically supersedes physical media such as CD by bi depth and frequency *decent streamer/hi-fi/headphones & ears required*

Some digital downloads will be high-res…if that’s your thing 👂🏻

Deeply moving/human experimental music / noise / field recordings from Beirut artist Yara Asmar. Listened to this obsessively since first hearing a few weeks ago.

My album of the year I think.

Yara Asmar - everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much (2025)

In short no. The doors opening at 18:00 was on the tickets and I thought something was up as SWANS don’t play for an hour and we wanted to see the support.
Universe ticketing sent a gig reminder the day before & I’m sure they could have provided times then to take the guesswork out of all of this.

I saw Swans supported by the splendid Jessica Moss at Brixton Electric on Tuesday. In short the doors opened at 18:00, the timings were advertised at the bar with a finishing time around 22:30 - plenty of time to get the train home with no anxiety that you might miss it or some of the show.

‘It’s been a cesspit, really, my life’: war photographer Don McCullin on 19 of his greatest pictures At 90, McCullin has spent seven decades recording conflict and tragedy – while escaping snipers, mortar fire and capture. He reflects on pain, pride and regret

'They do not want my kind of pictures in their paper, spoiling their day.'
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

The score is terrific… Recorded here in Ramsgate.

I hope you have a disc changer 🤞🏻

“Hugely influential”?????

Candesartan

Ah. *wavy lines of nostalgia* Kings Club/Caravan Park Canvey, strangely close to the tip. Used to frequent the swimming pool circa ‘83
The ‘entertainment’ was “interesting” as my Mum used to say.

Read about Ernst Stavro Blofeld's White Cat of Evil! the audition for his screen debut in From Russia With Love; his semi-retirement & thoughts on his stand-in's freak-out in You Only Live Twice; his unsatisfactory comeback in Spectre etc

Ian Penman · Infinite Wibble: Brian v. Eno At a time when most conversation about the arts remained stuck in an Oxbridge common room, Eno was a one-man laboratory...

‘At his best, Brian Eno is a model of how to inhabit the role of unlikely national treasure with verve and mischief; at other times you may wonder how exactly he went from playing Cornelius Cardew to producing Coldplay.’

Ian Penman: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Sysivalo, by Ø 20 track album

🔥

sahkorecordings.bandcamp.com/album/sysivalo

Umberto Eco’s List of the 14 Common Features of Fascism Creative Commons image by Rob Bogaerts, via the National Archives in Holland One of the key questions facing both journalists and loyal oppositions these days is how do we stay honest as euphemisms an...

Always enlightening to read Eco on fascism. 11 seems particularly prescient at the moment

www.openculture.com/2024/11/umbe...

mātr, by Paul Jebanasam 7 track album

pauljebanasam.bandcamp.com/album/m-tr

House Arab I was working at the magazine as a fact-checker and my parents no longer considered me a failure, not because they read or admired it, but because when they said its name to friends and relatives it s...

This essay, by an Egyptian-American former New Yorker staff fact-checker, is an incredible read

And incredibly damning

Huge recommendation