Huw Davies

Etiquette question: How much do you tip the exorcist when he casts out your demons?

Talk Talk’s The Colour Of Spring album cover. Illustration of an assortment of varied butterflies.

'In limiting its value to where it led, we damn The Colour Of Spring with faint praise. Itself a vital manifesto, it’s always deserved its own raptures, and not just for familiar songs'

Many Happy Returns to Talk Talk’s The Colour Of Spring, which turns 40 today!

buff.ly/lh69Z5M

I don't know how anyone can honestly sit there and see this campaign by Trump and his allies to eliminate the existence of trans people and be like "yes, these medical orgs retreating is based on science and not the coercion of the federal government and a billion dollars in anti-trans campaigning."

Wales to win in the 6 Nations and also wins for Leyton Orient and Sunderland? The chances of this happening are close to zero but why not dream #lofc

Part of the answer to “Why are so many mainstream columnists and pundits saying such transparently stupid stuff?” is that they’re still on X, and view the world through the perspective X brings them, and that perspective is dramatically warped.

The crocuses are starting to come up!

You can test new tech ideas using the Seinfeld Test

Would the product eliminate the plot of an episode? (Google maps, cell phones, paypal, battery packs)

Good tech.

Would the product inspire new Seinfeld plots? (NFTs, AI chatbots, crypto currency, blindboxes, metaverse land sales)

Bad tech.

I've got a waking-up time and it is the right one and I'm not going to be buffeted around by smoke alarms.

This is a cartoon about housing.

I read 14 novels this year. This is a lot by my standards

Labour 'alienating rural people' with plan to ban trail hunting, says Countryside Alliance Guardian Labour 'alienating rural people' with plan to ban trail hunting, says Countryside Alliance Poll released by group as people gather for traditional Boxing Day hunts finds 7...

As a 'rural' person who grew up with hunts as a regular presence, there's little more alienating than a bunch of sociopathic posh people on horseback descending upon your community with a pack of jittery hounds, in order to dismember a small woodland animal usually encountered in children's stories

Thanks to Parkinsons my handwriting is now slow, carefully and methodically constructed to maintain legibilty.
Which makes me the one GP whose handwriting improved.

Tony Blackburn and John Peel at the Radio One Christmas Party, December 1983.

The basic problem with the temporary refugee status policy - especially one lasting up to 20 years - is it leads to very few removals (based on Denmark's experience) but does significantly worsen integration.

Marmalade is one of things I keep forgetting I like. I need to buy some.

Have a scroll through BBC Tees news, and then through the Teesside Gazette website, and think about which one is better for the news environment

"Because most other news organisations have been hollowed out even worse than the BBC has"

Like, come on. You can't believe this if you've even so much as glanced at a local/regional "news" site recently

Whatever your opinion on Celebrity Traitors, it's been heartwarming to see terrestrial telly triumph. It very much still can deliver.

Have been contemplating what my favourite mural on the Victoria line is and I think it's the Tottenham Hale one.

The Venn overlap of people who insist Hallowe'en isn't British and people who insist 'soccer' isn't British is probably close to a circle. They're all wrong.

For a kid in 70s Wales, it was huge. Carving turnip lanterns (no pumpkins available), apple bobbing etc. And we didn't learn it from America.

...the reality is that the "Stop the War" left goes out of its way to find the miniscule numbers of Ukrainians who agree with their views while refusing to engage with Ukraine's actual labour movt and left, because they know UA's activists bitterly oppose the positions they hold.

Covers of Beatles songs that are superior to the original are very rare. The version of Savoy Truffle by Ella Fitzgerald I just heard on @cerysmatthews.bsky.social 6Music show is one of them

My problem with that is that it should be peas or beans. The combination of both is unappealing

Reidy’s Digest #8: Time to ditch the cult of Hitch An actual short essay and some other bits

Wrote about the Statesman, AI Christopher Hitchens, and why writers need heroes but not idols open.substack.com/pub/padraigr...

My favourite painting

It is currently not one of the grounds under which a peerage can be removed, but I feel an exemption might be required in this case, to get Fellowes turfed out of the Lords on the basis that anyone who inflicts that upon us cannot be allowed to legislate.

PSA: the new Downton Abbey film is possibly the worst film I have seen in my entire life. It is almost impossible to put into words how lazy the writing is.

Had a little look on Twitter earlier. Awful. Tribal (football), political, nasty, aggressive, ignorant. I don’t think any of these people listen to Prefab Sprout or have any interest in doing so. Best avoided.

THREAD: v niche sport-based plea!

The N.U.T.S. (National Union of Track Statisticians) Athletics & Olympic Archive & Library will be evicted from its current premises in ten days, and urgently needs either a) a permanent home or b) temp storage.

Croydon area preferred but all offers welcome. (1/4)