David Bennun

Worst. Superhero movie. Ever.

I wonder what his tactical approach is?

Link ahoy! www.totallyradio.com/shows/thread...

The latest episode of THREADS, the radio show about musical connections, is up on @slackcityradio.bsky.social, via @totallyradio.bsky.social, and it's all about ALTER EGOs. You, or your doppelgänger, can hear it via the link in reply.

On reading this headline I immediately pictured a bunch of coppers doing a Kenneth Williams impression and now I'm going to hell.

This really shouldn't need saying in 2026 but apparently does: if you have a problem with the "revealing" outfit a woman pop star wears to the Grammys, that is exclusively, 100% your problem and 0% hers or anyone else's.

This is what would have happened if the waxworks on the cover of Sgt. Pepper had.replaced the actual Beatles for the next three years.

(This THREADS episode was recorded before news arrived of the great Sly Dunbar's passing, so I'm glad we got to give him a namecheck, and that the Compass Point All Stars - the greatest studio house band this side of the Funk Brothers - proved to be a theme running through it.)

*alternatively, do not rejoice. You pays no money, you takes your choice.

Either way, you can hear THREADS here, on @slackcityradio.bsky.social, through the good offices of @totallyradio.bsky.social:

www.totallyradio.com/shows/thread...

Rejoice*, for the latest episode of THREADS is here! This time our theme is FAMOUS BUT UNDERRATED - big (or biggish) names in music who don't get the artistic credit or the cultural cred they're due. Link in reply, natch.

Who wore it better?

GARY LARSON WAS RIGHT

Nice to know the big tech companies are so respectful of copyright, eh, kids?

TIL that AI engines will not create an image of a Japanese Mayor Quimby for you, because it would violate The Simpsons' intellectual property.

How I found the real Philip Roth - The Jewish Chronicle David Bennun talks to Steven J. Zipperstein about his new literary biography of the pre-eminent Jewish novelist

Link: www.thejc.com/life/how-i-f...

"He was a moral writer from the outset, as is Dostoevsky, whose life is not there to be emulated, or Tolstoy. Yet we tend to forgive them in ways we refuse to forgive Roth.”

Steven J. Zipperstein tells me about his excellent new book on Philip Roth in @jewishchron.bsky.social . (Link in reply.)

Link ahoy, on @slackcityradio.bsky.social, via @totallyradio.bsky.social: www.totallyradio.com/shows/thread...

New year new THREADS. The first episode of 2026 is up (link in reply), and now playtime is over, it's all about FINEST WORKSONGS - the tunes you hear in your head or in your headphones when getting things done.

Now grease yourselves up and go in, you guff-speaking work-slackers!

"Have you found Sir Keir yet?"

"Er... no, Prime Minister."

"Well, keep looking, he has to be in here somewhere. Have you tried the meter cupboard?"

Link: www.totallyradio.com/shows/thread...

No new THREADS this week on @slackcityradio.bsky.social via @totallyradio.bsky.social: the studio was closed for business on Boxing Day, and so was I. BUT! You can, if you care to, hear an improved edit of this seasonally appropriate repeat to bring in the new year: SONGS OF RENEWAL.

Link in reply.

Pictured: forces preparing to storm said hill.

I'm calling it: time of political death: 10 am, Friday 19th December, 2025.

Ruh-roh.

At last, you can stop holding your breath - here are my ten favourite albums of the year for @metro.co.uk, in alphabetical order, featuring @cmatbaby.bsky.social, @immersionhq.bsky.social, @gweniferraymond.bsky.social and @theweatherstation.bsky.social.

Goodbye to Berlin – a lost Jewish Germany is brought back to life in an epic saga - The Jewish Chronicle David Bennun has high praise for The Effingers, a beautifully subtle novel describing Germany’s slide into Nazism

Link: www.thejc.com/life/books/g...

"In many ways The Effingers is a traditional family saga. In one particular way, it is quite unlike any other, and that is in the way it has to end."

I reviewed a new translation of Gabriele Tergit’s magnificent 1951 roman-fleuve of German Jewish life for @jewishchron.bsky.social.

(Link in reply.)

This is up there with the inclusion of John Waters in that "Celebrities you didn't know were gay" listicle.

Linkety-link: www.totallyradio.com/shows/thread...

The final new THREADS episode of the year is up, on
@slackcityradio.bsky.social via @totallyradio.bsky.social, and there's nothing complicated about the theme: ICYMI: 2025 - a roundup of my favourite new music of the year.

Link in reply, for them as wants it.