Alastair McKay

Quite disturbing.

I sang Jerusalem with Robert Jenrick at school — he’s wrong about race The Conservative MP has complained that, visiting Handsworth in Birmingham, he didn’t see ‘another white face’. You can’t judge whether someone is integrated by skin colour, argues fellow Wulfrunian S...

I sang Jerusalem with Robert Jenrick at school — he’s wrong about race

www.thetimes.com/article/3af4...

Can I be the first to say that Taylor Swift’s new album is underrated? (Probably not. Reviewers are reviewing the thing, their expectations, their perception of the audience reaction, rather than the music). That said, Wood is objectively terrible and should have remained a private valentine.

I read a book. I recommend it. www.uncut.co.uk/reviews/thom...

West Ham tumble in modern football’s vortex, with home now a distant memory | Jonathan Liew A feeling of loss and dislocation surrounds the East End club, which has never been part of tourist or establishment London

The Guardian’s football writers don’t seem to like football much. As a West Ham fan, there are reasons to be annoyed, but the global vortex isn’t top of the list. A mobile centre forward would cheer everyone up.

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

‘Protect Empathy at All Costs. And Live Groovy Lives.’ Jim Jarmusch on what’s paying his bills these days and the words he lives by.

www.vulture.com/article/jim-...

Protect empathy

“I just sat down at my piano in Scotland, started playing and came up with that song. It's a sad song because it's all about the unattainable”: The story of the ballad that sparked the breakup of The ... Featuring "atrocious" bass-playing by John Lennon

McCartney’s Long and Winding Road. (It goes to Cambelltown and describes the end of the Beatles). www.musicradar.com/artists/i-ju...

‘We Were Just Passionate About Making Good Songs’: Lindy Morrison & Amanda Brown Reflect On The Go-Betweens’ ‘16 Lovers Lane’ As they prepare to once again revisit The Go-Betweens’ seminal sixth album ‘16 Lovers Lane,’ original members Lindy Morrison and Amanda Brown remember how for them it was always about building a legac...

A different angle on the Go-Betweens themusic.com.au/features/the...

From Wimpole Street To Number One: How Peter Asher found the sad, eternal heart of a rejected Paul McCartney song A lonely ramble down the road to the pure teenage sound of 1964

This Paul McCartney song got under my skin. I asked Peter Asher, of Peter and Gordon, to tell me all about it.

open.substack.com/pub/alastair...

Justin Currie's diary of a somebody: a brisk, irascible record of rock 'n' roll life A diagnosis with Parkinson's colours the del Amitri singer's reflections in his memoir, The Tremolo Diaries

open.substack.com/pub/alastair...

Watching Live Aid, I now want to ask The Edge about minimalism.

Chris Mason of the BBC (and the BBC News) are so embedded in the framing of Farage that they can’t even see it anymore.

So, West Ham fans - as you wait for the Irons to sell their best players in order to buy some worse ones, here’s my gallery from the great days of Green Street and Upton Park. (Now, Mr Sullivan, a fit centre forward, please).

Chris Mason of the BBC, I put it to you that you are overexcited.

Say it with me. RFK Jr. is killing children.

Thought For The Day. How can we have any hope of sorting out any of the world’s problems when no one is brave enough to sort out the insulting monstrosity that is Thought For The Day on the R4 Today programme? Make it stop! Free my ears!

In his new book, Arthur Baker suggests that Tony Wilson was “David Frost meets Donald Trump.” This is terrifying, obviously, but I wouldn’t mind watching David Frost interview Trump, Nixon-style.

A reprise (with some new bits) of one of my favourite interviews (as Sir Rod prepares for Glastonbury). open.substack.com/pub/alastair...

I enjoyed this (very) long profile of the PM, and the revamped New Statesman looks good. However, the correct cover line would be Hellbent On Compromise, which is a) true b) a good thing and c) an Edwyn Collins reference.

When the new chair of Reform is called David Bull, you know that Martin Amis is writing the news.

BBC Bosses Draw Up Plans to Win Over Reform Voters by Changing News and Drama Output The Director General Tim Davie and other executives discussed altering BBC “story selection” in order to secure the "trust" of supporters of Nigel Farage’s party

Oh. bylinetimes.com/2025/06/09/b...

Good to see the Daily Telegraph admitting to the devastation of Thatcherism.

Because data driven journalists have a weaker sense of what used to be news values, and novelty and fatalism combine with right wing management to produce an effect in which balance means skewing the reporting towards enabling accidental fascism … something like that.

I am familiar with your point it view, but I think there is a more specific failure happening at the moment.

Why does the BBC news behave like a Nigel Farage fanzine?

Andy Warhol in Rapid Eye Movement fanzine, 1980.

Resins To Be Cheerful: The Beautiful Secrets Of My Mother's Shellac Record Collection Behind The Golf Clubs and The Dusty Bibles In The Wasp-Infested Loft, I Found A Pile of 78rpm discs. It Was Like A Message From Another Time

I had a spectral encounter with some old records. open.substack.com/pub/alastair...

It’s not my favourite name, but it’s not much worse than The Beatles.

It’s a Scritti Politti reference, allegedly.

‘I wanted to make people dance, or cry, or puke’: Marc Ribot, the wildcard sideman for Tom Waits, Robert Plant and more He started as a jazz guitarist making Barbie albums on the side, and has ended up on over 500 releases. From bebop with Elton John to Americana with Alison Krauss, Ribot recalls the richest of careers

well, this is good.
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/m...