Robin Brown

Wyrd Wirral It's easy to dismiss Wirral as weird, but what if the ancient strangeness is something the peninsula should lean into, rather than ignore? Meet spirits of place on a walk along the coast.

Why is Wirral weird? Imagine if the folky strangeness of Wirral became something the peninsula sold itself on, rather than ignored. In another note, there are Vikings Claremont Farm this weekend.

A long summer read from Laura Brown

open.substack.com/pub/liverpoo...

Northumbria police destroy Battle of Orgreave and other miners’ strike files Force says it disposed of papers last year despite forthcoming inquiry into scenes of violent policing in 1984

Disgraceful

Streams of consciousness: in search of Liverpool’s lost rivers From the Alt to Jordan, how the city's buried waterways endure beneath roads, parks and time itself.

A piece 18 months in the making, tracing Liverpool’s lost rivers liverpoolalmanac.substack.com/p/streams-of...

Some Might Not Say: What a Glut of New Oasis Books is Leaving Unwritten | The Quietus There are a glut of new Oasis books out due to the reunion, but, asks Fergal Kinney, how is the band's shocking decline in quality dealt with?

Excellent by @fergalkinney.bsky.social on how nobody likes to talk about how late-period Oasis were appalling (also for anyone paying £100s in price-gouged tickets to see them this summer, how as a 15yo fan he went to see them and ended up drenched in bloke piss)

thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

‘These are traps set for the people’: the story of a mother shot dead searching for food in Gaza A family is reeling from the killing of a woman who walked for hours to an Israeli-backed distribution point with her son and daughter

‘These are traps set for the people’: the story of a mother shot dead searching for food in Gaza www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

What's On in Liverpool in May #2 Two festivals, a new exhibition from a departing curator and a play ending its run — plus a food scene that might be new to you...

I have a new things. Essays and a what’s on guide to Liverpool. Yes, it’s a newsletter. liverpoolalmanac.substack.com/p/whats-on-i...

As ‘another sucker trying to sell their house through estate agents’ presumably

That’s nothing. Our estate agent tried to sell our own house to us.

Revealed: online campaign urged far right to attack China’s opponents in UK Social media incitement following last summer’s riots appears to be new tactic against Hong Kong exiles

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Curate your own city Ten years ago, a group of volunteers led by artist Sam Meech unveiled the first month of programming at Liverpool Small Cinema.

"A friend once said to me, always act as though you’re the only one keeping the archive. You compile and create your own history and experience of a city."

Liverpool is a DIY city. So what's stopping you?

liverpoolalmanac.substack.com/p/curate-you...

So long, and thanks for all the Garmonbozia

Robert F Kennedy Jr claims seed oils are ‘poisoning’ us. Here’s why he’s wrong Like a host of online influencers, the man likely to be the US’s next health secretary has denounced the vegetable oils used in countless foods. The science is not on their side

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Mark Zuckerberg has gone full Maga | Siva Vaidhyanathan It’s also a mistake to describe the Meta CEO’s move as a retreat from ‘fact-checking’: it’s a retreat from limiting harm to users

Mark Zuckerberg has gone full Maga
It’s also a mistake to describe the Meta CEO’s move as a retreat from ‘fact-checking’: it’s a retreat from limiting harm to users..
#MarkZuckerberg www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Not long now til @telegraphnews.bsky.social goes full on Free Tommy

David Lodge, Campus Trilogy novelist and academic, dies aged 89 The author of more than two dozen books is best known for his trio set in a fictionalised version of the University of Birmingham, where he worked from 1960 to 1987

David Lodge’s campus trilogy are essential reading - especially if you actually work on a campus - but I got into this work via a short story called Hotel Des Boobs, which was one of the funniest things I’d ever read www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

I think this should be kind of a big deal: Elon Musk tweeting at 1:03am, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

The AfD is Germany’s neo-Nazi party.

‘put pillows on trains’ is probably not a bad idea, but expecting the government to debate it in Parliament strikes me as… unlikely

Petitioning the government to ‘Pub in bethel, Caernarfon’ is a bold strategy for incentivising growth

Among a load of right-wing drivel and complaining about fireworks - and allowing for ‘funny’ ones there are some astonishing government petitions that people launch. “Give £25,000 of taxpayers’ cash to each shop selling fishing tackle” is my favourite of this batch

That’s one reason - why not write something about their actual patch? It’s a zero-sum game. If you’re writing this then be definition you’re not writing something better. And ‘literally describing things in a not-very-old catalogue’ is stretching the word ‘feature’ to destruction.

I’ve got form with complaining about how low the Liverpool Echo’s bar is set, but this is astonishingly depressing. “But hits” isn’t a strategy.

From the Times Higher Education: The announcement makes it the 80th known university to announce cuts in recent years, according to an influential list compiled by the University and College Union branch at Queen Mary University of London. The milestone comes as Times Higher Education recently reported that university leaders anticipate job losses to hit 10,000 by the end of the year, as major cuts become commonplace in the sector.

Yesterday a story about 1k possible job losses in the automotive sector was top of the morning news. 10k possible job losses in HE was buried in the sector trade paper's coverage of redundancies at Sussex. Gov't & media refuse to recognise a crisis in HE. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/around-...

Some of it has been notably of dubious provenance and integrity and is obviously only considered newsworthy because it fits an anti-Labour narrative. There has been no honeymoon for what is a fairly centrist government by historical standards and it begs all sorts of questions.

Always been interested in how the media attempts to influence votes, agenda-setting and policy. When Blair was in number 10 the right-wing press were cautiously amenable. I look at the front pages every day; since Labour won the vitriol from Mail, Express, Telegraph particularly is off-the-charts.

You should try teaching them to a room of 30 students, all using different browsers, machines, Wifi… !

Picture of Jeremy Clarkson with his 2010 quote: “Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The govt doesn’t get any of my money when I die.”

Narrator voice: “Little did he know…”

I think Twitter has killed off the part of me that used to do this stuff. I can’t think of a single interesting thing to share. Facebook = pictures of my kids for older relatives to enjoy. Insta = food, architecture and landscapes. What’s left when you’re in your mid-40s and so very tired?

Well so far I haven’t been served a bunch of right-wing, bot-boosted Musktrump propaganda so that’s something.