Ray Newman

How a Small Welsh Town Tried to Save a Popular Sea Shanty Band from 'the Captain' When a scraggly band of folk musicians arrived to tour the UK, residents of a small Welsh town were enamored—until they learned that the band's leader ruled with an iron fist.

Well, this is a hell of a story, spinning out from that weird viral sea shanty trend from the pandemic.

magazine.atavist.com/2026/sea-sha...

Dispatches from the Midnight Country, Love Letters to the Dark: The Nocturnal Visions of Nona Limmen If you have spent any time in the darker corners of the internet where contemporary artists share their work, you may have already stumbled into Nona Limmen’s world without quite knowing how …

“Her photographs arrive like transmissions from memory or dream, specific and sourceless; impossible to recount and equally impossible to forget...”

unquietthings.com/dispatches-f...

My mum calls it that, too.

An old man just looked at my glass of tap water and smiled & said ‘Corporation Pop’ 🚰

Bristol Harbour Master boat Albion, with Cliftonwood behind in the distance.

Albion

Subtitles trying to convince me Franck Poupart’s nickname is ‘Franky’ when I can clearly hear everyone calling him ‘Poupy’.

A poster for the film showing the glowering face of a ratty little bloke with a moustache.

Now watching: ‘Série noire’, dir. Alain Corneau, 1979. Based on a novel by Jim Thompson. 🎬🎥

Obscure YT of the day: following up on yesterday Phillip Michael Thomas didn't return for the 2nd season of DETECTIVE EXTRALARGE, so Bud "Trinity" Spencer teamed up with Michael Winslow (POLICE ACADEMY sound FX guy!) Hilarity ensues!

youtu.be/fIy5jhpVw2M?...

That's one reason I quit a year or so back. A lot of hard work for little reward. And I really don't ask a lot: can you show my photos to my friends, who have followed me, please?

A black and white photograph of Boston Manor tune station showing its tower with glass bricks and a roundel

Boston Manor Underground Station

1934

Charles Holden

Image from RIBApix

I think I need to get back to Instagram to promote the next book. And probably do video. It fills me with dread.

Very much so. But I still can't believe he didn't work this out for himself. Possibly by looking at the photo of someone using a mouse on the box that his mouse came in.

Of dogs and dreams: the strange case of Lindsey C. Vickers’ The Appointment, 1981 “Extract from police report number 727a, strictly confidential, unpublished and unavailable. Subject: Sandy Freemont. The last positive sighting was on her way home from a school orchestra rehearsa…

The opening narration of The Appointment reminded me of something. Did an internet search on the film. And of course immediately found this by @raynewman.bsky.social

In the early days of Google earth an (IT) work colleague asked if they ran into their garden and waved, would I see them?

YouTube video by NRK Medieval helpdesk with English subtitles

Reminded me to look up the old Danish sketch about Monk needing Book Helpdesk youtu.be/pQHX-SjgQvQ

This reminds me of teaching my parents' mate Barry, a dreadful know-all, how to use a mouse. "When I push it forward, the cursor goes down. When I push it right, the cursor goes left." "You've got it upside down, Barry." "Oh, well, harrumph, ridiculous, a real mouse's tail comes out the back..."

Just looked out of my office, and for the second day, I've seen the red kite flying over the house. Spring feels like it's finally arriving.

Talk in the barber’s was of Shropshire, Mablethorpe, Skegness, fish and chips and, inevitably, the war.

a concrete artwork that is designed to be interacted with and climbed on - surrounded by water and a sign that says 'Danger deep water'. There's a lot of weed and rubbish in the water

the underside of the concrete structure, with a path going through the water underneath it

inside the concrete structure which is all blocky edges and light and shadow. There's a fairly discrete penis drawn on the right hand side...

the outside (far side) of the Pavilion showing all it's angular shapes and a bit of the housing estate behind it

I was talking about the Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee last week - I didn't know it was meant to be one of two, which was interesting to find out. Designed by Victor Pasmore and opened in 1969. In 2011 it got a grade II listing from English Heritage.

#Photography #Brutalism #Concrete #Architecture

On the anniversary of his birth:

A large rectangular wall clock designed to look like the BBC2 continuity clock from the 1970s.

Got one of those @hiddenbritain.bsky.social clocks.

The tone of the day has been set by a random angry man deciding to have a go at me as I walked through the park enjoying birdsong and sunlight. He may have been a little unwell, or he might just have been an arsehole, who can say.

The article makes the case for the iPod as the sweet spot, for 1,000 songs as about the right amount to carry with you, and for iTunes as a tool for broadening access to music while still allowing it to hold value.

“I unearthed a high school notebook in which I’d plotted purchases from the iTunes store, culled from recommendations in music magazines... and references in books... The list was so analog and earnest that it makes me cry... This is how I learned to care about music. You had to really want it.”

25 years of iPod brain Molly Mary O'Brien on the legacy of the iPod.

“The iPod marketing associated the product capability (1,000 songs in your pocket) with the obvious extension of that capability: those 1,000 songs should represent your broadest, most excellent taste.” (Via Longreads.)

dirt.fyi/article/2026...

I kept hearing people raving about There Is No Antimemetics Division and it sounds like the kind of thing I like so I picked it up a few weeks ago.

Straightaway it started fucking with my head because the more pages I read, the more certain I became that I'd already read it...

There's a man in the pub with a VR headset and two controllers. He has not yet knocked over his pint.

I've had just about enough of this.

A pink rotary payphone of a type that used to be very common in Japan, apparantly still in working order in my local ENT clinic. There is a slot for 10 yen coins, and the message "When you hear the pips, insert another coin"

Ich glaube ich bin ein Telefon, romantisches kleines Telefon

‘The Bespoke Overcoat’, winner of Best Short Film at the 1957 Oscars, and directed by Jack Clayton, is hidden away on the Studio Canal release of ‘A Kid For Two Farthings’, for example.