David Benedict

Ooh. Didn’t know the TV version of Black Hearts In Battersea existed. Must watch - and ask Celia about it.

#grin

Quite.

Nigella posted this the other day. I have given myself a medal for resisting the urge* to make them.

*Thus far.
bsky.app/profile/nige...

You say that like it’s a bad thing…

LizzaAiken (@lizzaaiken.bsky.social) Sharing all things Aiken...books, thoughts, memories... https://www.joanaiken.com/

I assume @lizzaaiken.bsky.social is aware of this?

Not seen: the excellent Chambers English Dictionary which famously includes about five witty explanations, my favourite being
Éclair: A cake, long in shape but short in duration.

New podcast day! Here's ep. 392A: Deanna Raybourn stops by to celebrate the publication of the tenth Veronica Speedwell mystery, A GHASTLE CATASTROPHE! We take a look back at her life and times. @deannaraybourn.bsky.social

turnthepage.blubrry.net/2026/03/05/t...

Hard agree with all of that.

Favourite (not the most important/best) C20th operas - including one from the C21st). No order.

Peter Grimes
Der Rosenkavalier
Jenufa
Tosca
Dialogues des Carmelites
Festen
Der Graf Von Luxembourg
Porgy and Bess
Die Tote Stadt
Trouble in Tahiti

The great Richard Dyer programmed this film at the BFI (British Film Institute) about 30 years ago. I’ve loved it ever since. The remake is ridiculous because the whole point is an ordinary woman being thrown into extraordinary circumstances and there is nothing ordinary about Tilda Swinton.

Notorious would like a word.
Also, Rear Window and North by Northwest…
Let’s call it a draw.

Intrigued. His HHhH is a truly brilliant book.

The only trouble is you have to see it on the big screen with an audience. I saw it in the cinema with my pal Bryony and we wept with laughter and quote it still. A year later I showed it to a fellow critic on his TV. Neither of us cracked a smile.

nb Also stars Hart-To-Hart’s Lionel Stander.

Rex Harrison was a cast-iron shit so it’s hard to wish his birthday to be happy but he was a fine actor. Preston Sturges’ dark comedy Unfaithfully Yours has him seething with jealousy, running from murder to slapstick, his revenge literally conducted to Rossini and Wagner with his orchestra. 1/2

Here is the direct link for donations. If donating from the US, put your phone number in without any dashes lol

Couldn’t agree more. A marvellous woman.

It’s an extraordinary book, unlike anything else being written at the time. She was a wonderful one-off. I cannot recommend her volumes of letters highly enough, especially her 50-year correspondence with her New Yorker editor William Maxwell, a fine novelist in his own right, of course.

I never thought green was your colour.

“Pioneer” is the word: lesbian heroine Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote 7 utterly distinct novels which you probably don’t know since they are all so different to each other, 150 short stories, a history of Tudor church music and much else. Her (umpteen) letters are fascinating.
Please repost to help.

File under fiction or documentary?

This needs to be done because Sylvia Townsend Warner deserves all the remembering we can manage

Wordle 1,719 4/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I am scouring the Internet for a sinslide but no luck as yet.

Near the top of the list of books I unaccountably do not yet own but urgently need to read.

Yes, but has he got the moves?

“If you can’t look a treacle pudding in the eye,
Man, you might as well lay down and die.”

Words to live by.

A lot of All Gas and Gaiters is, happily, on YouTube.

The Spyer.

I am now considering writing the dystopian bestseller about a bunch of feral officer managers fighting for supremacy in Lord of the Files.