@finlay24.bsky.social
Writer for the Lion and Unicorn
Neil Innes performing "Back In '64" (from the RUTLES ARCHEOLOGY album) in 2003. Such a deft hand with lyrics that fuse fun pastiche with emotional sincerity. And that ending resonates even more with me the older I get...
10.12.2025 00:36 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Happy 65th to the best loved street in the nation
09.12.2025 22:05 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
"That’s the paradox at the heart of BBC Archive’s appeal: we are nostalgic for the pre-digital world, yet only the digital world can give it back to us."
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/04/l...
The Wicker Man was released this week in December 1973.
Fifty years after the fictional date of the clifftop singalong sacrifice, we went to be the village pub band for a re-enactment, and I wrote this piece to try and capture a flavour of that moment.
open.substack.com/pub/joelmorr...
Yes he is tall
07.12.2025 20:56 — 👍 379 🔁 17 💬 8 📌 1
From the Sunday Times's guide to the paperbacks of the year.
07.12.2025 17:05 — 👍 8 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0Just blocked someone for a) saying McCartney’s Temporary Secretary is the worst song ever recorded and b) Delivering this information with a “C’mon, we all know it” false confidence.
06.12.2025 17:20 — 👍 128 🔁 5 💬 10 📌 7
"The past doesn’t go away anymore. Instead, it sits patiently in our pockets, waiting to be tapped open. Old songs, old pictures & old videos. All available in seconds. There’s never been a better time to be nostalgic"
@finlay24.bsky.social on Auntie's archive
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/04/l...
"If you’ve never missed a moment you can never return to, you simply haven’t lived."
@finlay24.bsky.social on nostalgia.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/04/l...
I wrote this article about BBC Archive and nostalgia for pre-digital Britain
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/12/04/l...
Fixing a Hole (in the Great Wall of China)
Let it Be-ijing
The Long and Winding Silk Road
Chairman Mao-donna
And in this week's episode of the Beatles Anthology, the part of Paul McCartney will be played by Mr Chow Mein
30.11.2025 12:29 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
'What do you do for an encore, Corbyn?'
30.11.2025 11:02 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0That was only the first day!
30.11.2025 09:51 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Oh well, probably for the best in your condition
30.11.2025 08:26 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Are you sure?
30.11.2025 08:16 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
The gang from The Dick Van Dyke Show, watching television
Brand new on Dirty Feed: what happens when The Dick Van Dyke Show starts questioning its own worth.
Spoiler: it decides it’s pretty good, actually.
www.dirtyfeed.org/2025/11/i-do...
Have just finished the first draft of my next piece! It's about highland crofters, pub pianists and the morning commute. Expect it to arrive sometime next week, Fin-fans!
29.11.2025 11:18 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
"Across three series, they spar, flirt and circle one another with the usual passive aggression of the English upper classes in mating season, until, inevitably, they marry"
Our @finlay24.bsky.social on why it's modern comedy that's guilty of airs and graces👇
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/11/16/l...
"It would be easy to hate Audrey or Richard; to have some modern authorial self-insert wander in & tell them off for their privilege. But we don’t. We’re invited to laugh at their ridiculousness without malice"
@finlay24.bsky.social on how comedy loves vanity👇
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/11/16/l...
"The real scandal in all of this is that we begged our leaders to lock us up, strip our freedoms and bankrupt our future. And that is why the whole sorry mess has been forgotten."
@finlay24.bsky.social on covid amnesia.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...
"We laugh at them, and with them, and, crucially, we love them. The way you’re supposed to with sitcom characters."
@finlay24.bsky.social on "To the Manor Born".
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/11/16/l...
A new Finlarticle coming to you all soon!
14.11.2025 16:47 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Image from BBC sitcom TO THE MANOR BORN showing character Audrey fforbes-Hamilton reading a newspaper at the dining table
News coming in that our @finlay24.bsky.social has committed content again...
13.11.2025 20:37 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1(and co.)
11.11.2025 12:54 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0We wouldn't have any of this Bond handwringing if we hadn't allowed the art of Hack Writing to die out. Stick a paperback novelist in his shed for the weekend with a bottle of whisky, and you'd have got cinema gold.
11.11.2025 11:34 — 👍 27 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 1
Pointing at straight people
10.11.2025 15:53 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
"It seems the furry folk really are out and about tonight..."
Today we shall mostly be remembering TV writer Nigel Kneale, who died 29 October 2006.
Here's @finlay24.bsky.social on his TV play "During Barty’s Party".
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/07/20/d...
Thank you, James! I'll check that podcast out
26.10.2025 15:47 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The editorial team at L&U are pleased as Punch for our @finlay24.bsky.social that his essay on the PARKINSON debate between Kenneth Williams & trade union legend Jimmy Reid has now been endorsed by two generations of Reids. (Thank you @joanireid.com.)
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/23/l...
