Alex Walters

Long shot, but does anyone in Switzerland have an emergency Theremin to loan tomorrow night ( Friday 12 December )?
#ViaMardot is playing a show in St Gallen, and the airline lost her equipment!!!

We can help pay for a courier if needed, please share to get this message out!!
#theremin #switzerland

I’m not an academic of any sort but this must surely be a spoof. It reads like ‘Diary of a Nobody’ rewritten by AI.

A new law has just passed that (and I know it's hard to believe) dictates that you have to share the post i've attached.

Now look. I was as surprised as you are that they chose this one, but what can I do?

I've reposted it myself, just to be on the safe side.

I’m slightly older than Farage and went to a boys-only independent school in the 1970s. I don’t remotely recognise that depiction of the school culture of the time.

Starmer urges Europe’s leaders to curb ECHR to halt rise of far right Exclusive: PM calls for members of European convention on human rights to allow tougher action to protect borders

Yeah. That’ll do it. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/dec...

Must make Christmas dinner awkward.

Yes, I think that’s the key. But I’ve seen very few cases where it’s really worked. Part of the problem is that, however good the initial intentions, money so often starts to distort behaviour and expectations.

Agree. I thought initially it was very smart - a safe and effective publishing model. Much of the risk removed before publication, a core readership in place to proselytise about the book, etc. I’m still baffled as to quite how they screwed up so royally.

YouTube video by JR Southall BBC Doctors: Whistle... (adapted from M.R. James' Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad)

That time in 2014 when the BBC daytime soap 'Doctors' adapted M.R. James's short story 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jQO...

I always direct people to this as a James adaptation. It’s a surprisingly straight version and done very well.

I’m increasingly of the view that crowdfunding is largely a scam. It has its place, obviously, but that place is largely at the individual level. In a commercial context it almost always seems to end in tears.

Also (cut - editor) almost any ‘started/began to’.

Seconded. All of those.

Over a pint in Oxford, we may have stumbled upon the holy grail of agriculture | George Monbiot I knew that a revolution in our understanding of soil could change the world. Then came a eureka moment – and the birth of the Earth Rover Program, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

1. Some good news at last. This week’s column is about the amazing thing a couple of us stumbled into three years ago, which we’ve now developed into a global research programme. It doesn’t change everything, of course, but it could help change quite a lot. + 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Keir Starmer gets John Swinney's name wrong during Scotland visit KEIR Starmer got John Swinney’s name wrong while being questioned by the media in Glasgow.

Oops. www.thenational.scot/news/2567668...

@zackpolanski.bsky.social absolutely sensational on Question Time. Actually made it feel like I'd gained something from watching it for once (although admittedly that may be because I put it on 2x speed whenever Zia Yusuf started talking).

When a child’s body is found, DCI Kenny Murrain uncovers buried secrets and a killer ready to strike again.

A tense crime thriller where the past won’t stay buried.

Out today!

www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Corners...

This is a really good point.

Forget today's view of this. Farage was making these comments only 30 years after the holocaust. Well within living memory.

No one, no one at all, was doing "gas the jews" jokes on TV.

BrewDog announces recipe shake-up of flagship beer amid plummeting sales BREWDOG has announced it has shaken up its flagship beer in an attempt to turn around dwindling sales ...

I don’t think that’s the problem. www.thenational.scot/news/2566874...

It's true! Here's Burgess doing 'The Burial of the Dead'. He had an extraordinary memory for poetry. We also have a tape of him reciting all of GM Hopkins's The Wreck of the Deutschland. Someone who was there when it was recorded says he reeled it off from memory.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRfg...

Excellent thread.

Thanks for your invaluable contribution.

Yeah, I’ll get myself another wall.

Thanks for the advice. But, you know, the wall space thing…?

I’ve loads of shelves but they’re all filled with books (and even some of those are in storage). I’ve no more wall space for more shelves.

Yes, my position’s very similar.

My main problem with DVDs (and CDs) is that they take up so much space. I have huge numbers of both which now largely sit in boxes in the attic. I try to resist buying more. Doesn’t work with books, though.

Steve Cropper, Legendary Guitarist for Booker T. & the MG’s, Otis Redding and the Blues Brothers, Dies at 84 Steve Cropper, guitarist for Booker T. & the MG's, Otis Redding, the Blues Brothers and many more, has died. He was 84.

This is sad news, he played on so many of my favourite records RIP

So it turns out the content-stealing Politics UK Twitter account is actually 50% owned by a former Tory MP turned lobbyist and charged thousands of pounds for posting pro-China posts on its own feed democracyforsale.substack.com/p/breaking-o...

Out tomorrow. Pre-order now for a mere £1.99 so it can magically pop on to your Kindle on the stroke of midnight.