Paul Rhodes

Well, ditto, but apparently equidistant between that and Wolverhampton FC fans, so 🤷🏻‍♂️

There is no incident so minor that online rumour can't turn it into a stabbing within the hour.

A summer evening at the Southbank Centre; a couple sit on steps in the shadow of the Royal Festival Hall; a man looks over a wall to the level below. The golden sunlight catches the concrete facade of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. People can be seen climbing the yellow steps to the roof garden, the water of the terrace fountain is forming a spray in the sunshine.

I’ve worked at the Southbank Centre for over 8 years now.

In that time I’ve become desensitised to mad conversations that wouldn’t happen anywhere else. But in my first few years I noted down ‘overhead’ snippets that would be ridiculous in any other setting.

I’ve just found those notes. Strap in.

Whoever you don't like, they're probably not as bad as this guy.

I should have said: Theodore Powys and his wife Violet adopted Potocki's daughter. www.jstor.org/stable/27321...

It's quite an impressive kind of fractal awfulness he had. Somehow more unpleasant in every direction the closer you look.

Home Explore the Powys Society home page to discover the legacy of John Cowper, T.F., and Llewelyn Powys and their literary contributions.

It appears the books were a somewhat vitriolic account of his dealings with the Powys brothers (who have an actual Society devoted to them powys-society.org ). Theodore Powys adopted Potocki's daughter.

Potocki rented the cottage (or one of, not entirely clear) to poet Hugh MacDiarmid and his wife, while he was in prison, so bits of the story appear in his biography too. They had to hurriedly leave Thakeham around August, about the time the case over its possession was first being reported.

Indeed. It's curious, but if that site is accurate it does seem to be the same chap. And both of them were back in court in 1932 having, it seems, obtained possession of a cottage in Thakeham by dubious means.

Douglas Glass was later one of the first photographers to document concentration camps after the war. www.buru.org.uk/contributor/...

Frances Molloy This book portrays the story of Ann McGill Brady, the woman who wrote herself into the history of the Irish novel as Frances Molloy.

Died of a stroke aged 44, according to Wikipedia. There's a recent biography but it's an academic publisher so ££££ link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

The aliens have turned up the AI Intensifier Ray.

AI image of a 'Correctly-wired UK plug' which is anything but correctly wired, with the live wire not going into the fuse, a mystery grey wire, and the neutral being a tiny wire between the fuse and the third pin...

AI intends to kill us all

I find Bluesky threading confusing, so this may sit better here... bsky.app/profile/parh...

Three years later, a Sunday Times review of another play starring Mollison complained that he had abandoned more serious acting. His earlier work in R.U.R. was "a masterpiece of irony" but since the success of his comedic catchphrase "...he has done no more acting [...] He has just tinkerty-tonked."

Book extract showing excerpt from a letter: “I am still just as frightened of bombs, & guns going off, as I was at the beginning. I turn bright red and my heart hammers, in fact I’m a beastly coward but I do believe that a lot of people are, so I don’t mind! Well darling I must stop, and I do feel sure that all your present work is useful, and if you can put in a little refresher in nursing – well all the better. Tinkety tonk old fruit, & down with the Nazis always your loving Peter

That splendid sign-off of the Queen Mother’s – “Tinkety tonk old fruit, & down with the Nazis” – celebrates its 85th anniversary today

The "old fruit" in the play does suggest that could be a source for QE using it.

Seems most likely but it's interesting that only after the play does it become remarked upon in print - sometimes as a new term for 'Cheerio', sometimes definitely associated with a clink of glasses, perhaps the origin is onomatopoeic?

My Own Impression. Purely as a professional connoisseur in humour, let me assure you that Mr. Clifford Mollison, who is one of an excellent cast in "The Unfair Sex," is the funniest actor now on the London stage. I don't know him. I have never spoken to him. I have simply seen him act. He is in danger, too, with the author's help, of starting another catch-phrase. His expression "Tinketty-tonk!" when raising a glass of whisky and soda struck me as being a particularly infectious piece of sublime idiocy.

The play certainly seems to have popularised it, whether it was the origin or just picking up a fad of the time. This Express comment from Sep '25.

It appears in Eric Hudson's play, "The Unfair Sex" which was on at the Savoy in 1925. Usually followed by a stage direction "Tinketty-tonk (Drinks)" - except the time it is "Tinketty-tonk, old can of fruit."

I really hope people advocating to ban kids from SM read this. Some kids are isolated by disabilities or circumstances. Furthermore, some kids grow up in abusive households. “Ideally, a child’s exposure to online worlds should be moderated by their parents” isn’t a reassuring sentiment for everyone

tbf, whatever he is talking about, it isn't maths.

Colour versions of some... bsky.app/profile/parh...

AND NO, THE "CHILDREN'S OWN PROGRAMME THAT ADULTS ADORE" QUOTE IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN.

STEPTOE & FUN

Obviously there is a bit more to it but the clipping function doesn't do double page spreads

Wilfred Brambell fashion shoot Clipping found in The Daily Sketch published in London, Greater London, England on 3/15/1971. Wilfred Brambell fashion shoot

Now the Daily Sketch is online, the true glory of the Wilfred Brambell fashion shoot article can be revealed. www.newspapers.com/article/the-...

Ibsen - The Lady from the Sea (1953) Max Faber's 1953 adaptation of the play by Henrik Ibsen that, over three days in the summer of 1888, follows a lighthouse-keeper's daughter who is trapped in her marriage and longing for the sea.

Another recent and older repeat: The Lady from the Sea (1953): www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002q7ts

Ouch :(

I think balance of probabilities is that it was something that had actually happened to him, that he worked up into his oft-repeated anecdote, and simply didn't realise that virtually the same story had been doing the rounds for years beforehand.

Snopes is drawing on Brunvand, who is referencing a 1975 letter in a little journal you may have heard of called "Folklore"! The letter says "Guardian, Miscellany column, 4 July 1972” (but, if that means The Guardian, it isn't in there).