Just getting ready for tonight’s discussion about Plato/live Scrabble game. BBC Free Thinking on BBC Radio 4 at 9pm. Players: Kate Maltby Sophie Grace Chappell Takeshi Morisato Dorian Lynskey. We’ll also deal with all the subjects on the board. bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…

In response to that weird viral tweet claiming that men don't make sad music, I give you the new Phosphorescent, which is just beautiful. An underrated titan of the sad-man school.
youtube.com/watch?v=i0bP0G…

Nicky Wire once teased me for liking Lifeblood more than any of the band did so I feel vindicated now. Such a weird, moving, alienated record. I remember watching them do The Love of Richard Nixon in the Top of the Pops studio and thrilling at the oddness of it.

🚨OUT NOW🚨Reform UK's doing okay in the polls despite its candidate nightmare – what does the party stand for? And the panel asks Dorian Lynskey why are we obsessed by the end of the world?

Hugo Rifkind, Ros Taylor and Zoë Grünewald join him👉listen.podmasters.uk/OGWN240412Refo…

In other good music writing news, Alexis Petridis meets Linda Thompson and hilarity ensues
theguardian.com/music/2024/apr…

Every issue of the New Statesman should have a Kate Mossman piece. This is reliably excellent.
newstatesman.com/culture/film/2…

the lede on the NYT's original 1995 story about OJ Simpson's trial is insane

'His acting remained a lot like his murdering—he got away with it, but no one really believed him.'

Supporting local opera is woke now. Nothing those wokesters like more than local opera

Letting the guy who ended Roe v. Wade appoint even more SCOTUS justices to punish the guy who appointed a SCOTUS justice who voted against ending Roe v. Wade 🙃🙃🙃

Always weird (and obnoxious) for media figures to dismiss media criticism by claiming it’s not a problem because journalism is worthless, words are meaningless, and which information people do and don’t see or hear, how they get the info, and how it’s framed don’t matter at all.

Casting the new Harry Potter TV series must be a chewy one

How could I resist even more end of times with Dorian Lynskey couldn't put his last book on Orwell down

Good morning, I’m a paperback writer #TheStirrings is out now, ⁦W&N⁩ ⁦PEW Literary⁩

I'm in favour of Billie and this message but I would love it if someone said 'You can listen to all, some or none of this album, in any order. It's really just a bunch of stuff that doesn't fit together at all and has nothing to say. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry.'