Really saddened to hear of the death, aged only 71, of CJ Sanson, author of the Shardlake novels, Winter in Madrid and Dominion. A wonderful, wonderful writer. RIP

Very happy to announce the publication today of our third book of a series devoted to the plays of Jean Racine, this one on Bajazet and Mithridate. It contains pieces by a wonderful range of scholars. Please order it for yourselves or for your library!
brill.com/display/title/…

Paris's Moulin Rouge windmill wings collapse overnight. The wings of the iconic French landmark fell off for reasons not yet known. No injuries were reported.

Here comes the rain again ........ 🙄

Thanks to OperaVision, I've just watched Bruno Ravella's Irish National Opera Salome, a thoughtful piece of theatre with the focus psychological detail, and often all the more alarming for its very restraint. Sinéad Campbell Wallace is the real thing in the title role, too

A genuine low point for Britain.
Let it be the lowest.
Getting these abject sociopaths out of government will be the start, but only the start, of a long, long journey.

This is the best possible news. VP has been transformative and thrilling.

460 years after his birth, always worth seeing this Shakespeare infographic again… 🥧

There will hopefully once again be a time when British politics is not, day in, day out, all about multi-millionnaires who life has treated very well being performatively cruel to all sorts of people it hasn't

A move into darkness. Sunak doubtless sees it as a right wing sop but he's detached from our reality.

Rishi Sunak wants to ban our GPs from being able to sign us off when we're sick! Sign the petition now and demand these dangerous new plans are dropped. 38d.gs/ie_a

A fourth week and still coughing, though it's now going with tedious slowness in the right direction. Though my GP thinks whooping cough 'unlikely,' the symptoms suggest I may have caught it as an adult. Whatever, there's something nasty out there, so take care, good people

A much love doll, Olive, has just been lost on a train either at Doncaster or on the London North Eastern Railway train from Doncaster to London. I have a devastated little girl and I’ve seen these sorts of posts work before.

Have just watched the opening episode of #RedEye , which is at once totally implausible and utterly gripping .......

One of my very favourite people to talk to. Witty, kind, informed and gloriously unfiltered. He will be greatly missed but leaves a fabulous and broad recorded legacy

Dreadfully sad. A wonderful conductor. RIP

Round 1 Group K. Only two to progress. Second symphonies by Andrzej Panufnik, Walter Piston, Albert Roussel, and Grace Williams. Please vote and retweet. #ClassicalPoll

'I said with men, and with the thoughts of men
I held but slight communion; but instead
My joy was in the wilderness - to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain's top.'
From Manfred by Byron, who died 200 years ago today.
youtube.com/watch?v=0K45gx…

Priceless ........
theguardian.com/books/2024/apr…

Joseph Keilberth was born in Karlsruhe #OnThisDay in 1908. This is his 1963 Munich performance of Strauss's Intermezzo, with Hanny Steffek, Hermann Prey and Ferry Gruber, directed by Rudolf Hartmann. It's never, in my opinion, been bettered.
youtube.com/watch?v=MSenGi…