DJ Punctum

There is nothing weirder than fifties Perry Como. "Glendora," "Caterina," "Kewpie Doll" - these songs are so inherently creepy Nice Cave should record an album of covers.

Sorry to hear of the passing of actress Susan St James at 80. One less Whalers fan in the world. #RIPSusanStJames

I grew up not far from Madervel.

Play "Three Girl Rhumba" rather than "Part Time Love" occasionally, oldies radio #Watford

So... Some jowly cheeked fruitloop reckons Arabs don't produce literature... Instead of giving him more breath, let's instead celebrate Arab literature. Starting with 1001 Nights... Which gave literature the embedded narrative technique & without which, Disney would have made far less money.

Co-op Dividend Stamps now also valid for discounts on Ronnie Hilton and Bachelors LPs.

Looked to see what 6Music had recently been playing. It's like half of music has been fenced off and confined to a museum. In fairness you could say that about most music radio stations now.

In an ideal world Lee Harvey Oswald would have been shot with at least two named women present, who were talking about something that was not a man

The gradual transformation of "love" into one of the most evil words in our language is remarkable even by today's degraded standards.

"The Top Three...At Three." "Ray-de-oh SUR-REEEEEY!" "And Alison Moyet has a question for you listeners: 'Is This Love?'" #SixMinutesBeforeTheHourOf #ThatsTheSoundOf

I did mean to write a review of this but got sidetracked and have now retired from long-form writing for health reasons; sorry RC, but I can at least re-read it (which I ought to do anyway).

four hours of dead silence. two men staring at each other for so long and with such intensity they merge souls. eventually the interview is terminated when a muted cough from a publicist startles everybody

I know it's akin to asking some of you not to breathe but can we stop wishing happy birthday to people who are deceased? Commemorate them by all means but this tendency reads like dgaf A.I. slop.

Raccoon dogs are not raccoons, and not related to raccoons. They are part of the canid family. Genetically they are more closely related to foxes than other canidae. IG: @keeleyrvn

Am reading it now. Extraordinary, dreamlike and extremely metaphorical.

Guardian Opinion | European food is rubbish. British people should be forced to eat a proud native diet. Gooseberries not avocados. Vimto and Bisto forever. Why is nobody reading this paper any more? By Lewis Bassett

He used to be quite good.

What I am really struggling to conceptualise, as someone who actually *wants* to vote Green, is not just the extraordinarily poisonous views of some its candidates, but the staggeringly weak response of the party when those views are exposed.

Will Self is currently writing one of the best regular politics and culture columns you’re likely to read, and for reasons that remain a mystery doing so exclusively on Facebook and X. This week he has weighed in on the AI writing crisis, and his thoughts are typically piercing and brilliant.

To the existing faintly depressing feeling that always accompanies time spent clicking around on the internet, one must now add the profoundly dispiriting feeling of starting to read something and realising it’s the prose equivalent of mass produced cheap plastic tat.

Linking practically all experience to an idea of “community” is in one way very positive and quite inspiring, but “community” has now been systematically co-opted by platforms whose goal is to capture and degrade attention. Regaining autonomy over privacy is related to regaining autonomy of thought.

Obviously this is excellent, detailed, and in many ways pretty terrifying - essential reading for anyone with even a passing concern for literature, thought, learning etc. I would only add that there is an even broader crisis here around attention. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

“Instead of his appointment conjuring the question “what new opportunities for research will this lead to?”, it was “doesn’t this make you feel good?”” This blisteringly good column by Jason Okundaye is the best thing I’ve yet read on the Arday affair. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Today's dose of You Used To Be A Serious Freaking Newspaper.

I think a future where we all sit around in our sweaty plastic clothes eating air with a 1cm ring of dough round it is a bleak one and we must work tirelessly to avoid it.

Send them straight to the charity shops and cut out the middleman.

Google’s AI assistant, proving why it will be absolutely invaluable to the humanities.

Just in case you were going to wonder why the best novel didn't win. Bring back unsexy, uncool panels of aged professionals who know about literature, not hasbeen pop stars from half a lifetime ago or relentlessly self-promoting loudmouths who aren't nearly as good or clever as they think they are.

Look, like any sane person I welcome the effort to make trains and buses quieter, but as a regular train user I have to say the tannoy announcements are invasive and infantilising and need to go too.

It made me think that what we actually need to address is the state of the conversation about books, rather than the state of books, because it’s completely moribund - an endless recycling of the same three or four topics with no conclusions drawn whatsoever.

Good grief. If I see the same six books on any more best reads of 2026 lists I am going to scream and it’s only October. We have another two months of this. Don’t be sheep. Try reading one of the gazillion great books the publishing industry isn’t trying to force down your throat.

Never forget!

Meanwhile in Germany 🇩🇪: Emergency services rescue a man who was trying to rob electrical appliances from a recycling bin. Bonus content: Police found he had an outstanding arrest warrant, and whatever the German for “You’re nicked, Sonny Jim” is, that.

Happy Birthday, Conlon Nancarrow! (b.Oct.27, 1912) Conlon Nancarrow - Boogie-Woogie Suite, Study No. 3a (1949) Bang on a Can All-Stars: Vicky Chow-piano; Mark Stewart-guitar; Evan Ziporyn-clarinet; Ashley Bathgate-cello; Robert Black-double bass; David Cossin-xylophone. youtu.be/oTlGnhGYXHw?...

"You don’t fuck with the Irish, lads” “This is my moment … you can’t take my voice from me.” Hell yeah, good for everyone involved in this! www.theguardian.com/music/2026/o...

I recently recorded a 40-minute conversation with Bill Drummond for his sort-of podcast series Spoke in the Wheel. I don't know how long it will be live - a lot of his stuff appears only once a year on the date it was first published. So it may or may not be here: www.penkilnburn.com/spoke-in-the...

One of our finest purveyors of the spoken word - Michael Sheen - performing the poetry of fellow countryman DYLAN THOMAS — born 112yrs ago today — in UNDER MILK WOOD (1954)

Insert the Windsor Davies GIF here.

Dylan Marlais Thomas. Born OTD in 1914, 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea, South Wales. Died 9/11/1953, St Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan, NYC www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0tm...

It's BADFORD! LOUSY RATINGSFORD!

The Four Tops performing “Standing in the Shadows of Love” in 1967. The song was considered a reworking of the 1963 Suoremes’ 1963 B-Side “Standing at the Crossroads of Love”. It reached #2 on the U.S. R&B chart. On the album Reach Out. #Motown #SoulMusic m.youtube.com/watch?v=r80i...

Just finished one of my books of the year - Dooneen by Keith Ridgeway. It’s quite unlike anything else. He does that confidential voice so well and the disorienting narrative of a small man in a big situation which we (and he) only half grasp. Like the best literature I keep thinking about it.

It's amazing how the modern tech world has made every app and device sound twee, polite and chirpy apart from printers. "Printer maintenance in progress. DO NOT INTERRUPT!" It's like being barked at by Patrick Moore. And why NOW, exactly?

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.” 76 Candles 🎂 today for one of my favourite humans — FRAN LEBOWITZ

💯If you can't afford not to come to work, then you need to take a long look at where you went wrong with your life; don't make others pay for the mistakes you've made. If you're so arrogant or deluded to think work can't do without you or vice versa,get professional help. Work doesn't love you back.

i will preface this by saying that @theflytrapmedia.com published a very good piece that gets at a lot of what i am about to bitch about, @judysquirrels.bsky.social wrote a banger here