Jonathan Morgan

Also Venice, of course: morning deliveries from my favourite Panificio

I have deleted the emails that were in my inbox and which you were probably sending for reasons Forgive me they were annoying so many and so long

My current favourite in this rich sea of memes

So much of, and in, the world is experienced and understood through music… week in, week out…

This evening’s Spritz. @davidhewson.com will recognize the spot!

Some excellent value food and drink here in Venice’s Santa Marta district today. First pic shows the bargain €5 Spritz & snack deal at Carovansara, and second pic is at Osteria Bakan: €15 lunch, including primo, secondo, coffee, and wine/Spritz. Very local for us: that’s our bedroom window opposite!

Second evening in Venice, so two spritzes down so far. This evening at Carovansara, conveniently just round the corner from our apartment (thanks to @davidhewson.com for the rec); yesterday at Bar Blu (@robinsaikia.bsky.social’s little guidebook).

#NowPlaying This is Very Good! Superb orchestral playing, and a marvellously clear but warm recorded sound. Honeck’s interpretation is often quite interventionist but never for the sake of it; details of articulation and dynamics are minutely observed.

42 of these, as opposed to 45 of the original list, so marginally in the opposite direction for me. Don’t know what that signifies!

I’ve written more about statistics of the Guardian’s 100 best novels list, including: – Books that just missed out – Two errors in the data (Cather and Camus lost out) – Best novelists – Alternative rankings – Weirdest and least-weird ballots mpaldridge.github.io/blog/guardia...

73% now 😜🥳

My answer to the trolley problem is: That’s not a trolley, it’s a tram. No, what you call a tram is a cable car. No, what you call a cable car is probably a funicular. Oh, while we were sorting out these important points, the railed vehicle has passed the points. Yes, they are points, not a switch.

For now this is just one poll. But if this trend continues the current FPTP voting system makes no sense anymore. If you add the SNP and Plaid Cymru to the mix we might end up with a completely random result at the next elections. Which will undermine trust in the U.K. democracy even further.

Wagner Tuba time! Bruckner 8, Philharmonia, RFH tonight.

PSA: currently on Amazon.uk Kindle at £0.99

That little section with the 4 Wagner tubas in the slow movement is my absolute favourite of all Bruckner: looking forward to hearing it tomorrow night.

Ah well, there I am, on the fringes of the UK classical music community - quite apt, I think…

Wonderfully eclectic programme tonight at Kings Place

Fascinating, detailed thread

🔴A Year of Living Dangerously in Trump’s America I no longer feel safe to speak or act freely in a country where people are being arbitrarily detained and killed and where the truth is becoming whatever Donald Trump says it is, reports @alexhh.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2026/01/15/a...

This AI music video defending Greenland is amazing 🤩

On TGV heading north, near Dijon. Snowy fields, and Johannes Martin Kränzle’s powerful new Winterreise streaming through my earbuds. I saw his marvellous Alberich in the Berlin Ring, 2024; he recorded this Winterreise later that year.

My new favourite video of all time.

Ensemble sight-reading test (Advanced Version)

The best memorial for Rob & Michele Reiner would be for that vile remark to bring down Trump.

Tony Hart uses some nice pastels to draw Stonehenge. Even better than season 4 of The Wire. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBOA...

This is just wonderful

I do not entertain the idea that there is anyone better at photographs and Alt-text right now - on any platform - than the magnificent Tom Cox. The man can frame a picture perfectly and, boy, can he crack you up with a deft line to accompany it. Also, buy his books. From Blackwells. #booksky

"Rhapsodic slow movement" = it's mid-century British, it's not very good "Spirited fast movement" = it's mid-century British, it's not very good

Farfalle: impossible to time the cooking. Either the centre of the bow is undercooked or the frilly edges are overcooked…

@amwilson.bsky.social Just in case you hadn’t already spotted this!

HD: one of the lesser known members of the family…

@backlisted.bsky.social I've been wanting to support Backlisted by using @bookshop-org-uk, but whenever I try to choose Backlisted as my bookshop, it doesn’t come up in the drop-down list in the search. What am I doing wrong?!

Plenty of @pgjonesvenice.bsky.social holiday reading here in our Venice Airbnb - though I've already read these ones… So instead, I've got @davidhewson.com's first Arnold Clover on my kindle -and am about to head over to Danilo with an empty water bottle to stock up for the weekend.

If anyone is in Venice on Sept 6th: I'm one of a group of visiting (mostly) English singers and instrumentalists for this concert. Composers include G Gabrieli, Croce, Viadana, and Schütz (who studied in Venice with Gabrieli).

Great thread highlighting the missed opportunity for some valuable public history here.

The witch trials of 1612 still cast a long shadow.