Samuel Cox

Thank you Declan Rice

Medically speaking I will need us to start winning by more than a one goal margin going forwards, but the mentality felt different tonight

Josh Simons knocking on your door, swivel-eyed, demanding 'are you now or have you ever ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ lived with a left-wing member of the Labour Party?'

Rice is looking another level compared to everyone else right now, will start to worry if at least a couple of others don’t get there soon

See also anyone suddenly suggesting that government contracts with Palantir and OpenAI should be cancelled solely because Mandelson may have lobbied for them. There have been moral and ideological reasons to oppose the integration of those companies into our public services this whole time

Talking Bee Gees, Lennon, Weezer and more with Ryan Jarman

Once again

Woody Allen - Zelig

Abel Ferrara- New Rose Hotel

Peter Greenaway - A Zed & Two Noughts

Charlie Chaplin - Limelight

And finally, the four best films I watched for the first time in 2025

Paul Auster - The New York Trilogy

Tom O’Neill - Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties

Richard Brautigan - In Watermelon Sugar

Thomas Pynchon - Gravity’s Rainbow

Here are the four best books I read for the first time in 2025

Van Dyke Parks - Discover America

Geese - Getting Killed

Joanne Robertson - Blurrr

Robert Ashley - Private Parts

Did this last year, gonna do it again now. Here are the four best albums I listened to for the first time in 2025

Watching some Abel Ferrara

in zohran’s jon stewart interview he says he’s been using the ed koch quote in interviews "if you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. if you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist." and some kid shouted at him “12 out of 12 baby! take me away!”

John Cale - Graham Greene YouTube video by SpaceOdyssee0

Also a reminder of this classic youtu.be/n_g_n_SxVgc?...

Did not expect a Chipping Sodbury mention in the new Thomas Pynchon. Hope he’s working on his West Country epic next

Excellent salve to Ronay’s piece last week. ‘You want concerted international action against Israel for its crimes in Gaza and elsewhere? Good luck with that when you can’t even get a few violent far-right football fans turned away at Birmingham Airport.’

A brand spanking new copy of Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon

Against all the odds, it arrived

It would appear that the Tristero cartel have sabotaged my Shadow Ticket pre-order. My paranoia is off the charts right now

a shocking - and actually quite terrifying - open dereliction of this government's responsibility to its own citizens

Bonnie Blue, absolutely run-of-the-mill pornstar name, but could also absolutely be a rousing Scots whaling song in the Roud folk song index

Happy Sunday 🍻

Ostensibly trying to do Pynchon in order (will be reading Shadow Ticket hot off the presses though)

Finished Gravity’s Rainbow today. Seeing One Battle After Another tonight. Haven’t yet read Vineland. I’ve planned this all wrong

Au Pays du Cocaine. You’re missing out on some great song names here!

Yeah don’t buy the Astral Weeks comparison. Will say though CW seems as fond as Van is of slightly bizarre vocal ticks, which I love

Islands of Men (track 5) definitely has some Heavy Metal DNA too, and that slight Tom Waitsian warble he does so well on Drinking Age

Geese really bring out the YouTube-comment “the kids are alright!” boomer in me. Getting Killed is a blast

US cash turned Tommy Robinson into the poster boy of UK f... Outside the Old Bailey in 2018, a reinvented Tommy Robinson flashed his perfect new teeth to 2,000 diehard supporters at a “free Tommy” rally on a stage ...

Yaxley Lennon is funded by US billionaire Robert Shillman who also backs James O’Keefe, Katie Hopkins, Laura Loomer and other far right figures. The apparent grassroots racist renaissance is astroturfed observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Only shame was having to see the unite the kingdom freaks out and about