David Bennun
Yeah, that one.
- This really shouldn't need saying in 2026 but apparently does: if you have a problem with the "revealing" outfit a woman pop star wears to the Grammys, that is exclusively, 100% your problem and 0% hers or anyone else's.
- This is what would have happened if the waxworks on the cover of Sgt. Pepper had.replaced the actual Beatles for the next three years.
- Rejoice*, for the latest episode of THREADS is here! This time our theme is FAMOUS BUT UNDERRATED - big (or biggish) names in music who don't get the artistic credit or the cultural cred they're due. Link in reply, natch.
- Who wore it better?
- GARY LARSON WAS RIGHT
- TIL that AI engines will not create an image of a Japanese Mayor Quimby for you, because it would violate The Simpsons' intellectual property.
- "He was a moral writer from the outset, as is Dostoevsky, whose life is not there to be emulated, or Tolstoy. Yet we tend to forgive them in ways we refuse to forgive Roth.” Steven J. Zipperstein tells me about his excellent new book on Philip Roth in @jewishchron.bsky.social . (Link in reply.)
- New year new THREADS. The first episode of 2026 is up (link in reply), and now playtime is over, it's all about FINEST WORKSONGS - the tunes you hear in your head or in your headphones when getting things done. Now grease yourselves up and go in, you guff-speaking work-slackers!
- "Have you found Sir Keir yet?" "Er... no, Prime Minister." "Well, keep looking, he has to be in here somewhere. Have you tried the meter cupboard?"
- No new THREADS this week on @slackcityradio.bsky.social via @totallyradio.bsky.social: the studio was closed for business on Boxing Day, and so was I. BUT! You can, if you care to, hear an improved edit of this seasonally appropriate repeat to bring in the new year: SONGS OF RENEWAL. Link in reply.
- I'm calling it: time of political death: 10 am, Friday 19th December, 2025.
- Ruh-roh.
- At last, you can stop holding your breath - here are my ten favourite albums of the year for @metro.co.uk, in alphabetical order, featuring @cmatbaby.bsky.social, @immersionhq.bsky.social, @gweniferraymond.bsky.social and @theweatherstation.bsky.social.
- "In many ways The Effingers is a traditional family saga. In one particular way, it is quite unlike any other, and that is in the way it has to end." I reviewed a new translation of Gabriele Tergit’s magnificent 1951 roman-fleuve of German Jewish life for @jewishchron.bsky.social. (Link in reply.)
- The final new THREADS episode of the year is up, on @slackcityradio.bsky.social via @totallyradio.bsky.social, and there's nothing complicated about the theme: ICYMI: 2025 - a roundup of my favourite new music of the year. Link in reply, for them as wants it.
- "Melancholia bathes Wish You Were Here like cold moonlight. It is so very sad, and so very lovely." I revisited the album I consider Pink Floyd's true masterpiece for its 50th anniversary edition, in Metro.
- Well, I'm glad he's cleared that up at last, the uncertainty was starting to eat away at me.
- >Nobody so exactly represents the evolution of mainstream American pop from 1960s teen bubblegum to 1970s singer-songwriter introspection, because nobody else ever stood at the pinnacle of both. I reviewed Jane Eisner's illuminating Carole King bio for @jewishchron.bsky.social: link in reply.
- Enjoying the byline of this article's author. Presumably Kate Busset, Alex Khachatrain and Mike Onyabike were busy on other assignments.
- No new THREADS on @slackcityradio.bsky.social this week coz I is sick innit and not in the good way. BUT! You can hear a new, improved edit from the archive, care of @totallyradio.bsky.social, if you care to, on the theme of ANIMALS. Link in reply, natch.
- Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen
- Happy Black Friday, y'all.
- The budget will cost my necessarily frugal household money we could well use, but I won't be complaining, because I'm not 12, I can grasp that a functioning country needs paying for, and I can understand the difference between something that isn't fair and something I simply don't like.
- "But why couldn't richer people pay for it?" Yeah, they will, too. More than I will. That's how it works. (I'm not saying there's nothing at all unfair in the budget. Just that everyone north of the breadline paying a bit more is not inherently unfair. We really are a nation of adolescents rn.)
- Ninja-level trolling by the Guardian picture desk to find a photo where he appears to have had a Social Justice Warrior hairdo.
- It's not very lifelike. Just the one face, and it stays pointing the same way.
- Cancel your appointments, hold all your calls, bring in the dog and put out the cat: the new THREADS is up, on @slackcityradio.bsky.social via @totallyradio.bsky.social, and the theme this time is BAD BOYS. Link in reply innit.
- Stop personally attacking me with this relatable content, I just had a heavy weekend, is all.
- By a remarkable coincidence, that's the exact reason I had no intention of going anywhere near a Morrissey show.
- ME: "Vandalism of artwork for any reason whatsoever is a selfish and unjustifiable attack on our collective cultural heritage and should always be dealt with sternly." ALSO ME: "Could we not give this lass a grant tho."
