I can’t believe that Melania mouthing ‘is it safe?’ In her eponymous attempt at a Pradaganda movie (see trailer: m.youtube.com/watch?v=dxXJ... ) has not been sneakily and subversively inserted to echo Laurence Olivier’s Nazi dentist in Marathon Man…
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kzw1...
Full livestream of the #UpHellyAa procession from 7.00pm on uphellyaa.com #shetland
Thanks to Campbell for pointing me in the direction of John Moreland. What an achingly relevant song this is. youtu.be/Fsnqt7GKR9g
Phew!
I Vow To Thee My Country on BBC Radio 3. At 6.00am. Thought we were at war with the USA.
Musings on a lovely day: the Rector of Stiffkey may have sat in this room; otters will bite your hand off; Henry Williamson’s still-visible swastika, Hugo the rescue hound and Rayburn control for beginners…with pictures. Free to read and subscribe over at beatcroft.com beatcroft.com/2026/01/16/o...
I just daren’t go any further down this rabbit hole…I still have nightmares about a Radford valve amp that looked like something from Gilliam’s Brazil I let slip away into the Clarkston wastelands…oh. Wait a sec…https://ebay.us/m/KDQBTo
New #Fiio digital audio player, pretending to be a cassette. Great, but…dunno, I’m still shopping for CDs…
Despite an abiding love for the Mackendrick original, I have a great deal of time for the 2016 remake of #WhiskyGalore. Splendid performances, particularly from Gregor Fisher and Eddie Izzard. And the knitwear is note perfect. On BBC2 now
Many thanks to The Sunday Mail and Paul English for this. Not many books left and only at the Beatcroft Shop on Etsy
Recognise anyone? From Stuart Spence's Strait/Rocket 88 Glasgow fanzine, published in 1986, drawn by (Kaiser) George Miller. A time celebrated in the wee book Big Rhythm by me and Stewart Cunningham, launching next weekend. Full comic strip, over at beatcroft.com
Working dog food, like sheepdog staple Wag, carries no VAT and has kept our stable of mutts going for decades
Finished the first four #JackTaylor books by the late #KenBruen. Brilliant but darker I think than any other detective series. Erudite, unflinching on alcohol, Galway and religion. Just 14 to go!
#EdgeofDarkness remains the pinnacle of UK TV drama after 40 years. And the BBC making something today as directly political is unthinkable. That Clapton theme tune rips off Roy Buchanan something ridiculous though.
We all became expert in using pencils to rewind unspooled cassettes. AC/DC’s Bon Scott apparently salvaged the only copy of the band’s first demo that way…
If post-modernism is still a thing, it has just spooled a million metaphorical feet of tape from the Blaupunkt dashboards of a ghost fleet of Escort XR3is amzn.eu/d/fzsWxSf
“First, they came for our Sensational Alex Harvey Band records…” Wordpress Beatcrofting on the culling of late night Radio Scotland. beatcroft.com/2025/11/21/f...
99p on Kindle for the first four Galway/Jack Taylor books by the late Ken Bruen. That’s ALL FOUR, 99p the lot. The Guards is a stone cold classic of the drunk intellectual detective genre
Read all the Zoë Boehm books in gaps waiting for the next Slough House from Mick Herron. If anything, the TV adaptation of Down Cemetery Road is even better than Slow Horses. Adeel Akhtar’s presence brought Utopia (UK version) to mind.
Puts the whole Boorman/McGregor cavalcade in perspective. #Itchyboots really is awe-inspiring. “I left Afghanistan🇦🇫 - how this motorcycle journey changed me forever.” youtu.be/xqZMZpgeALM?... via @YouTube
The Maggie is magnificent
Original Mackendrick version of #WhiskyGalore on TV. Joy. Watched it on a big screen in Strontian at the Ardgour book festival years ago. Audience singing along in Gaelic. 2016 remake is perfectly OK but this is wondrous.
Railway station roofs. They are undoubtedly deep spiritual codes. Transcendence beckons.
If you've never read/are addicted to @adrianmckinty's Northern Ireland-set #SeanDuffy thrillers, he's got some stories on Substack for free. This is great. open.substack.com/pub/adrianmc...
I think this weekend saw Deacon Blue and Wet Wet Wet playing major gigs in Glasgow with Hue And Cry in The City of Paisley, and Edwyn Collins in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, Caught Up In This Big Rhythm, - 72-pages of 80s Scottish pop snapshots and memories by me and Stewart Cunningham - is coming soon
Perfect in tone but somehow lacking in space. Feels dense, crammed. Always that sense of both lightness and movement in Le Carré’s prose. Fascinating though.
