Email from Aer Lingus with the subject line ‘It’s a great time to go Stateside’

It’s really not.

And just think how much better off the country would be if he’d been able to form a government in 2015. Admittedly, this applies to pretty much every conceivable outcome except the one we got. Farage would still be the chief bore in the saloon bar, where he belongs.

Ed Miliband is far from perfect - I remember the Controls on Immigration merch from 2015 - but I think he believes in something, and that his beliefs are motivated by improving society somewhat, which - bizarre as it seems - makes him an anomaly among senior Labour figures.

I feel like Starmer is still essentially secure, but only because of the lack of a plausible successor. Streeting is a blank without purpose, charisma or morality and it’s ludicrous that he’s even in the conversation. I think it’s time to put bacon behind us and bring Red Ed back to the big chair.

Round Britain Quiz remains the most terrible show on Radio 4 (a title jointly held alongside Money Box, You and Yours and Today whenever Justin Webb is hosting) but I find its insufferable twee smugness makes for a compulsive hate listen. I just can’t stop myself.

It's a little dispiriting that, in her first season, the Artistic Director of the National Theatre has programmed a revival of War Horse. It's a good show but it's been flogging around for 19 years now, and bringing it back again doesn't seem like a very bold statement of intent.

This is simply not true. Labour didn’t have to go right. They *chose* to go right. The big majority was a chance to reset everything back to sanity. Starmer chose the mad, bigoted, ignorant and dishonest route instead.

The other takeaway is the bleak, seedy Le Carréness of it all. MI5 seems to have spent all its time breaking the law shamelessly, blackmailing Labour politicians and trade unionists and chasing their own tails looking for traitors. Actual national security seems to have been an afterthought at best.

Other notably terrible people include Sir Robert Armstrong, Anthony Blunt, Victor Rothschild and Peter Wright himself. The one honourable exception so far seems to be Paul Greengrass. I hope he keeps it up because I like his films and don’t want to have to cancel him.

To Catch a Spy: How the Spycatcher Affair Brought MI5 in from the Cold by Tim Tate

I am reading this, having been vaguely aware of Spycatcher as a kid but having no real comprehension of it. The key takeaway so far is that absolutely everyone involved on all sides are jaw-droppingly awful people. Liars, crooks and cheats to a man and woman (the latter principally being Thatcher).

Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Tim Curry in Clue

Tim Curry in The Three Musketeers

Tim Curry in Muppet Treasure Island

Happy 80th birthday to Tim Curry who has always, *always* understood the assignment.

This was extremely annoying.

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I love that a The Pitt: Night Shift spin-off (which I would watch the heck out of) would end with the day shift coming in fresh, and we’d assume that they were the emotionally healthy ones.

I am very happy to contribute in any small way to getting her books out there. She’s the best!

A wonderful actor. He had such a wide and distinguished career, but I remember him best as Bulstrode in Middlemarch, and for his hilarious turn as the Sultan in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

The process of selling houses is very different between Sweden and the UK. I put my flat on the market at 5pm yesterday, had a viewing at 12pm today, got an offer at 3pm, had a stress-cry at 3:30 pm and signed the contract at 4pm. I feel quite shell-shocked. And now I have to move to London.

Which is not to say I am judging it on the basis of his attractiveness as a rom-com lead (although I am, a bit) but he is also unconvincing as a vehicle for Lucy's self-emancipation.

I just read A Room with a View for the first time, and I appreciate this view makes me a philistine, but I think the film is better. George Emerson is barely there on the page, and what there is of him is alternately a bit rapey or drearily mopey. I never thought I would be pining for Julian Sands!

This is also the case for Reform. They have no 'legitimate concerns' and should not be accommodated in any way.

🫶 It’s one of these rare moments where it’s okay to go back to your ex.

💚 @greenparty.org.uk & @scottishgreens.org think it’s time to get back together and we couldn’t agree more.

🗳️ Remember this when you’re voting in your local elections on the 7 May.

In principle, I believe in a politics characterised by compassion, tolerance and inclusion. In practice, I hate everyone who supports the Tories or Reform with the fire of a thousand suns. I contain multitudes.

I don't think anything more usefully summarises the UK than seeing the "left wing" government kick the fuck out of one of the few genuinely successful export sectors of the last ten years because racist pensioners who will never vote for them don't like foreigners.

Trump is running an interesting experiment in how many self-identified Christian Americans have actual religious commitments and how many are just into it because it provides a means for the socially defensible expression of bigotry bsky.app/profile/bria...

The book’s hinterland takes in a portrait of Broadmoor - which turns out to have been far more humane and progressive than I would have imagined - and the murderer’s rehabilitation and release, to emigrate to Australia and become an heroic stretcher bearer at Gallipoli. A strangely inspiring read.

There was a lot of attention given by the courts and the press of the day as to whether the media - in this instance, lurid penny dreadfuls - had warped his mind. There was even among the critics a Conservative activist who was himself a profoundly hypocritical criminal degenerate. Plus ça change!

The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale is absolutely fascinating; its detailed account of a child who murdered his mother is a jumping off point for a portrait of late Victorian England which, as ever, shows that humanity and society are remarkably consistent.

I thought the latest episode of The Pitt was noticeably less well written than usual, with an uncharacteristic seam of Whedonesque banter. I looked it up and it was written by Noah Wyle. The privileges of being an Executive Producer!

As Gold Star Nepo Babies go, Jack Quaid is a good actor and seems like a good egg, but he is also the definition of We Have Adam Brody At Home.

I have started hitting up Rightmove ahead of my return to the UK, and there has rarely been a more brazen attempt at rebadging than West/South Hampstead. It’s Kilburn, and we all know it.

Durdle Door and Man O’War Cove on the Dorset Coast. Two semi-circular beaches lie at the base of chalk cliffs. In the foreground is a massive natural stone arch; in the background a rocky island which was the site of a reckless act of dinghy assisted child abandonment, c.1982.

Durdle Door may be a key location in PROJECT HAIL MARY, but for me it will always be where my brother rowed my six year old self to an island and then gleefully stranded me, requiring a paternal rescue. Grace and Rocky forged a closer relationship across a galaxy than Rory and I ever managed.