Mandarin duck, Kirkcaldy celebrity.

A small crowd gathered around. A pair of boys in their early teens stopped to see what was happening. One said "That's not a normal duck. What sort of duck is that?"

I told him it was a mandarin duck. He asked, not even sarcastically, "Are you like a duck guy?"

They will never stop playing the victim, all the fucking time. The fact was they put up a terrible candidate.

Can't wait until Sunday when I will bring out my A-material about resetting cooker clocks.

Scotland are playing in a World Cup and I have tickets to see Belle & Sebastian, Death Cab For Cutie and Teenage Fanclub.

It's all very exciting but I have absolutely no idea what year it is.

Jesus when he comes back to Earth:

Not a single Oscar for any of the films I pretended I'd seen in order to look cool last year.

The book 'The Godot Diaries' by Lucian Msamati.

It feels like a play everyone should see, but not too frequently.

By the way, I'm currently reading Lucian Msamati's book about his time in the play and it's very good.

I was in the Studio at the Citz last night for A Grain of Sand. At one point, just before WFG started, an usher asked if anyone in the foyer was "waiting for Waiting for Godot".

Also, how was it? I saw the production with Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati in London a couple of years ago.

Michael Stewart on Premier Sports, co-commenting on the Dundee v Dundee United game:

"He literally left Iovu for dead there."

"He looked to play that early ball, almost forcing Stephenson into an unforced error."

'Only You Left', the new album by The Orielles, out today.

Spending lunchtime with 'Only You Left', the new album by The Orielles, out today.

You don't get that sort of thing at the Oscars.

It was when he was filming A Shot at Glory, the football film with Ally McCoist.

I'll always have the memory of Robert Duvall doing the half-time draw at Kilmarnock v Motherwell in 1999. I expect that will feature prominently in the tributes.

At least a website from which I bought socks in 2015, and that has a fairly loose grasp of data protection legislation, is thinking of me this Valentine's Day.

Finished watching Small Prophets and yes, it is as good as everyone says.

YouTube adverts keep trying to sell me AI girlfriends like I don’t already have a collection of balloons with a smiley face drawn on.

Cover of my recent book: INTO THE GROOVE: The 1980s: The Ultimate Decade in Music History By me, Justin Lewis (@whenisbirths.bsky.social) 'An epic compendium of stories and trivia from the 80s music scene'

My 80s pop history book, #IntoTheGroove:
'...tells pop's never-ending story brilliantly.' DAVID QUANTICK
'Like a treasure chest of pop riches.' SAMIRA AHMED
'It reminded me of how much I loved the 1980s.' GIDEON COE
'A delightful, curious compendium.' JUDE ROGERS
eandtbooks.com/books/into-t...

“You are reading my Christmas Day email to a convicted child rapist asking when his next child rape party on peado island is in very bad faith”

It's so grotesquely and pathetically apt that even in his damning Epstein emails Elon Musk just reeks overwhelmingly and unmistakably of that vacuous desperation for acceptance and approval. What on this Earth could be more risible than "please, please invite me to your child abuse party island"

MOURNERS. Read the dress code instructions on funeral invitations very carefully. Sombre, whilst being only 2 letters away from sombrero, is a world apart in tone.

A very happy, strawberry-flavoured birthday to the brilliant @christinamartin.bsky.social, who wrote my favourite Viz letter of all time.

I left the couple of local Facebook groups I was in during Covid because they had become unbearable. People I thought were alright turned out to be awful.

33 years ago today, after ingesting the river water at Duff Gardens, Lisa Simpson became the Lizard Queen. “Selma's Choice” first aired on Fox on January 21, 1993.

Yeah, if the whole point of a new play is to be 'anti-woke' then it's not, as the publisher claims, all about artistic merit, and it is by definition political.

People who believe the free market is always right don't like it when that goes against them and things they deem "woke" are genuinely popular. This is especially galling for them when the thing in question is a West End play, an expensive event for most people, therefore a very deliberate choice.

Isn't that just Stephen Miller?

He didn't ask if I knew a specific Darren. Just "Do you know someone called Darren?" It was the early 1990s and I was still at school. Of course I knew someone called Darren.

When I was 16 an old guy on the bus home told me that his daughter went out with a boy who looked just like me but that was in the 60s so it probably wasn't me and anyway, he didn't look all that much like me. Then he asked if I knew someone called Darren. He made more sense than Trump.

Genuinely the type of incoherent drivel that used to be the sole preserve of shambling fuck-ups on the last bus home from Kirkcaldy.

I've heard more about Brooklyn Beckham today than I have since the day we found out he couldn't photograph an elephant.

So, I'm 50 now.