How many soft pens for Ipswich this season. A lot.

Fairly sure there's books in my TBR pile that have been there since 2012...

They also play the Wallace & Gromit theme tune after a victory.

I mean, if it were up to me I'd just play old North(end)Ern Soul stompers. But like most things it's not.

They formed in Preston, when they were at the Poly. First manager a certain Marcus Parnell. They wrote about Action Records here www.cornershop.com/2015/05/the-...

But also that desperately seeking positivity thing fits.

They play this at Deepdale as the team comes back out after half time and it always gives me a small pleasure no matter how bad the football.

A Silenced Epidemic: Burnout in the Cultural Sector; and How We Can Create a Better Future - Clore Leadership By Laura Crossley | In her provocation paper 2023 Clore Fellow Dr Laura Crossley explores the deep roots and damaging impacts of toxicity in cultural sector workplaces.

My research into #burnout in the #arts is online

TLDR Burnout in the arts is an epidemic caused by systemic & organisational culture issues. We can make positive change through collective action from funders & organisations. Recommendations are in the report

www.cloreleadership.org/research/a-s...

Channelled Swift for a minute or two… Poetry or policy, you decide.

Five Modest Proposals for Preventing the Children of Rich People Becoming A Burden on the Arts

stridemagazine.blogspot.com/2026/01/five...

Maybe not all of them, eh? Maybe some of them are already 25, 35, 45, 65...

(Not to take away from the point about funding and creativity in schools of course.)

I guess some would say I've made a start... I've a run of Forward anthologies 1993-2023, but it's too easy to just buy them, I have to find them... And then there's my late-blooming Ashbery completism... O lord I have a problem don't I? Send help! Or if not help, books!

I'm gonna try at least one of those before it's too late.

PSA for freelancers

On a serious note, I don't think the DMCS response does anything much to resolve the contradictions at the heart of the Hodge Review.

392. Chandler, Lorraine – I Can’t Change YouTube video by northernsoultrain

Or this? www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpAT...

I could do this all day tbh, these obscure failed rediscovered records - what Northern Soul is in essence -mean more to me than most things.

The Precisions - If This Is Love I'd Rather Be Lonely [Drew] 1967 Northern Soul 45 YouTube video by Musicdawn 45's

Or this? If This is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMn9...

Gwen Owens - Just Say You're Wanted And Needed - HQ YouTube video by Soul Prince

It did make me smile that Lisa Nandy slipped Northern Soul into her intro to the response to the Hodge Review, between ballet and opera. I hoped it was meant to irritate them.

But is the soundtrack this www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lLA...

"By making sure they don't try anything daft again like moving money out of London and opera so they can invest elsewhere."

'Better ensure' is doing some work here isn't it?

Annual reminder to people who write books and things: sign up to @alcs.co.uk and you get a tip in March. Not big money for me but more than enough for (Lidl) buns for tea.

Man but this guy has messed up ehat you get if you google me.

I can't make this but it looks an important survey and event. Push the tide of prejudice (including from fellow creatives) back! www.cultural-barometer.co.uk/backlash-a-q...

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

Great stuff. I met Pete a couple of times. Once we were both up for the same literature development job. Unbelievably I got it, my first proper job in the arts. (The rest is history etc...) Every time I read his work I wonder how the hell he didn't get the job!

Relief at news that grandson got his first choice of secondary school - same one his mum and uncle went to, and both good and local. Not sure what to call the 'how %%%%ing old am I' feeling mixed in with it though...

Boost for Artists’ Income and Market Opportunity as Own Art Scheme Expands  - Own Art The Own Art scheme, an initiative delivered by Creative United, will be expanded to help boost artists’ earnings and address inequality, as new research identifies it as a ‘vital pathway’ for art and ...

Good to see this, and Own Art recognised. Back when I was chair of ArtCo, ACE's then trading company, in the late 2000s, I had to help see off at least one attempt to squish the scheme by sceptics. Very glad Own Art has flourished under @creativeunited.bsky.social.

www.ownart.org.uk/boost-for-ar...

Labour council accuses minister of ‘moral bankruptcy’ over social care dispute Hartlepool leaders ‘furious and appalled’ after meeting with Steve Reed about growing cost of social care

So many things to flabber your gast aren't there? "That's life" said the minister. What is wrong with these people - even at the 'competence of retaining government/councils' level, let alone decency?

www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

" Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"

(Brecht.)

Lmao

Good win, bad losers. The Trump playbook meets VAR.

Jeff Tweedy / Sima Cunningham, Ne me quitte pas (Jacques Brel cover), Paris, Alhambra, 14.02.2026 YouTube video by Kai Tenge

This was one of many highlights of the Jeff Tweedy gig we saw in Paris (on Valentine's Day, by accident). I mean, we meant to go to the gig but it was an accident we seemed so romantic.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikgr...

a stat i always cite is the number of anti-trans articles in the press went from 60 in a year, to 7,500