This is the most exciting thing I've read about the new Taylor Swift album bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

McCartney (from 2013) on his uncle who was taught to love Shakespeare at his orphanage theguardian.com/music/2013/oct…

This is the final boss of woke corporate gobbledegook. Can't be topped let alone parodied, a new peak has been reached

I don't like to denigrate other books and prefer to maintain a silence than criticise, but this is taking the piss a bit, isn't it?

Religious faith is ‘the most enduring, deep-rooted, universal form of popular culture that history has ever witnessed, yet you won’t find it on a single cultural studies course from Sydney to San Diego.’
Terry Eagleton winter lecture

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

Foodies: what are your tips for eating in Florence and its environs?

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”

Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)

Excellent! twitter.com/edwest/status/…

Ian Leslie From the back of the wonderful Brutto cookbook:

Foodies: what are your tips for eating in Florence and its environs?

Went to see this last night and loved it. Pretty good cast, strong production, but above all a privilege and a joy to see McKellen's Falstaff. What a master! Go see it/him. playerkingstheplay.co.uk

Very good by Ian Leslie on why Sunak is so bad at politics ian-leslie.com/p/the-sunak-qu…

In this midweek Ruffian I attempt to answer the question, why is Rishi Sunak so crap at being Prime Minister? ian-leslie.com/p/the-sunak-qu…