October 7-13, 2023
SATURDAY 7 The New Statesman has a taste of the grief Labour will inherit from the present government should it win next year’s general election. Water charges are deviously triggered to escalate by 60% in December next year.
đź“Ś A casual browsing of the “People You May Know” gallery on Facebook yielded a character I don’t know called Sybella Luxuria.
đź“Ś Centre-ground Conservatives refuse to roll over to make way for the Suella’s bulldozer from the Rabid Right. Former Justice Secretary David Gauke has already established himself as a regular voice at the lefty New Statesman and today in the Guardian ex Education Secretary Justine Greening is offering friendly advice to Keir Starmer.
đź“· Headline from the Guardian.
đź“Ś Fools, Frauds and Firebrands is an essay of startling clarity and telling detail by Will Lloyd on hapless Rishi and what we can expect from the Conservatives once he’s shuffled off to hedge-fund utopia.
đź“Ś I asked my wife to remind me why we don’t like a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing expecting her to say something about dancing. She replied: “He’s boring and charmless.”
SUNDAY 8 Sam’s Legs was always a beautifully crazy drawing. Translating it into stitch is a tricky proposition made all the more worthwhile by the sight of the reverse side, where a multitude of stitchwork sins are laid bare.
đź“Ś The key safe to our allotments has been attacked by vandals and the key stolen. Frantic exchanges on WhatsApp followed. Who did it? What shall we do about it?
MONDAY 9 Great news! Thanks to a flood of public donations, London’s Vagina Museum, “the world’s first bricks-and-mortar museum dedicated to vaginas, vulvas and the gynaecological anatomy”, is open again after an enforced closure.
đź“Ś Sam sent an epic portrait of Andy Warhol that makes him look almost normal.
đź“Ś When last week I posted a picture I papped of the comedian Mark Steel at a restaurant in Brighton, one of my fellow bloggers commented, “Blimey! Mark Steel’s let himself go”. The reason could be that Steel has recently been diagnosed with cancer and is soon to begin treatment.
TUESDAY 10 Max’s dog’s face looks like it’s had the stitchwork equivalent of bad plastic surgery.
đź“Ś As the Supreme Court prepares to hand down its verdict on the government’s claim that Rwanda is a “safe country” to which Rishi and Suella can bundle off stubborn asylum seekers, Tortoise declares it anything but in a lengthy dispatch with compelling evidence.
đź“Ś When at the start of his big speech Keir Starmer was attacked by a protestor armed with a tub of glitter he looked rattled. The protestor was dragged away on the floor by two women who clearly didn’t get the irony of it. Sir Starmer then gathered himself enough to make a patronising remark about the beauty of his wife’s dress.
WEDNESDAY 11 There’s a general liberal media agreement that Starmer smashed it. His big speech at the Labour conference in Liverpool both nailed his authority over the party and made him look like a prime minister waiting to happen. On the New Agents podcast Lewis Goodall said Starmer and would-be Chancellor Rachel Reeves both have the ability to be radical without sounding radical. They also referenced Starmer’s tactic of using his working-class backstory to distinguish himself and Labour from billionaire Rishi and his party of the privileged.
đź“Ś At St Luke’s for a Men’s Shed cookery session (spagbol, foccacia, carrot salad) Graham told me that his girlfriend used to be in Hagar The Womb, a band name I recognised from the 1980s. He said they split up in an argument over door receipts with The Three Johns when they were the support act. Graham also said they recently re-formed as The Hags.
đź“Ś Keir Starmer has rebranded Conservatism, it says in the New Statesman.
đź“Ś My wife’s cousin Mike arrived to stay with us for a month while he rehearses his part as a murderer in an upcoming production of Macbeth starring Ralph Fiennes. The weird thing (or maybe it’s a new trend) is that the play will not be performed in conventional theatres but in big out-of-town warehouses that look more like film stages or rave venues. My wife checked the website and nearly all of the tickets are already sold out. At the end of the first day of rehearsal Mike said one of the producers flounced in wearing a black cloak and a Chanel brooch.
THURSDAY 12 Israel is being seriously questioned about the kind of war it has decided to fight with Hamas.
đź“· In the grounds of St Monica’s school in Hoxton a remarkable colour combination has been left to grow with the changing weather.
FRIDAY 13 Fabulous level-headed analysis in the Guardian of Keir Starmer’s freshly minted articulacy about class. It is, says Aditya Chakrabortty, skin-deep posturing on a subject that has as much relevance now as it ever did.
đź“Ś My new favourite podcast is Media Confidential from Prospect magazine, which is now edited by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. In this episode the Israel/Hamas conflict is explored through those who are trying to report it and the methods they use to bring balance and context. If it has a fault it is that Rusbridger and fellow presenter Lionel Barber (ex Financial Times editor) are boringly fair minded and it is only through the people they interview that any real punch is felt.
đź“Ś In the stitchwork of Marge’s grandson Max in his school play he is now wearing the most lurid golden suit seen since Elton John had a bad day in the costume department.
đź“Ś In the Inspector Singh story I’m reading, The Singapore School of Villainy, a young lawyer in kills himself when he is outed as homosexual. This seemed odd given that for years Singapore was under British rule. And yet as recent as one year ago, homosexuality was still illegal in the former province. It has now been decriminalised, but same-sex marriage is still illegal. In the story the Singapore police show a lot of leniency and prosecutions not given much priority. Even so, stigma it seems was able to issue its own death sentence.
đź“Ś A remastered version of the Jonathan Demme Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense at the Barbican was a great reminder of the weird genius of David Byrne. His performance trance only looked suspect once, when he took off the fat jacket of his fat suit to reveal the fat waistband of his fat trousers. Otherwise, it was a gig (or three) you wished you’d been at.
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