20-26 June, 2026
SATURDAY 20 Day 3 of the Liverpool family reunion thing (includes members from the UK, France and the US) started with a brief visit to Newsham Park, which gave me the opportunity to tell my wife about my childhood fishing exploits. The lake in Newsham Park is where one day I fell in trying to untangle my fishing line. As soon as the water reached my chin the thought crossed my mind that if I got out quickly enough I wouldn’t be so wet.
📌 And then came a visit to the Liverpool FC Museum in Anfield. Included in the price was a tour of the stadium. But no, sneaky rip-off Liverpool FC did not tell its customers that a tour of the terraces was cancelled because the Foo Fighters are scheduled to play at the stadium soon and the set-up is in progress. So bad luck, suckers, no discount for you.
📌 And another evening meal en masse.
Then a final farewell as all parties dispersed with hugs and kisses. Tomorrow is a big travelling day for all.
SUNDAY 21 Keir Starmer is widely tipped to resign tomorrow. Too many MPs have allegedly lost faith in him.
📌 Donald Trump got elected promising to Make America Great Again. His promise did not include dragging America into pointless wars with faraway countries. In fact, he promised the opposite. Now he is stuck in a very hard place with the Iran/Israel/Lebanon conflict and lacks the skills to get himself and his country out of it.
📌 Today’s top headline is, “The End of the Keir Show”.
MONDAY 22 On BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Extra I heard a clever piece of verse about a Polar Bear making enquiries about casualties after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. It was called Have You Got Any News Of The Iceberg, by Les Barker, and carries the refrain…
Have you got any news of the iceberg?
My family were on it, you see;
Have you got any news of the iceberg?
They mean the whole world to me.
📌 Cape Verde’s success in the World Cup (so far) is attributed to it reaching out via social media to its diaspora for potential recruits to the team.
📌 Starmer has resigned. He makes a good point in his declaration, saying he was good for transforming the Labour Party from a toxic entity into an acceptable and electable political machine, but ultimately not so great at leading the party in government and speedily reversing the nation’s ailing fortunes. The Socialist Worker put a different slant on it…
While Andrew Rawnsley states what is perhaps an obvious truth…
📌 A Wordle in 2 is a rarity these days.
TUESDAY 23 Whoever comes next should take note that British prime ministers have now come to resemble Premier League football coaches. If you don’t deliver quickly you are out. Keir Starmer was a big Arsenal fan. Andy Burnham supports Everton.
📌 My sister pointed me to a recent entry in The Red Hand Files, an online forum in which the musician Nick Cave answers questions from his fans. In part of his answer to answer the question “What’s the worst thing about having become a really old rockstar?”, Cave cites meeting some old fans (Dorrie and Sven) in Denmark who wanted a selfie with him and concluded that…
The worst thing about being an old rockstar is that the old rockstar’s old fans don’t know how to work their fucking phones.
WEDNESDAY 24 Rafael Behr welds together Keir Starmer’s exit and the 10th anniversary of Brexit in a characteristically intelligent way that somehow sums up an awful lot about Britain today.
Starmer took power without a clear sense of what he wanted it for and resented the expectation that he explain himself better.
📌 Clever illustration in the New Statesman under the heading “Northern Conquest”…
📌 Ten years after the Brexit referendum and the consensus is that it was a mistake, a view shared today even by many who voted for it. At the time, my heart told me to vote LEAVE, but my head told me to vote REMAIN. For Larry Elliott it was the other way around and he sticks by what his head told him then.
📌 My 8-week post-op appointment with the orthopaedic consultant went well and I’m back on the waiting list for my other hip to be replaced with a big hunk of titanium and a scary-looking screw.
THURSDAY 25 It’s so hot they’ve moved the Dickens creative writing workshop to St Luke’s, where they have air conditioning.
📌 At the Art House Joy festival with Michelle and Sean we did a jam-packed Sew Bros workshop. People were queueing up to join the table. It was also nice to see their latest exhibition featuring the work of four Ghanaian artists who make massive witty football posters.
FRIDAY 26 Yesterday at the Dickens Museum creative writing workshop we mulled over simile and metaphor. Today in the Guardian‘s First Edition newsletter is the opening sentence…
Remember June in years gone by, when it seemed as though a ginormous queer unicorn was burping rainbows everywhere?
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