Stephen’s Notebook

| April 13, 2020

Ronald Searle book collection 3

Ronald Searle book collection 2

Ronald Searle book collection 1

Part of my small collection of vintage Ronald Searle cartoon books 4

Part of my small collection of vintage Ronald Searle cartoon books.

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| April 12, 2020

Jon Brooks, Shapwick and How to Get to Spring by bobfischer

Over the course of three solo albums on the superlative Clay Pipe label, Jon Brooks has created music with a very distinct and affecting sense of place. The first, 2012’s Shapwick, took inspiration from the eerie calmness of a night-time detour through this sleepy Somerset village; while follow-up...

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| April 11, 2020

How To Get To Spring by Jon Brookes - LP record

Spent part of the afternoon listening to this beautiful album. How To Get To Spring by Jon Brookes on on Clay Pipe Music.

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| April 11, 2020

Coronavirus has exposed the myth of British exceptionalism | Fintan O'Toole (the Guardian)

This virus does not respect Johnson’s delusions of national character, says Fintan O’Toole, columnist with the Irish Times

Great stuff.

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a post by Stephen P

In order to stay positive, I am trying to limit my intake of news. I want facts, not sensation. Even some of the output from those sources I deem to be more measured have arguably strayed into the unnecessary at times.

The BBC has been getting loads of stick lately, some of it deserved, but I think their coverage of this has been pretty good. I think it’s been calm and useful and not at all sensational.

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I’m all for being safe on the web but Firefox is starting to get a bit too snooty about which sites it will allow me to visit. I don’t need all the hand-holding.

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Caught by the Reaper: John Prine | Caught by the River

...the songs of John Prine feel genuinely radical in their reverence of the specific, the local, the small. They suggest that in amongst the unexamined nuts and bolts and wood chip and whiskey of so-called ordinary working lives you can find the big stuff—hope, love—life even—in all their corniness, and ask us to go on living, in spite of ourselves.

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