Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Helen Barrett

@helenbarrett.bsky.social

11K followers 2.2K following 5K posts

Features journalist - NYTimes, Financial Times, Telegraph. Writing a book about the Beatles, out spring 2027. Yes, we need another one. https://www.helenbarrettjournalist.com/ https://open.substack.com/pub/helenbarrett

www.helenbarrettjournalist.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 14d

I wrote about a rush of new nightlife memoirs and the death of nightclubs for this week's @ftweekend.com books essay.

www.ft.com/content/a4ed...

Memoirs from the dance floor — the nocturnal universes of New York, London and Berlin

Three very different accounts by Mark Ronson, Jodie Harsh and Liam Cagney create a history of club culture since the 1990s

www.ft.com

1 4 23

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 13h

He could be quite suburban, too. His comment: "God, that's so Croydon" is a very Bromley thing to say.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 13h

It's fascinating - he moved to Beckenham as an unknown and left the place an international star. He was both repelled by suburbia and formed by it. I doubt he would have existed in the way he did without that dreariness. Kureishi, who also grew up in Bromley, says the same thing.

1 3

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 18h

Hertfordshire County Council rules for library use, 1930

RULES FOR PUBLIC LIBRARY
BAN ON LIARS AND DIRTY FACES
Strict rules, which have been approved by the Hertfordshire County Council, are to be imposed by the Hyde Institute Library, Barnet Vale.

LIBRARY USERS iN FUTURE MUST NOT:
Enter the library if their faces are offensively dirty.
Fall asleep on the tables.
Eat their lunches whilst reading papers, books, &c
Smoke in the building.
Leave their business cards behind.
Make themselves a nuisance.
Kick or damage the furniture.
Bring dogs within the portals.
Tell lies to the librarian.
Enter when they are in an inebriated con- dition.
If they have small-pox.

17 43 150

Reposted by Helen Barrett

New New York Times @nyt-first-said.bsky.social · 19h

jazzmaxxing

1 2 9

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 20h

Me too, on my one unhappy work trip. Shameful, blatant segregation, junk architecture, vapid cultural offerings. Give me Croydon any time.

1 8

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 22h

(Would read TF out of an interview with the accent coach.)

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 22h

Though scousers should probably play scousers. Otherwise we have to suffer their attempts at accents.

2 11

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 22h

Tbf the mouth guards were on both men and women, but even so.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 22h

Now do the matriarchs. Blanchette as Mimi.

deadline.com/2025/10/saoi...

Saoirse Ronan To Play Linda McCartney In ‘The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event’ – The Dish

Saoirse Ronan has joined the 'Beatles' movie quartet from Sam Mendes in the role of Linda McCartney, we can exclusively reveal.

deadline.com

1 11

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 23h

A system that assumes you're a thief until you prove you aren't. Bleak.

2 1

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Arm-trapping "cocoon" bodysuits at Alaïa, and mouth guards that stretched the face into rictus grins at Margiela. From left; Umberto Fratini/Gorunway.com;
Simbarashe Cha/The New York Times

2 5

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

"Paris Fashion Week introduced clothes that hid, confined, muzzled or erased the women beneath. There were garments that transformed women into aliens and put them in aprons. There were styles that suggested suffering and entrapment were the cost of participation."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/s...

Why Can’t Fashion See What It Does to Women?

www.nytimes.com

1 1 5

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Arthur David Spota @adaspota.bsky.social · 1d

American scientist and researcher Harold "Doc" Edgerton (also known as Papa Flash), a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gun Toss, 1936-7
#Photography

2 5 39

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Who asked you?

www.bbc.com/news/article...

JD Vance slams Canterbury Cathedral art installation - BBC News

The US Vice President says it has made a "beautiful historical building really ugly".

www.bbc.com

3 30

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 1d

One of my favorite moments from Nobel Prize history:

The Nobel Committee couldn’t reach Stanford professor Paul Milgrom to let him know that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, so his fellow winner, Robert Wilson, went over to his house in the middle of the night to wake him up!

13 160 940

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

The Vermeer show in Amsterdam a couple of years ago limited access with timed slots - no more than 100 at a time, and it worked well.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Even Monday mornings are rammed with people trying to avoid crowds.

1 1

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

It's not massive, but it's great fun. The other two shows - Boris Mikhailov and Rydet - are excellent, too.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

It's not huge, but it's a lot of fun. The Boris Mikhailov exhibition upstairs is excellent, too.

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Richard Blandford @rblandford.bsky.social · 1d

Got Kraftwerk tickets! Disappointingly, did not have to tick a box confirming I was a robot.

23 170

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

The Lee Miller show at Tate is so rammed it's hard to see. But as an alternative, a great exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery opens today on 100 years of photo booths.

Old photo booth photo of a Spanish man laughing

Old photo booth photo of a chic young French woman

Old photo booth photo of an American boy smoking

8 18 93

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

If fit off, I get them altered. If south, there's a fab, speedy, reasonably priced seamstress in Brixton market, the bit between Brixton Rd and Electric Avenue. But there are loads.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

I've been at this for decades and never found better than Levi's - in sizing, quality and range. But I always go for a trying-on session (the Canary Wharf branch is empty so never hassly, ditto Battersea Power Station). And COS are well made, I think.

1 2

Reposted by Helen Barrett

National Trust @nationaltrust.org.uk · 2d

On this day in 1940 John Lennon was born.

In 1946, following his parents' separation, he came to live with his aunt at Mendips in the Woolton area of Liverpool. We're incredibly proud to look after this house as a place for people to visit and experience where it all began.

Exterior of a suburban semi-detached house with a front porch and gates across a driveway

John Lennon's childhood bedroom. We see the bed, posters on the wall and a view from the window onto a street.

Interior of John Lennnon's childhood home. We're looking into the living room with a comfy, worn sofa and chairs, small desk and a fireplace. They are arranged around a patterned rug.

4 11 84

Reposted by Helen Barrett

SI: Museum of African American History (Bot) @simuseumafro.bsky.social · 3d

Coverlet woven in a Pine Bloom pattern by an unidentified enslaved person https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2017.108.3

2 3