Lion & Unicorn
@lionunicorn.bsky.social
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lionunicorn.bsky.social
"The biggest domestic upheaval since the war has been wiped from memory. Poof. Gone. Evaporated. We were barely out of our masks before we decided never to mention them again."
@finlay24.bsky.social on the covid lockdowns of 2020.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...
Decade: Lockdown (2020)
Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?
thelionandunicorn.com
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lionunicorn.bsky.social
"America is in fact a dictatorship. Your President has total power, unlike the leaders of the Soviet Union. He is your Commander-in-Chief. Also he is in charge of foreign affairs."
Today we shall mostly be reading Derek Lambert, born 10 Oct 1929.
thelionandunicorn.com/2018/05/16/r...
Rear-view review: The Red House
DAN ATKINSON on a Cold War tale of a doubting communist.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
"America is in fact a dictatorship. Your President has total power, unlike the leaders of the Soviet Union. He is your Commander-in-Chief. Also he is in charge of foreign affairs."
Today we shall mostly be reading Derek Lambert, born 10 Oct 1929.
thelionandunicorn.com/2018/05/16/r...
Rear-view review: The Red House
DAN ATKINSON on a Cold War tale of a doubting communist.
thelionandunicorn.com
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lionunicorn.bsky.social
"Much of the film is shot in the Collins Music Hall in Islington, where packed houses rock with laughter at the antics provided by acrobats, performing animals and a drag act."
The last Ealing comedy saw Harry Secombe star in Davy (1958).
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/05/f...
Final cut: Davy (1958)
SIMON MATTHEWS watches Harry Secombe in an Ealing Comedy about the dying days of variety.
thelionandunicorn.com
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timbale.bsky.social
One of my favourite quotes (and not just because the same applies to me)!
lionunicorn.bsky.social
"Can you make me look better than I do on television? I look rather scraggy, like a ghost."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you have a head like a skull."
"Does not everyone have a head like a skull?"
"No."
Alec Douglas-Home died 30 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2022/12/28/2...
2022 Politician of the Year (dead)
He worried that he looked like a ghost, but the former 14th Earl could be a model for his slick successor Rishi Sunak.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
"Can you make me look better than I do on television? I look rather scraggy, like a ghost."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you have a head like a skull."
"Does not everyone have a head like a skull?"
"No."
Alec Douglas-Home died 30 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2022/12/28/2...
2022 Politician of the Year (dead)
He worried that he looked like a ghost, but the former 14th Earl could be a model for his slick successor Rishi Sunak.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving cabinet minister, Geoffrey Howe, died ten years ago.
Here's a reminder of the time when the zombie sheep turned truly savage...
thelionandunicorn.com/2022/07/05/p...
Howezat
ALWYN TURNER on Geoffrey Howe’s resignation from Margaret Thatcher’s government.
thelionandunicorn.com
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benfinlay74.bsky.social
Done and dispatched, an autumnal themed top ten which will be coming soon...
@lionunicorn.bsky.social #topten #autumn #classicalbums #folk #jazz #britishmusic #writingcommunity #musicsky
lionunicorn.bsky.social
George Lansbury stepped down as Labour leader 90 years ago today.
"Without Lansbury and what he stood for, the whole Labour movement would have been wiped off the map," said Michael Foot.
thelionandunicorn.com/2015/12/21/p...
2015 Politician of the Year (dead)
The unexpected return of a lost Labour hero.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
"Much of the film is shot in the Collins Music Hall in Islington, where packed houses rock with laughter at the antics provided by acrobats, performing animals and a drag act."
The last Ealing comedy saw Harry Secombe star in Davy (1958).
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/05/f...
Final cut: Davy (1958)
SIMON MATTHEWS watches Harry Secombe in an Ealing Comedy about the dying days of variety.
thelionandunicorn.com
Reposted by Lion & Unicorn
benfinlay74.bsky.social
Led Zeppelin III was released OTD in 1970. Conceived in a remote cottage in Snowdonia, it is one of the great records that came from the era of bands 'getting it together in the country'. Read about Zep 3 and other albums made in that fashion here: @lionunicorn.bsky.social 👇
#musicsky #ledzeppelin
Top 10: Getting it together in the country
Fleetwood Mac, Gong, Paul Weller… they’re all in BEN FINLAY’s guide to getting it together in the country.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
Bob Geldof is 74 today. He was a better actor than he was a pop singer - here he is as a snooker-player in south London, 1984 with Alfred Molina, Ray Winstone, Alison Steadman and Phil Daniels.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/03/22/f...
Final Cut: Number One (1985)
SIMON MATTHEWS watches Bob Geldof, Alfred Molina, Ray Winstone & Mel Smith in a dark movie about snooker.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
Harry Secombe sings Nessun Dorma in the last of the Ealing comedies - it is at least a reminder that Islington Green was once a dowdy, down-at-heel area.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/05/f...
Final cut: Davy (1958)
SIMON MATTHEWS watches Harry Secombe in an Ealing Comedy about the dying days of variety.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
It'll take a lot to convince me that the much-lauded title sequences for THE WHITE LOTUS weren't inspired by those for Auntie's MISS MARPLE.

Mike White's show often feels like Christie — just with more Yanks and guaranteed bumming.
Title sequence image from THE WHITE LOTUS Title sequence image from THE WHITE LOTUS Title sequence image from MISS MARPLE Title sequence image from MISS MARPLE
lionunicorn.bsky.social
Tonight on YouTube, MISS MARPLE 'A Pocketful of Rye' (1985) featuring a cracking cast: Clive Merrison, Timothy West, Peter Davison, Selina Cadell, Annette Badland & Tom Wilkinson, among others.

I love that Hickson played Marple so coolly and sometimes unlikeably.

youtu.be/1tKEsiOTbMw
Miss Marple Joan Hickson A Pocket Full of Rye 1985
YouTube video by Agatha Christie fan
youtu.be
lionunicorn.bsky.social
It’s October. In America that means it’s National Sausage Month (not to be confused with National Hot Dog Month, which is in July).
Here's a literary anthology of sausages, from HG Wells to Rudyard Kipling.
thelionandunicorn.com/2024/09/25/s...
Sausages: an anthology
ALWYN TURNER selects some passages from British literature that concern sausages.
thelionandunicorn.com
lionunicorn.bsky.social
"Now it is autumn again; the people are all coming back. The recess of summer is over…"
One of the great novels of the 1970s, Malcolm Bradbury’s The History Man, is 50 years ago this autumn.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/27/t...
The (rest is) History, Man
BEN FINLAY celebrates 50 years of Malcom Bradbury’s satire of fashionable left politics.
thelionandunicorn.com
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lionunicorn.bsky.social
"They were one of the greatest of all rock groups – so long as you were a fan of sleazy, druggy, pretentious beauty. Just the names of the line-up were a joy: Kid Strange, Urban Blitz, Pete Di Lemma, Stoner"

@alwynturner.bsky.social on Doctors of Madness👇

thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/18/t...
Top 10: Glam rock
Pretentious, preposterous and perfectly flawed, it’s the best of glam rock – selected by ALWYN TURNER.
thelionandunicorn.com
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Reposted by Lion & Unicorn
lionunicorn.bsky.social
"‘Coming over here, doing the jobs we’re not prepared to do because we’ve all got worthless degrees in media studies,’ grumbled comic Al Murray the Pub Landlord."
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/29/t...
The Blair Wave
ALWYN TURNER remembers the immigration boom of 20 years ago.
thelionandunicorn.com
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lionunicorn.bsky.social
"After the May 2019 European election, which produced results with a rather distinct echo in the polls of 2025, Peter Kellner wrote: ‘Britain’s two-party system is in intensive care.’ Six years on, his words ring no less true"

From @paulsaffer.bsky.social👇

thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/24/p...
Parties over
What a difference a decade makes. PAUL SAFFER on the extraordinary transformation in politics since 2015.
thelionandunicorn.com