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18.02.2026 12:37
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Looks great, loved reading your JFK club, have ordered.
Brilliant, have ordered, thanks!
Not available to order, Jon? Showing "Notify me when available".
NEW: Music and the Microbe: Cloudbuster uses organ to kill bacteria in a strange story involving UFOs and Kate Bush; PLUS book recommendations: Umbrella Murder; No Road Leading Back; John & Paul. All in the latest free edition of Singular Discoveries:
singulardiscoveries.substack.com/p/music-and-...
New edition of my newsletter out on Thursday featuring cloudbusting, umbrella murder, escape from WWII death forest, new Beatles book, and grumbles about Substack Nazis and other big tech dilemmas. Subscribe for free here:
singulardiscoveries.substack.com
The latest edition of my newsletter is a dive into a morphine murder mystery. Read and subscribe here, always free: singulardiscoveries.substack.com/p/countess-a...
Here's this year's mixtape playlist, all new stuff from 2025, mostly indie pop/rock, one track per artist, 40+ tracks in total. Includes Geese, Stereolab, Big Thief, Divorce, and a Miley Cyrus/David Byrne collab that sounds like a 1990s Andrew Weatherall dub remix...
open.spotify.com/playlist/5JP...
I've long since moved my end-of-year compilations to evil tech giant Spotify, and recreated the old TDK cassette tapes on there. They're all in my Spotify profile. Here's C92:
open.spotify.com/playlist/47t...
C92 cassette mixtape on a TDK D90 with handwritten tracklisting.
This is the mixtape mentioned in my newsletter, "C92", the first of 30+ end-of-year compilations I've inexplicably continued to make ever since. (The title is a reference to the influential NME C86 tape, which @nigetassell.bsky.social wrote a great book about.) Excuse the handwriting and spelling...
A few days before Christmas in 1885, a household servant found a boy in a dustbin... New edition of Singular Discoveries out today, including a 2025 round-up and a load of year-end mixtapes.
singulardiscoveries.substack.com/p/the-boy-in...
I believe the 1881 meeting place, Mr Allan's house, was the red brick building next door to St Mark's Church at the junction of Shields Road and St Mark's St. Think it's now a funeral directors.
That's a whole other debate!
But of course, the actual meeting to form the club was held 11 years earlier in November 1881 at the house of a confectioner named Mr Allan on Shields Road!
I would bow to Jeff on this. The "United" meeting was at the Bath Lane Lecture House on Corporation Street so could well be the People's Kitchen. If I remember, it's not on old maps, and obviously the area is redeveloped. But I think the original junction of Bath Ln and Corp St was where the PK is.
If you don't already subscribe to my free newsletter, Singular Discoveries, now would be a good time, as there's a new edition out on Thursday featuring a brand new strange but true story and a 2025 round-up. Come join "thousands of subscribers..."
singulardiscoveries.substack.com
Obviously.
No wonder Hooky left if this is what the other three are putting out.
Interesting change of direction for New Order on Spotify.
Thanks Paul!
My book The Tyne Bridge is available for just £6.49 in the Hurst Black Friday Sale. That's 50% off the paperback price of £12.99. Offer valid until Tues 9th Dec, automatic 50% discount applied at checkout, no promo code required: www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-tyn...
A black graphic with the words 'Black Friday Sale' in gold at the top with a '50% off' gold sign at the bottom right. In the middle of the graphic, in white, the words read: 'Valid until December 9' and 'Free ebook with orders over £50 (conditions apply, see FAQs on our website'.
Our Black Friday sale is live! 🎉
Get 50% off ALL books until midnight on 9th December. This year, you can get your hands on a free eBook when you spend over £50 (excl shipping).
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Cheers Mick 👍
Nice review of the Ruhleben book, glad Matthew liked it.
I wrote about an apparent epidemic of people getting crushed by steam rollers.
singulardiscoveries.substack.com/p/crushed-by...
Newcastle says no to fascism.
The far right brought a hundred or so with them, bussed from far and wide. This city turned out 1000s, from local communities, estates and streets. Geordies of all backgrounds coming together and outnumbering the purveyors of hate by some distance.
Newcastle united.
There's potential for a sketch comedy character who talks like this, a Colin Hunt for the clickbait generation.
It's ridiculous, isn't it? They've passed a tipping point where the clickbait AI junk has become utterly useless to humans. I inadvertently clicked on a Chronicle link about the new Stack in Newcastle and got this, unreadable nonsense:
"Stop the boats and paracetamol."
Ah, found the rule change: "The team fitness coach indicated on the match sheet may join the players warming up." And nothing stopping the "fitness coach" passing on tactical instructions...