Lion & Unicorn

Harold be thy name A selection of quotes by and about Harold Wilson.

"In the Labour Party we spend all our time talking about getting rid of the leader and never do it."
Harold Wilson was born 110 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2016/03/11/o...

A Lost World (pt 1) BEN FINLAY remembers the golden age of factual TV.

"To put it bluntly, television is a bit crap these days, isn’t it?"
@benfinlay74.bsky.social on the glory years of factual TV.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/11/a...

Decade: Off Menu (2019) Podcasts were meant to be better than this, weren’t they? asks FINLAY McLAREN.

"If this is supposed to be ‘new’ media, why all the old faces?"
Wishing a very happy birthday to Ed Gamble, who turns 40 today.
@finlay24.bsky.social wrote about him and his little show.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/10/d...

Decade: Off Menu (2019) Podcasts were meant to be better than this, weren’t they? asks FINLAY McLAREN.

"If this is supposed to be ‘new’ media, why all the old faces?"
Wishing a very happy birthday to Ed Gamble, who turns 40 today.
@finlay24.bsky.social wrote about him and his little show.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/09/10/d...

Fun? and other 1990s album titles Praise the Lard – it’s ALWYN TURNER’s ninety British album titles of the 1990s.

Never Mind the Methadone, here are the best album titles of the 1990s...
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/07/f...

Top 10: Trad Jazz BEN FINLAY puts on his corduroy trousers and sandals to take you through the best of British trad jazz.

Today we shall be remembering trumpeter Ken Colyer, who died 9 March 1988.
George Melly called him a "holy fool", and he was one of the key figures in British revivalist jazz. He's in @benfinlay74.bsky.social's top 10 of trad.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/04/t...

Fun? and other 1990s album titles Praise the Lard – it’s ALWYN TURNER’s ninety British album titles of the 1990s.

P.H.U.Q. - Now, that's what I call the 90s.
From Betty Boo to Cradle of Filth.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/07/f...

Fun? and other 1990s album titles Praise the Lard – it’s ALWYN TURNER’s ninety British album titles of the 1990s.

Mourning Has Broken - and with it comes @alwynturner.bsky.social's selection of the ninety best/worst
British album titles of the 1990s.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/07/f...

Top 10: Trad Jazz BEN FINLAY puts on his corduroy trousers and sandals to take you through the best of British trad jazz.

Today we shall be remembering trumpeter Kenny Ball, who died 7 March 2013. He's in @benfinlay74.bsky.social's top ten of trad jazz albums.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/04/t...

Fun? and other 1990s album titles Praise the Lard – it’s ALWYN TURNER’s ninety British album titles of the 1990s.

Mourning Has Broken - and with it comes @alwynturner.bsky.social's selection of the ninety best/worst
British album titles of the 1990s.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/07/f...

Top 10: Trad Jazz BEN FINLAY puts on his corduroy trousers and sandals to take you through the best of British trad jazz.

Don't you rock me, daddy-o! It's time for trad.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/04/t...

Top 10: 1975 BEN FINLAY selects the best British albums of 1975. Expect the unexpected.

Happy birthday to David Gilmour who turns 80 today.
Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' features in my top ten albums of 1975:
#musicsky #pinkfloyd #davidgilmour #article #topten @lionunicorn.bsky.social

Halloween hits: Our House Is Haunted An early George Formby classic, resuscitated for Hallowe’en.

"I ‘eard things like knives being sharpened…"
The great George Formby died 65 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2017/10/31/p...

Top 10: British folk-rock BEN FINLAY guides you through the best of British folk rock, from Nick Drake and the Fairports to Comus.

"It sold only a few hundred copies at the time, but its legacy has been huge and long lasting..."
Nick Drake's second album 'Bryter Later' was released OTD in 1971. It features in my top ten Folk-Rock albums:
@lionunicorn.bsky.social #folk #musicsky

Imperial fiction: Lower than Vermin ALWYN TURNER on Dornford Yates (beloved of both Michael Gove and Mark Gatiss) and his 1950 novel of lost England.

"Mark Gatiss said of Yates’s ‘thrilling tales of buried treasure and Alpine inns’ that they were ‘addictive’, and Michael Gove talked of ‘mainlining’ on the books."
Today we shall be remembering Dornford Yates, who died 5 March 1960.
thelionandunicorn.com/2018/02/10/i...

The editorial team at L&U are pleased as Punch for our @finlay24.bsky.social that his essay on the PARKINSON debate between Kenneth Williams & trade union legend Jimmy Reid has now been endorsed by two generations of Reids. (Thank you @joanireid.com.)

thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/23/l...

Top 10: Trad Jazz BEN FINLAY puts on his corduroy trousers and sandals to take you through the best of British trad jazz.

It ain't half trad, dad... New out today, here's my guide to the best of British revivalist jazz, click on link to read:
#jazzsky #musicsky @lionunicorn.bsky.social

Neither Nottingham nor Algeria SIMON MATTHEWS on Britain’s most radical political novel.

"Even now, it’s hard to imagine anything as thorough in its anti-establishment stance as 'The Death of William Posters.'"
Novelist Alan Sillitoe was born 98 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2021/05/26/n...

Top 10: Trad Jazz BEN FINLAY puts on his corduroy trousers and sandals to take you through the best of British trad jazz.

It ain't half trad, dad...
@benfinlay74.bsky.social takes you through the best of British Trad Jazz.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/03/04/t...

God, and other 1980s album titles Friends of Hell and the Mona Lisa’s Sister – ALWYN TURNER’s favourite album titles of the 1980s.

"Deep Sea Skiving" and other 1980s album titles...
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/28/g...

God, and other 1980s album titles Friends of Hell and the Mona Lisa’s Sister – ALWYN TURNER’s favourite album titles of the 1980s.

In the Mood for Something Rude? It's @alwynturner.bsky.social's eighty favourite album titles from the 1980s.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/28/g...

God, and other 1980s album titles Friends of Hell and the Mona Lisa’s Sister – ALWYN TURNER’s favourite album titles of the 1980s.

From Let It Bee to Filth Hounds of Hades, the eighty best/worst British album titles of the 1980s.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/28/g...

Remembering the Referendum Party The most important article on James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party you will ever read – by PAUL SAFFER.

"The election broadcast was Goldsmith alone, staring unblinking into the camera for a full 5-minute address, his intense demeanour and ominous message resembling a Bond villain explaining an apocalyptic plan..."
James Goldsmith was born 26 Feb 1933.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/11/07/r...

Final cut: The Body (1970) SIMON MATTHEWS on the oddity that was The Body.

"To accompany their panoply of arresting visual images, Tony Garnett and Roy Battersby wanted intelligent, experimental music. They sought advice from John Peel..."
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/25/f...

Final cut: Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999) SIMON MATTHEWS watches Tom Courtenay in a comedy set in the 1970s. Can love bridge the disco-punk divide?

"Harold Smith becomes notorious when, demonstrating what most people believe to be harmless conjuring tricks in a care home one afternoon, he accidentally stops three heart pacemakers, killing the people concerned."
Happy 89th birthday to Sir Tom Courtenay.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/11/13/f...

Final cut: The Body (1970) SIMON MATTHEWS on the oddity that was The Body.

"Things reach a rousing, and rather noisy conclusion with a gynecologically explicit childbirth scene during which Waters, and his Pink Floyd colleagues rock out with ‘Give Birth to a Smile’."
"The Body" is a very odd film.
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/25/f...

Final cut: Innocent Sinners (1958) Children and bombsites? It can only mean danger and trouble, finds JONATHAN CALDER.

"Ray’s father is himself little more than a boy in character - though that may just be what you get from casting Kenneth More."
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/21/f...

Calling EU cliches: Three million How many British jobs depend on the EU? And will the number ever change?

From the archive, ten years ago: What was going to happen to 3 million jobs if we voted to leave the EU?
thelionandunicorn.com/2016/02/23/c...

Final cut: Innocent Sinners (1958) Children and bombsites? It can only mean danger and trouble, finds JONATHAN CALDER.

"Terrible things started happening to boys who wandered on to bombsites in British films..."
thelionandunicorn.com/2026/02/21/f...