Gareth

“The Trump Iran Press Conference Rag” By Joe Keenan (with apologies To Kander & Ebb) [PART ONE] PRESS: Where’d the war start? TRUMP: Mar-a-Lago. PRESS: Who began it? TRUMP: Netanyahu. PRESS: Why’d you join him? TRUMP: Blame Maduro. I assumed that war was hell Till Venezuela went so well. PRESS: How’s it going? TRUMP: Very smoothly! PRESS: And the girls school? TRUMP: Whoops-a-daisy! PRESS: And our own dead? TRUMP: Kinda sad, but When the bugle’s playing “Taps” I always wear my nicest caps. LINDSEY GRAHAM (in drag): Coffins to salute—even on golf days! Oh, you poor, poor dear. PRESS: What’s the goal here? TRUMP: Peace and safety. PRESS: And regime change? TRUMP: That was Tuesday. PRESS: But the main one? TRUMP: Jeffrey Epstein! He’s what I was hiding from The day Iran reached for a bomb. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, Oh, yes Iran was planning to reach for A bomb, a bomb, a bomb, a bomb, Oh, yes, a big ballistical bing-bang bomb! PRESS: Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, Oh, yes Iran was planning to reach for A bomb, a bomb, a bomb, a bomb, Oh, yes, a big ballistical bing-bang bomb! MARCO RUBIO: This war’s sensible And defensible, If less end-able Than commence-able PETE HEGSETH We’re so glorious. Facts don’t worry us TRUMP: When your logic’s laborious Failure’s victorious.

Does anyone else watch Trump and his war cabinet bluff their way through press questions about Iran and wonder how it might play as a musical number based on “The Press Conference Rag” (“We Both Reached For The Gun”) from Chicago?

Just me? I thought so. Here’s how I imagine it:

Johnnie Crack and Flossie Snail
Kept their baby in a milking pail

Frasier: Oh, I can't. I'm taking Julia to the movies. One of my favorites, Noch Einen Stuhl. Roz: Noch Einen Stuhl? Frasier: Yes, it's the story of a 19th-century Austrian family as told from the point of view of an old fireside armchair. Roz: I'm sorry, I dozed off, what were you saying?

I thought SOUND OF FALLING was really good despite the title (German is IN DIE SONNE SCHAUEN, so much better), but at times it did remind me of an old favourite...

Are you accidentally listening to them at 0.5x speed? Every podcaster sounds drunk then, or stoned, even the ones that aren't.

HEATHCLIFFE
IT'S ME
YOUR COUSIN, MARVIN HEATHCLIFF

Cover of novel IDLE GROUNDS by Krystelle Bamford showing several children walking in a line

This #InternationalWomensDay I am reading IDLE GROUNDS by Krystelle Bamford.

Hardly worth watching, is it? You sit through two and a half hours of it and then he still hasn't changed.

greggawallace Send a special message for Mother’s Day davidhall9944 Over the years I’ve not been the best son. A message from you might be the final straw

Gregg Wallace popped up in my sponsored Instagram posts (charming), and this response really made me smile

“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair?”

Aussiemandias

Every trans person is like "I knew something was up before I had the words to describe it and had to fight for this for years" and every transphobe is like "one conversation with a doctor could have convinced me to get the walrus surgery from the movie 'The Walrus'"

The shopfront of Brian Jordan in Green Street, Cambridge

Cambridge musos of long standing will appreciate what I think is a fairly recent addition to the improbably still live Brian Jordan website: a gallery of the shop as it was 15+ years ago. Quite a headrush. brianjordanmusic.co.uk/gallery

ROSE GARDEN, 2029
ed davey: and the threat of reform.... anyway this is why I am joining PM polanski in coalition...any questions? (All journalist raise hands) Any questions not about my gigantic new boobs? (all journalists lower their hands)

Respighi's representation of this painting is one of my favourite things, especially the Marriner recording. So full of spring sunshine.

Do report back! It is a book I have shoved at a lot of people.

If this is your first Tony Parker, don't let it be the last. I've read a handful and they are always fascinating. I especially recommend The People of Providence, which is about people living on a housing estate in Southwark in the early '80s. It feels a privilege to be let into their lives.

BBC Weather forecast for Cambridge tomorrow, showing overall forecast of no weather

Peter, you've lost the weather!

La Noire de… at 60: Reflecting on the life and legacy of an African classic - CRASSH Neo-A. H. O. Allert reflects on the event 'La Noire de… at 60, which took place in November 2025

It was brilliant to hear his (Alain Sembène's) fond memories of Mbissine Thérèse Diop, who was his father's lover as well as the star of Black Girl. He said it was a volatile relationship, much throwing of plates etc. More at www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/blog/la-noir...

I went to a screening of Black Girl a few months ago with Ousmane Sembène's son in attendance. 7 minutes in, the picture went down, projector irreparably damaged. Everyone was disappointed, but he talked fascinatingly for over an hour and I went home and streamed it next morning. Wonderful film.

Allister Heath How Richard Hearne's desire to play the Doctor as Mr Pastry became the ultimate symbol of Britain’s humiliating global irrelevance

He has been dogwalking her for years over how she chooses to dress on stage and has the nerve to send an email to her where he expresses disappointment in her not “standing by her commitments” when she decides she’s had enough of him. Norman Lebrecht can eat shit.

Dear Mr Kirkdale bookshop keeper, It's me, the boy who asked to put the "One Piece" book on hold. How's your day been so far? Well for me, I'm getting thro teeth out at the dentist, not because their rotten but because I need to braces (I cind of scared). Due to the above, I will not be able to buy the book so please, please, please can you keep the book for one more day. From the boy, Jacob is my name. p.s. plase, please, please rec.

Imagine being like this. Maybe we actually were all once like this. Be more like this guy!

If you're on the liberal centre in the UK: this is the movement you've been fleeced by. This is who is behind your little gender critical op eds. There's still time to stop publishing them. You can admit you were wrong and ask forgiveness. Just saying.

Peter Sallis cosplaying Grandpa Munster, or possibly Ray Reardon

If you've ever wondered what a Munsters/Last of the Summer Wine crossover would look like, you'll probably love the 1959 BBC version of Ibsen's BRAND currently on iPlayer. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Chapter 1 of Moby Dick, page 1 The phrase ‘Call me Ishmael’, the first sentence of the book, is highlighted in blue, with careful highlighting on the very big C at the start. Above this, written in ballpoint pen ‘His name’

Love the glimpse into the beautiful mind that notated this used copy of Moby Dick I got

Kawazu-zakura blossoms, a white block of flats, blue sky by the Kyunakagawa river, Hirai, Tokyo

Lovely late February hues on the Edogawa-Koto border

The Ant and the Aardvark

I love these guys

6 - Make tracks?

Kenneth Williams and television in the 1980s Kenneth Williams hosting Wogan, BBC1, 23 April 1986 Between January 1980 and his death in April 1988, Kenneth Williams appeared as a guest on 56 different television programmes. If you include othe…

I've started a new site where I'll be writing periodically about TV, films, music and the like.

To begin with, ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth: Kenneth Williams and 1980s television - a story of commitment, triumph and upholstery.

nearertotheend.co.uk/2026/02/15/k...

I meant to read them at the rate of one a month starting in January 2020, but momentum (and pandemic) took over and I got through them by about May. Also I didn't want to wait several weeks between volumes and risk forgetting who everyone was...

Among my favourite things of all time, though I believe tastes vary. I listened to an old Anthony Burgess Foundation podcast on it this week and the interviewee said if it doesn't click at first, give it two or three books, which sounds sensible to me. If you're not hooked by then, stop.