And whilst we're on the subject, here's another brilliant new soul album. How lucky we are!

Danielle Ponder - Everything Has Changed
https://danielleponder.bandcamp.com/album/everything-has-changed

This one has much more of a classical 70s southern soul sound. And again, built around a genuinely remarkable voice. As an additional detail: Danielle used to be a lawyer and campaigner for criminal justice reform, didn't decide to give music a go until she was 39. I'm glad she did.

#music #2026music

Much happier thing to be posting about: great new music. Sharing music is a wholly good thing and never makes me afraid of what might happen.

Anyway, the new music is

ALA.NI & Adrian Younge - Proud of Me
https://linearlabs.bandcamp.com/album/proud-of-me

and it's really something special. At heart, it's a soul album (quite a short one, only thirty minutes) that tells of ALA.NI's life in diaristic snapshots, with her gloriously rich, bluesy vocals. But Younge's production work takes it unexpected directions - not always, just in bursts, infiltrating classic soul sounds with ideas from very different roots.

#music #2026music

I sometimes would like to say a lot more about broadly political matters. I think of posts a lot. I frequently type them but delete them, usually after a while in the drafts. There are things that I care about deeply and would like to chat about them, with people who know more than me, with people who have a well-reasoned alternative view, etc.

But I can't because of some people here - quite a few, depressingly - who are viciously abusive. Given what has happened to me in the past, I really can't cope with people who hurl aggressive abuse at me just because I say something fairly neutral like 'racism is bad' or 'we should probably try to help people'.

If being cruel and violent is part of your approach to politics, then being cruel and violent *is* your politics and *is* who you are.

And if that's you, dear reader, please fuck off very very far away, or at least block me preemptively so I can spend time here without having a trauma reaction and shaking like a leaf.

A couple of minor additional points:

I'm not saying that the Ebola outbreak is going to become a pandemic. There's no reason that I'm aware of to believe that (although I'm not a virologist so I might well be wrong, and I don't really know anything so please listen to experts instead).

The cruise ship hantavirus outbreak concerned a form of the virus commonly known as Andes virus. This had been extensively studied, and overwhelmingly, those studying it were from Argentina and Chile. Much of the coverage and discussion I saw dismissed this research and instead relied on the views of European and North Americans with much less knowledge of the particular hantavirus in question.

Ignoring the knowledge, experience and research of experts in the global south is another aspect of the same problem I described in the main post.

Hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship with white European passengers, a few months back. 13 infections and 3 deaths. Disease has been extensively researched and is well understood. Result: constant coverage, discussion about pandemics, conspiracy theories (both here and elsewhere).

----

Isolated case of probable plague in a Russian plague research lab. Disease has been extensively researched and is well understood. Victim is a white blonde woman. Result: constant coverage, discussion about pandemics, conspiracy theories (both here and elsewhere).

----

8000+ infections and 4000+ deaths from Ebola in eastern DR Congo and neighbouring countries. By far the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak yet recorded. As a less common and less researched form of the virus, understanding of its behaviour is limited and there is less treatment available than with other forms of ebolavirus. Those affected and killed have been Black people in central Africa. Result: hardly any coverage and near silence on western social media. No pandemic panic and no conspiracy theories.

----

Honestly, I have been finding this disparity to be extremely uncomfortable. I've avoided mentioning it for a while, but the extensive coverage of the Russian plague case has made me feel like I have to.

I'm sure none of you are thinking 'diseases only matter when they kill white people'. But please, when you're discussing infectious disease, try to stop and question whether what you've been hearing about this disease has been influenced by the ethnicity and/or location of those infected. And whether that is unconsciously affecting your own thinking.

Because the sad reality is, a lot of coverage both in traditional media and on social media absolutely *does* work on the principle of 'diseases only matter when they kill white people'. We all need to be aware of this and to make sure it doesn't influence us.

EDIT: This has now been solved! Hearty thanks to the knowledgeable people out there (see replies).

You know when you have a completely trivial question in your mind, something of no consequence whatsoever, but you really need to know the answer for your brain will otherwise not focus on anything else?

Does anyone know why Afrikaans has two As between the k and n, but Afrikaner only has one? Why isn't it Afrikaaner? It should be.

Today (4th October) is the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street.

Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists wanted to march through a part of east London with a large Jewish population. Unsurprisingly, the police wanted to assist; a large protest meant the original route was unviable so the police helped Mosley to make a new route going to Cable Street, right in the heart of that area's Jewish community.

Thousands of people from across London came to stand in solidarity with their neighbours and prevent the fascists from coming through, people of all sorts of backgrounds, political inclinations, social classes etc. An entirely disparate group united with a single aim: to stop the fascist march by whatever means necessary.

And they won. Attacked from all sides by fascist thugs and similarly-minded thugs in police uniform, the community and its allies stood firm until eventually Mosley had to give up and withdraw.

This story, this fight, this victory feels extremely important today. It reminds us that solidarity matters most of all. And it reminds us that the state can never be trusted to care for vulnerable communities, and that we will always have to fight for our neighbours and for those who need us.

------

Here's a song by the Young'uns about that day, based on the reminiscences of Johnny Longstaff, a boy from Stockton-on-Tees who had joined a Hunger March to London two years earlier. Longstaff fought at Cable Street and later joined the International Brigades in Spain and fought against yet more fascists in north Africa during ww2.

https://youtu.be/AKhAlsXgOy8

Sad news this morning: the great calypsonian Mighty Sparrow has left us. But he had a fine innings.

Sparrow was one of the last of the legendary 50s calypso kings who took the Trinadian art and presented it to the world. Calypso Rose is still with us - she started at such a young age - but I can't think of any others.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/sep/28/mighty-sparrow-the-trinidad-and-tobago-singer-known-as-the-calypso-king-of-the-world-dies-aged-91

Please enjoy a few minutes of Sparrow despairing at what was done to poor Laika, the Russian canine cosmonaut.

https://youtu.be/PSZOLAoOskk

Fly free, Sparrow.

A question for friends who make their own pizza, and who cook it on a stone or cast iron plate or shelf that comes with a pizza oven... anything that's flat and that you heat up to a very high temperature before cooking.

(Which I imagine is most people who make their own pizzas.)

What do you use to transfer the pizza from where you prepared it to the stone/plate/hot flat thing?

I seem incapable of moving the freshly made pizza onto the hot flat thing without making it misshapen, which knocks toppings off and makes a mess. I don't have room for one of those huge flat shovel things that proper pizzerias use.

How do you move a freshly made pizza in order to cook it?

UK friends! Or just friends who like UK maps.

For the next few days, you can buy two Ordnance Survey maps and get a third for a penny, with the code PENNYMAP. Free delivery in most cases too.

https://shop.osmaps.com/

This is a really superb, remarkable, ingenious new album by Grace Cummings.
https://gracecummings.bandcamp.com/album/bloodhorse

In a way it reminds me of my favourite album of last year - The Prophet and the Madman by Ami Taf Ra - in that it energetically takes ideas from all over and sticks them together in glorious and implausibly successful ways. Except that whereas Ami Taf Ra's record started its eruptions from a jazz centre, this is more bursting out of a psychedelic core.

Anyway it's very great.

#music #2026music

Firstly, I feel it's important to explain for people who haven't previously followed British politics but have been intrigued by the Binface story: last night's result wasn't actually a disappointment. Last night's result was a huge success.

Much as it might've been fun to fantasise, Count Binface was never actually going to win. He is, after all, a man with a bin on his head. But for him to get almost ten thousand votes - more than a quarter of the vote! - is spectacular. It massively exceeds any previous result for such a candidate.

And make no mistake, that is absolutely humiliating for Farage. Local polling had him winning with 73%, and that alone would have been deeply embarrassing. To only get 63% when no other serious party stood is much worse than was predicted anywhere.

On top of this, the investigation into his dodgy finances will restart when the parliamentary recess ends. But it will now have the added consideration of Farage having disrespected the Standards Committee, and there's precedent for that being treated as a serious offence. So it's highly likely there'll be a proper recall election in Clacton a few months from now.

Finally, this ridiculous debacle has ensured that his dodgy finances have received much greater national publicity than was previously the case, in a particularly superb example of the Streisand Effect.

All in all, it's gone very well.

Btw, I found out about this by the highly scientific method of seeing a thumbnail of the cover in the bandcamp app and thinking, hmm, I wonder what that is.

Been listening to this today. It's not new, it's from the back end of last year.

I'm wary of getting out of my depth describing it. But it's a collaboration between a blues band from British Columbia and Northern Cree, who perform traditional Cree singing.

Blue Moon Marquee & Northern Cree - Get Your Feathers Ready
https://bluemoonmarquee.bandcamp.com/album/get-your-feathers-ready

It's very good.
#music

Beige friends, are we cut off from the world? I've not seen a non-beige post for almost an hour. Perhaps this is just me.

Friends, if it's hot where you are and you have any outside space, please put out some water for the birds, bugs and anything else. I'm just about to go and replenish mine.

birb

What if today I just... didn't bother doing any work?

Morning everyone. Thursday has happened again.

Last night my brain put together a very interesting and coherent story in a dream, which I missed the end of because I needed a wee. And then I dreamt of being chased by tigers whilst riding a bike across a golf course. Brains, eh? Ridiculous.

Hope your brains are all doing well today.

Morning everyone. Had a somewhat restless night but I think I did sleep here and there.

It's going to be cooler today, and as soon as I can get out of bed I'm going off to Hexham for a walk and a bit of shopping.

Hope you're all doing well today.