"Listen to the Fog" by DJ F Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. 20 years ago now, before tech got fully evil, I was in a record store in San Francisco, and someone pushed a CD into my hand: "my partner recorded this". View Miles Metcalfe's Crucial Tracks profile
Interesting piece in the Guardian today on Danish politics from Rune Lykkeberg. It nails elite populism. There are lessons here for Labour’s centre-right leadership here in the UK.
Denmark’s unique political model is in crisis – I blame the boomerang effect
What they were doing was populism for the elites that substituted the legitimate ideological conflict between left and right with an imagined picture of reasonable grownups in the centre and the ridiculous children on the extremes
"Arrival" by ABBA Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. When they drop you into the timeline, they don't tell you the toilet seats are half a centimetre lower and Arrival wasn't ABBA's first dark album. View Miles Metcalfe's Crucial Tracks profile
For my run across the Royal Docks, I’ve been studying the coots.
Dancers at the Newham Civic Awards, 4 March 2026
Councillor Amar Virdee at the Newham Civic Awards, 4 March 2026
"Violin Concerto No. 1: I. Quarter note = 104 — quarter note = 120" by Gidon Kremer, Christoph von Dohnányi & Vienna Philharmonic Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Philip Glass again. My friend Michael always took a dim view of him - and I get it. There's a brash cheapness to Glass that even a skilled violinist like Gidon Kremer can't entirely disguise. But if you asked me what was the music of the great American city before the Fall, I'd say maybe because of its brash cheapness: Glass's Violin Concerto 1.
In the patriarchy, where girls are “underage women”, is it any wonder that journalists struggle with the word “traditional”?
Global survey shows young men and boys hold more traditional views about gender roles than older generations: Gen Z males twice as likely as baby boomers to believe wives should obey husbands
Was 2004’s NESNO Dominic Cummings' original sin? Or a mistake he was paid to make? I think about this from time to time when I imagine a Britain that didn’t take the path to sectarian hatred.
"Our Lips Are Sealed" by Fun Boy Three Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Can you hear them talking about us? "Our lips are sealed" turned up in my iTunes. I had completely forgotten about this song despite its immediate familiarity. View Miles Metcalfe's Crucial Tracks profile
🤮 “Sir” Robin Wales and “open” Clive Furness announce in Spiked that they are leaving the Labour Party - and will doubtless be joining Reform alongside “Lord” Peter Mandelson.
"Mabrouk el hanna" by Cheba Maria Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Fancy re-adjusting your musical aesthetic? Here's Mabrouk el hanna from Cheba Maria 15 years ago. It's always time for Raï. View Miles Metcalfe's Crucial Tracks profile
"Loa Do Mar" by Eta Carinae Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. I have no idea how or why Loa Do Mar by Eta Carinae is in my iTunes library, or how it got there. But there it is - and you should listen to it. View Miles Metcalfe's Crucial Tracks profile
Banger of a piece from Rafael Behr in the Guardian on the regulation of social media.
The Epstein files: literal evidence you are living in the patriarchy. What will change? My guess: absolutely nothing.
An interesting thing about the Mandelson-Epstein affair is that no one is expressing any surprise at Mandelson’s venality and corruption. Yet until recently the media treated him as a “serious politician”, albeit controversial. Which leaves me wondering, what is it that political journalism does?
I need to work on my burgeoning online presence: I can no longer feed the beast.
📧 Blogging by email. It’s a blast from the past!
The British establishment has crashed again.
The UK grocery industry, which receives a massive government subsidy in the form of in-work benefits for its workforce, still will not pay a living wage.
