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Do you remember Papa’s Got a Brand New Bagpipe? ALWYN TURNER does.

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 6h

What was in the hit parade 50 years ago in October 1975?
Well, there was David Essex and Mud and, er, the Band of the Black Watch.
thelionandunicorn.com/2020/10/16/r...

Revive 45: October 1975

For the season of mellow fruitfulness, BEN FINLAY discovers the best autumnal albums.

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 1d

Light the lanterns, situate yourself at a nearby hearth and check out @benfinlay74.bsky.social's autumn almanack.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/15/t...

Top 10: Autumn

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 4d

"Politicians will happily drone on & on about the wrecked economy, the absent schoolchildren, the broken NHS and the rise of extremism but never — never — do they dare utter a word about the cause. They cannot."

@finlay24.bsky.social returns to DECADE👇

thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

Decade: Paddington 2 (2017)

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 2d

We're wishing a happy 45th birthday to Ben Wishaw, best known as "the voice of the marmalade-sandwich-loving ursid" in the Paddington movies.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/08/10/d...

FINLAY McLAREN on the mission creep of Paddington.

‘Barmy but brilliant’: Visions of Thatcher

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 3d

"The danger when Margaret speaks without thinking is that she says what she thinks."
"There’s a lot to be said for the old broad: she makes you laugh."
"We weren’t children of Thatcher; we hated her."
Some views of Thatcher on the centenary of her birth.
thelionandunicorn.com/2017/04/08/b...

Everyone had a view on Margaret Thatcher, from Adrian Mole to Ian Wright.

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Ray Newman @raynewman.bsky.social · 3d

'Secrets of the Flying Bomb Revealed', a leaflet sold for sixpence by the National Fire Service Benevolent fund, 1944. Interesting to see it referred to as a "robot" in the main caption.

A detailed cut away illustration of a Doodlebug V1 flying bomb over London. Its internal workings are exposed and text points out things like the electric battery and its impulse motor.

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 3d

"To confront Lockdown honestly would require acknowledging complicity, poor judgment & uncomfortable trade-offs between safety and freedom. It would mean asking whether we panicked, whether we trusted too blindly, whether the harms outweighed the good"

(5/10)

thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

‘Barmy but brilliant’: Visions of Thatcher

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 3d

"The danger when Margaret speaks without thinking is that she says what she thinks."
"There’s a lot to be said for the old broad: she makes you laugh."
"We weren’t children of Thatcher; we hated her."
Some views of Thatcher on the centenary of her birth.
thelionandunicorn.com/2017/04/08/b...

Everyone had a view on Margaret Thatcher, from Adrian Mole to Ian Wright.

‘A sinister, if gifted buffoon’

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 4d

"Crowley could cook, wanted a lot of sex with all-day sessions on occasion, and had an abundance of conversation. You got quite a night out from the Beast."
Aleister Crowley - magician, poet and 73rd greatest Briton - was born 150 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2022/09/21/a...

SIMON MATTHEWS on Aleister Crowley – magician, poet and 73rd Greatest Briton.

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 4d

"In 62 years, in that far-off future space year 2082, would the children of Generation Epsilon — in between school trips to the moon & daily downloads of every book ever written — be called upon to learn about Lockdown?"

@finlay24.bsky.social on forgetting👇

thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 4d

"The pandemic is already consigned to the same memory black hole as Swampy, Cat Bin Lady and freakshakes."
@finlay24.bsky.social on the Lockdown that Time Forgot.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

‘A sinister, if gifted buffoon’

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 4d

"Crowley could cook, wanted a lot of sex with all-day sessions on occasion, and had an abundance of conversation. You got quite a night out from the Beast."
Aleister Crowley - magician, poet and 73rd greatest Briton - was born 150 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2022/09/21/a...

SIMON MATTHEWS on Aleister Crowley – magician, poet and 73rd Greatest Briton.

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heleningram.bsky.social @heleningram.bsky.social · 6d

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 5d

"The biggest domestic upheaval since the war has been wiped from memory. Poof. Gone. Evaporated. We were barely out of our masks before we decided never to mention them again."
@finlay24.bsky.social on the covid lockdowns of 2020.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

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Finlay McLaren @finlay24.bsky.social · 5d

Here's something I wrote! It's about Lockdown, lapses of memory and looking the other way.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

ALWYN TURNER selects some passages from British literature that concern sausages.

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 5d

Happy National Sausage Pizza Day to all those who celebrate.
For everyone else, here's a literary anthology of sausage-based material.
thelionandunicorn.com/2024/09/25/s...

Sausages: an anthology

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 4d

"Politicians will happily drone on & on about the wrecked economy, the absent schoolchildren, the broken NHS and the rise of extremism but never — never — do they dare utter a word about the cause. They cannot."

@finlay24.bsky.social returns to DECADE👇

thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 4d

"The pandemic is already consigned to the same memory black hole as Swampy, Cat Bin Lady and freakshakes."
@finlay24.bsky.social on the Lockdown that Time Forgot.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

ALWYN TURNER selects some passages from British literature that concern sausages.

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 5d

Happy National Sausage Pizza Day to all those who celebrate.
For everyone else, here's a literary anthology of sausage-based material.
thelionandunicorn.com/2024/09/25/s...

Sausages: an anthology

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 5d

"The biggest domestic upheaval since the war has been wiped from memory. Poof. Gone. Evaporated. We were barely out of our masks before we decided never to mention them again."
@finlay24.bsky.social on the covid lockdowns of 2020.
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/11/d...

Do you remember the covid lockdowns? asks FINLAY McLAREN. Of course you do. So why have we chosen to forget?

Rear-view review: The Red House

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 6d

"America is in fact a dictatorship. Your President has total power, unlike the leaders of the Soviet Union. He is your Commander-in-Chief. Also he is in charge of foreign affairs."
Today we shall mostly be reading Derek Lambert, born 10 Oct 1929.
thelionandunicorn.com/2018/05/16/r...

DAN ATKINSON on a Cold War tale of a doubting communist.

Rear-view review: The Red House

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 6d

"America is in fact a dictatorship. Your President has total power, unlike the leaders of the Soviet Union. He is your Commander-in-Chief. Also he is in charge of foreign affairs."
Today we shall mostly be reading Derek Lambert, born 10 Oct 1929.
thelionandunicorn.com/2018/05/16/r...

DAN ATKINSON on a Cold War tale of a doubting communist.

SIMON MATTHEWS watches Harry Secombe in an Ealing Comedy about the dying days of variety.

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Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 10d

"Much of the film is shot in the Collins Music Hall in Islington, where packed houses rock with laughter at the antics provided by acrobats, performing animals and a drag act."
The last Ealing comedy saw Harry Secombe star in Davy (1958).
thelionandunicorn.com/2025/10/05/f...

Final cut: Davy (1958)

2022 Politician of the Year (dead)

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 7d

One of my favourite quotes (and not just because the same applies to me)!

Lion & Unicorn @lionunicorn.bsky.social · 7d

"Can you make me look better than I do on television? I look rather scraggy, like a ghost."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you have a head like a skull."
"Does not everyone have a head like a skull?"
"No."
Alec Douglas-Home died 30 years ago today.
thelionandunicorn.com/2022/12/28/2...

He worried that he looked like a ghost, but the former 14th Earl could be a model for his slick successor Rishi Sunak.