Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Helen Barrett

@helenbarrett.bsky.social

11K followers 2.2K following 5K posts

Features journalist - NYTimes, Financial Times, Telegraph. Writing a book about the Beatles, out spring 2027. Yes, we need another one. https://www.helenbarrettjournalist.com/ https://open.substack.com/pub/helenbarrett

www.helenbarrettjournalist.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 15d

I wrote about a rush of new nightlife memoirs and the death of nightclubs for this week's @ftweekend.com books essay.

www.ft.com/content/a4ed...

Memoirs from the dance floor — the nocturnal universes of New York, London and Berlin

Three very different accounts by Mark Ronson, Jodie Harsh and Liam Cagney create a history of club culture since the 1990s

www.ft.com

1 4 23

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 5h

Agree, though this was a documentary-drama hybrid (Xan Brooks explains it better than I could on this link). I think it was an attempt to get away from the talking-heads docu format.

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/au...

Broken English review – Marianne Faithfull’s last glow, as she recounts past lives

The charismatic Faithfull is quizzed by a fictional ministry fronted by Tilda Swinton about a confounding career, from 60s It girl to art scene doyenne

www.theguardian.com

1 1

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 9h

BRILLIANT piece.

1 2

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Luke Turner @luketurner.bsky.social · 20h

Sword on Floyd is magnificent: “The mainstream representation of British cooking in recent years has often been reduced to a self-satisfied flag waving goonery – one that favours a daintily imagined fantasy over gutsy reality. What would Keith Floyd have made of it? And why ask?”

harrysword.bsky.social @harrysword.bsky.social · 21h

I think my favourite piece I’ve written for your fine site was on Floyd: thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

Axis of Tweeville: Mawkish Brit Food Culture V The Glory Of Keith Floyd | The Quietus

We have an odd relationship to food and drink in Britain. We’re good at wallowing in a simpering nationalistic jingoism, a sentimentality that often shuns the very best of what we do – offal; non chai...

thequietus.com

1 3 22

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 9h

It ends with her last performance - Ed Harcourt's "Misunderstanding" - for which she wears an oxygen mask.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 9h

This opened last night. The Guardian described it as flawed, and it is over-conceptualised. But a documentary about an artist at the end of her life is still a radical idea. Close to death Marianne is defiant and so charismatic, and it's an incredible thing to have captured on film.

2 2 26

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 10h

Great piece.

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Daniel Rachel @danielrachel.bsky.social · 1d

I Catch the Paper Boy
THIS AIN'T ROCK 'N' ROLL; DAVID BOWIE!

The dark side of David Bowie - Pop's enduring obsession with the Nazis

An explosive double-page cover story in @thetimes.com
Saturday Review by Will Hodgkinson

Pre-order THIS AIN'T ROCK 'N' ROLL
geni.us/ThisAintRock...

#davidbowie

2 5 8

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

He could be quite suburban, too. His comment: "God, that's so Croydon" is a very Bromley thing to say.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

It's fascinating - he moved to Beckenham as an unknown and left the place an international star. He was both repelled by suburbia and formed by it. I doubt he would have existed in the way he did without that dreariness. Kureishi, who also grew up in Bromley, says the same thing.

1 3

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 1d

Hertfordshire County Council rules for library use, 1930

RULES FOR PUBLIC LIBRARY
BAN ON LIARS AND DIRTY FACES
Strict rules, which have been approved by the Hertfordshire County Council, are to be imposed by the Hyde Institute Library, Barnet Vale.

LIBRARY USERS iN FUTURE MUST NOT:
Enter the library if their faces are offensively dirty.
Fall asleep on the tables.
Eat their lunches whilst reading papers, books, &c
Smoke in the building.
Leave their business cards behind.
Make themselves a nuisance.
Kick or damage the furniture.
Bring dogs within the portals.
Tell lies to the librarian.
Enter when they are in an inebriated con- dition.
If they have small-pox.

17 45 160

Reposted by Helen Barrett

New New York Times @nyt-first-said.bsky.social · 1d

jazzmaxxing

1 2 9

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Me too, on my one unhappy work trip. Shameful, blatant segregation, junk architecture, vapid cultural offerings. Give me Croydon any time.

1 8

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

(Would read TF out of an interview with the accent coach.)

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Though scousers should probably play scousers. Otherwise we have to suffer their attempts at accents.

2 11

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Tbf the mouth guards were on both men and women, but even so.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Now do the matriarchs. Blanchette as Mimi.

deadline.com/2025/10/saoi...

Saoirse Ronan To Play Linda McCartney In ‘The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event’ – The Dish

Saoirse Ronan has joined the 'Beatles' movie quartet from Sam Mendes in the role of Linda McCartney, we can exclusively reveal.

deadline.com

1 11

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

A system that assumes you're a thief until you prove you aren't. Bleak.

2 1

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Arm-trapping "cocoon" bodysuits at Alaïa, and mouth guards that stretched the face into rictus grins at Margiela. From left; Umberto Fratini/Gorunway.com;
Simbarashe Cha/The New York Times

2 5

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

"Paris Fashion Week introduced clothes that hid, confined, muzzled or erased the women beneath. There were garments that transformed women into aliens and put them in aprons. There were styles that suggested suffering and entrapment were the cost of participation."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/s...

Why Can’t Fashion See What It Does to Women?

www.nytimes.com

1 1 5

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Arthur David Spota @adaspota.bsky.social · 1d

American scientist and researcher Harold "Doc" Edgerton (also known as Papa Flash), a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Gun Toss, 1936-7
#Photography

2 5 41

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 1d

Who asked you?

www.bbc.com/news/article...

JD Vance slams Canterbury Cathedral art installation - BBC News

The US Vice President says it has made a "beautiful historical building really ugly".

www.bbc.com

3 30

Reposted by Helen Barrett

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 2d

One of my favorite moments from Nobel Prize history:

The Nobel Committee couldn’t reach Stanford professor Paul Milgrom to let him know that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, so his fellow winner, Robert Wilson, went over to his house in the middle of the night to wake him up!

13 160 940

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 2d

The Vermeer show in Amsterdam a couple of years ago limited access with timed slots - no more than 100 at a time, and it worked well.

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 2d

Even Monday mornings are rammed with people trying to avoid crowds.

1 1

Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 2d

It's not massive, but it's great fun. The other two shows - Boris Mikhailov and Rydet - are excellent, too.