James S Murphy
@jameslatrmurphy.bsky.social
London Irishman in Nottingham. Podcasts: the Last Exit Show, Pex Lives, Pop Could Never Save Us, We Learned More From a Three Minute Record.
Just realised it's been 19 years since I left secondary school. Here's a picture taken that last day, an image that, thanks to the massive 2006 camera phone pixels, looks as dated as a pal's brigade racing off to the trenches. L to R, Luke, Saul, Richard, Ryan, me, Kumar, and Troy.
November 26, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Just realised it's been 19 years since I left secondary school. Here's a picture taken that last day, an image that, thanks to the massive 2006 camera phone pixels, looks as dated as a pal's brigade racing off to the trenches. L to R, Luke, Saul, Richard, Ryan, me, Kumar, and Troy.
And I, I, was trying to update my address with the bank and my driver's license and... change my council tax borough.
And I said, I told them, I said... once the internet made these things *easier*!
Not a hateful Kafkaesque nightmare!
So they locked me in here and called me Crazy Old Maurice.
And I said, I told them, I said... once the internet made these things *easier*!
Not a hateful Kafkaesque nightmare!
So they locked me in here and called me Crazy Old Maurice.
November 25, 2025 at 5:12 PM
And I, I, was trying to update my address with the bank and my driver's license and... change my council tax borough.
And I said, I told them, I said... once the internet made these things *easier*!
Not a hateful Kafkaesque nightmare!
So they locked me in here and called me Crazy Old Maurice.
And I said, I told them, I said... once the internet made these things *easier*!
Not a hateful Kafkaesque nightmare!
So they locked me in here and called me Crazy Old Maurice.
Man, it's a funny place, up there on Mars, I gotta tell ya. One guy says to me, "I'd like you to meet my mother, my dog, and clowns."
And there was one woman standing there.
And there was one woman standing there.
November 24, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Man, it's a funny place, up there on Mars, I gotta tell ya. One guy says to me, "I'd like you to meet my mother, my dog, and clowns."
And there was one woman standing there.
And there was one woman standing there.
Most interesting bit of film history near me was the Clockwork Orange Ludovico scene being filmed in the building that became my first library. In terms of larger South London set films, I gotta go with Blow Up.
November 23, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Most interesting bit of film history near me was the Clockwork Orange Ludovico scene being filmed in the building that became my first library. In terms of larger South London set films, I gotta go with Blow Up.
Turns out sports pricks use my road for free parking on game day, so I've had to park on the next street for the first time. Guess which racist single glazing enthusiast that one's named after?
November 22, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Turns out sports pricks use my road for free parking on game day, so I've had to park on the next street for the first time. Guess which racist single glazing enthusiast that one's named after?
This is why I could never be a billionaire. Anyone under about 32 showing even the most passing interest in me is baffling and deeply off putting. Gross. Find a lad with a broccoli haircut and a Playstation and I'll talk to women about grown up things. Like, I dunno, their growing to hate Morrisey.
November 13, 2025 at 7:29 PM
This is why I could never be a billionaire. Anyone under about 32 showing even the most passing interest in me is baffling and deeply off putting. Gross. Find a lad with a broccoli haircut and a Playstation and I'll talk to women about grown up things. Like, I dunno, their growing to hate Morrisey.
In the GP's waiting room yesterday, I was idly Wikipedia diving on the earliest Old English and read about the Franks Casket for the first time. That's not where Dennis Hopper ended up in Blue Velvet, but an eight hcentury artefact where the language is emerging.
November 13, 2025 at 5:38 PM
In the GP's waiting room yesterday, I was idly Wikipedia diving on the earliest Old English and read about the Franks Casket for the first time. That's not where Dennis Hopper ended up in Blue Velvet, but an eight hcentury artefact where the language is emerging.
Nod across the chess boards in the park.
November 10, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Nod across the chess boards in the park.
Post you from a different era: isn't he gorgeous? He's only got his terrible personality holding him back.
November 8, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Post you from a different era: isn't he gorgeous? He's only got his terrible personality holding him back.
The Kubrick Stare is
October 22, 2025 at 6:55 PM
The Kubrick Stare is
This time next year, people will be unable to authenticate this as a real picture. History may end up marking this as created by an anhedonic 42 year old in Barcelona and a data center in Mansfield, Georgia using enough water to serve 50,000 people.
October 10, 2025 at 10:19 AM
This time next year, people will be unable to authenticate this as a real picture. History may end up marking this as created by an anhedonic 42 year old in Barcelona and a data center in Mansfield, Georgia using enough water to serve 50,000 people.
Found this old cake my wife made in 2014 of little Theatre of Blood. What a delicious Vincent Price forcefeeding a critic his beloved dogs.
October 6, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Found this old cake my wife made in 2014 of little Theatre of Blood. What a delicious Vincent Price forcefeeding a critic his beloved dogs.
Birthday books. Playing the Tossers. Drinking good coffee. Getting it together.
October 6, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Birthday books. Playing the Tossers. Drinking good coffee. Getting it together.
Tiny LP purge for the move. Have managed to discard five. Niomie and I were both sad to concede that we'll never play this very nice man's very dull music again.
October 3, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Tiny LP purge for the move. Have managed to discard five. Niomie and I were both sad to concede that we'll never play this very nice man's very dull music again.
Enough of this Tetris shit. Time for an impractical and unenforcable agreement on all book widths.
October 3, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Enough of this Tetris shit. Time for an impractical and unenforcable agreement on all book widths.
Take 2, much, much closer to being an omelette.
September 26, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Take 2, much, much closer to being an omelette.
My favourite repeated set is of course the Back to the Future town square, which I most recently saw in the Ted TV series. Remembered that Charlton Heston ended the Omega Man in the same fountain that TV's FRIENDS would later cavort around.
September 3, 2025 at 9:13 AM
My favourite repeated set is of course the Back to the Future town square, which I most recently saw in the Ted TV series. Remembered that Charlton Heston ended the Omega Man in the same fountain that TV's FRIENDS would later cavort around.
Late night movie. Here we go.
August 25, 2025 at 10:01 PM
Late night movie. Here we go.
Kubrick telling George C Scott to do a last, mad, over the top take in Dr Strangelove, just for fun, and then using that take in every instance has given us a proto-Tim Robinson performance.
August 10, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Kubrick telling George C Scott to do a last, mad, over the top take in Dr Strangelove, just for fun, and then using that take in every instance has given us a proto-Tim Robinson performance.
First watch of The Thin Man. Script hasn't aged a day.
August 10, 2025 at 12:12 PM
First watch of The Thin Man. Script hasn't aged a day.
It's morning. Time to contemplate the wall.
August 5, 2025 at 7:27 AM
It's morning. Time to contemplate the wall.
I was a schoolboy and it was taken as an absolute given that there were none. The Mirror front page was a big shaper of how the war was understood
August 4, 2025 at 8:39 AM
I was a schoolboy and it was taken as an absolute given that there were none. The Mirror front page was a big shaper of how the war was understood
Also watched the Playhouse, a Buster Keaton short that opens with a bravura split x 7 screen sequence with an entire theater of Keatons, from the stagehands, the audience, and the dancers. The days when knowing how the special effect was done made the film much more, not less impressive. The craft!
![Keaton's portrayal of nine members of a minstrel show required the use of a special matte box in front of the camera lens. It had nine exactingly-machined strips of metal which could be moved up and down independently of each other. Elgin Lessley, Keaton's cameraman, shot the far-left Keaton with the first shutter up, and the others down. He then rewound the film, opened the second segment, and re-filmed the next Keaton in sequence. This procedure was repeated seven more times. The camera was hand-wound, so Lessley's hand had to be absolutely steady during filming to avoid any variation in speed. Keaton synchronized his movements for each character's dance to the music of a banjo player who was playing along with a metronome – not a problem in a silent film. It was decades before Keaton, who masterminded this, revealed his technique to other filmmakers.[2][4]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:p337njvu3wz3337taealohpu/bafkreiapqkwhfwbxxgu75p2rdxqceouby5v7tgi6xv5hdtxu2im3r73qdi@jpeg)
August 3, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Also watched the Playhouse, a Buster Keaton short that opens with a bravura split x 7 screen sequence with an entire theater of Keatons, from the stagehands, the audience, and the dancers. The days when knowing how the special effect was done made the film much more, not less impressive. The craft!