Luke Turner
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luketurner.bsky.social
Luke Turner
@luketurner.bsky.social
Author: Men at War - Loving, Lusting, Fighting, Remembering 1939-1945 on British masculinity, sexuality & the cultural memory of WWII on W&N Books/Orion. First 📖 Out of the Woods, 2019. Co-founder: The Quietus. My stuff: https://linktr.ee/luketurner ⚒️🏳️‍🌈
Pinned
January is bleak with nothing happening EXCEPT you can come to the London Metropolitan Archives for my talk on sexuality in the capital during the Second World War, from the cover of the blackout to LGBT+ lives AND new research on the mackintosh fetish scene:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/men-at-war...
Men At War – Lusting Loving Fighting Remembering 1939-1945
Join author Luke Turner to explore how the social upheaval of the Second World War had a profound impact on the sex lives of Londoners.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
A lovely tribute to Mani, “the bass player’s bass player”, by bass player Gordon Moakes, praising his “tiptoe-light touch – something delicate but propulsive, an anti-rock energy that had heart, and was dreaming of something”

thequietus.com/news/remembe...
Remembering Mani, by Gordon Moakes | The Quietus
There’s a real nostalgic binary when it comes to the present-day view of Mancunian music from the 80s and 90s: it’s easy to see it as an amorphous blob of naive youth culture, macho posturing, retrogr...
thequietus.com
November 21, 2025 at 5:23 PM
LOOK HERE YOU LAMPOST FLAG FUCKING DONUTS, REFORM ARE THE LAW HAW HAWS OF OUR AGE! TRAITORS TO OUR NATION!

ffs.

bylinetimes.com/2025/11/21/n...
Nathan Gill, Voloshyn and the Kremlin’s European Network
The sentencing of Reform UK's former leader in Wales to ten and a half years in prison should open the door to a broader investigation into the pro-Kremlin network that infiltrated European politics, ...
bylinetimes.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Luke Turner
this week's newsletter is titled "aren't you tired of feeling insane all the time?" and I think it speaks for itself

it is also free to read

youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/arent-you-...
November 21, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Proper and perfect weather up in Epping Forest on the morning constitutionals this week, colour washed out save the green blast of the grass in the V-2 crater
November 21, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Luke Turner
In my corner of the bass-playing universe there was life pre- and post-Mani. He brought a liquid, melodic funkiness that EVERYONE copied. And when I finally met him he was exactly how you imagined him: joyful, generous, unstarry (& more of a star because of it) and wickedly funny. A life well lived
November 21, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Luke Turner
Watched this live. Incredible.
November 20, 2025 at 8:38 PM
The Prml Scrm XTRMTR live era with Mani on bass and Kevin Shields in the band played some of the best gigs I've ever seen, blew my young head off. RIP Mani.
I recall an interview where he was asked what it was like playing with Shields on stage. "I'll be watching him and just before he taps a pedal with his foot, he'll look across at me as if to say, This is REALLY going to fuck you up."
November 20, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Luke Turner
PEOPLE IN RAILWAYS (1970)
November 20, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Luke Turner
Watching the film in preparation for class I was again stunned by its devastating recasting of what a war film can be. One of the most powerful artistic depictions of mass violence ever. The ‘reverse the film’ ending (no spoilers) however still strikes me as disappointingly sentimental and trite.
Teaching Come and See (1985) on Thursday, so that’ll be a nice cozy way to wrap up the week.
November 20, 2025 at 3:27 PM
One of the best bits of my job @thequietus.com is asking @danieldylanwray.bsky.social to write about Sheffield & its music & this is going to be such a brilliant book on a fertile city (arguably one under-celebrated compared to certain places across the Pennines that never shut up about themselves)
This - finally - is the definitive musical history Sheffield so richly deserves.

GROOVY, LAIDBACK AND NASTY is @danieldylanwray.bsky.social's authoritative and hugely entertaining story of the city, told through its independent artists, scenes and spirit.

Coming May 2026 geni.us/GroovyLaidba...
November 20, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Luke Turner
I didn't realise this was his full name.
November 20, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by Luke Turner
The catastrophic illegal waste dumping in Oxfordshire (see next post) is a direct result of the deregulation-by-stealth I wrote about in 2021, when my dead goldfish became a registered waste disposer. I warned it would let the mafia in. And here we are.🧵
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Britain through the looking glass: my dead goldfish is now a registered waste disposer | George Monbiot
Algernon Goldfish is long gone, but I was able to sign him up. No wonder so many crooks are illegally dumping and ruining our environment, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:11 AM
One of the few things Labour is getting right is a plan to regulate the secondary ticketing market aka touting for live music. However, argues music biz expert @eamonn-forde.bsky.social on @thequietus.com, there are bigger structural issues that need to be fixed

thequietus.com/opinion-and-...
Why Labour's Proposals to Ban Ticket Touting don't go far Enough | The Quietus
Who will spare a thought for StubHub and Viagogo? They are two of the heavyweights of secondary ticketing, with the latter having bought the former in 2019 to gain an even bigger share of the market. ...
thequietus.com
November 19, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Luke Turner
#OnThisDay 1943: wonderfully acidic Zec cartoon on the news that the British fascist leader, Oswald Mosley, was being released from prison on the grounds of ill-health...
November 19, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Luke Turner
A moment, please, to consider the absolute majesty of Daphne Oram's unbelievable score to this. A pitch shifted, time stretched, frequency agile glimpse of the future of music production; a liberty-taking all analogue remix of Sandy Nelson's Teen Beat realised in real time with the visuals.
November 18, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Luke Turner
40 years ago today, right about now i.e. after school, I was listening to Psychocandy for the first time, as was anyone within fifty feet of my bedroom. Still one of the most exciting things ever to have happened to me.
Four decades back a major label released a debut album that sounded like almost nothing on earth while still sounding incredibly familiar. Our man in San Francisco Ned Raggett takes stock of it all

Happy Birthday to the JAMC's Psychocandy, which turns 40 today!

buff.ly/nflmjN6
November 18, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Luke Turner
Fifteen years of ideological choices to strangle & gut the public realm - NHS to schools to social services to local museums - is what underlies the anger "tearing our country apart"; immigration is simply the scapegoat that the far right are pushing people toward.
Why can't Labour just say this?
November 18, 2025 at 10:42 AM
See also complaining about cats shitting in your garden / killing birds in your garden / dogs off the lead in Epping Forest and causing havoc or jumping up "ooooo he's just being friendly" etc – guaranteed follower drop. British people are so weird about cats and dogs.
Honestly, this place. You can share as much erudite thought as you like to a tumbleweed response. You post one photo of your cat warming his bum on a radiator. 80+ likes
November 18, 2025 at 9:37 AM
They’re holding an Octoberfest! R brave boys didn’t die to have fackin German pints and leatherhosen
November 17, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Tip! Dennis Potter's first film from 1960 on his anxieties over 'progress' & cultural homogenisation in the Forest of Dean village where he was born. Powerful to hear this from a leftist viewpoint (and a signpost to how we've got where we are today)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrBL...
1960: CHANGING TIMES in the FOREST of DEAN | Between Two Rivers | Classic Documentary | BBC Archive
YouTube video by BBC Archive
www.youtube.com
November 17, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Luke Turner
Exclusive:

UK ministers plan to ban the resale of tickets for live events above their original cost, in an aggressive crackdown on touts and resellers who sharply increase the price of admission to concerts and sports events.

www.ft.com/content/e76d...
UK to ban resale of tickets above face value for live events
Aggressive crackdown on touts comes after backlash over cost of watching live music and sport
www.ft.com
November 17, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Readers, as you may know, I love Epping Forest, and have written a book about how woodlands have haunted our human imagination for as long as we have been able to think. Well, my pre-schooler is currently refusing to go into Epping Forest “because of creatures like the Gruffalo”...
November 17, 2025 at 4:21 PM
On the recent Quietus Low Culture Podcast I talked about how I hoped the bouncing soles of Dr Martens boots were going to save me from having to wear orthopaedic shoes for my dodgy knees as I age. And hey presto, Google ads are now advertising me old people shoes on the sodding Quietus.
November 17, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Why would you even buy one of these things for your kids? Suspect it is lazy parents who would rather have AI do their job for them.
"the cuddly companion was giving [...] tips on how to find and light matches, and detailed explanations about sexual kinks"

futurism.com/artificial-i...

I used to report on toy tech hacked to make it inappropriate. Now that stuff comes built-in.
AI-Powered Stuffed Animal Pulled From Market After Disturbing Interactions With Children
FoloToy says it's suspended sales of its AI-powered teddy bear after researchers found it gave wildly inappropriate and dangerous answers.
futurism.com
November 17, 2025 at 9:24 AM