Tobias Sturt
@redskelington.bsky.social
Editor of http://www.themetropolitan.uk, writer of http://addtwodigital.com/book, creator of http://christmasstories.co.uk.
This is a mystery to me, even though it’s me doing it. I’ve been studiously researching and trying to figure out what I thought would be the next Christmas Story and then, in the last hour, a completely different story arrived in my head and started writing itself. And now that’s the next Story.
February 12, 2026 at 10:10 PM
This is a mystery to me, even though it’s me doing it. I’ve been studiously researching and trying to figure out what I thought would be the next Christmas Story and then, in the last hour, a completely different story arrived in my head and started writing itself. And now that’s the next Story.
Every year I serialise one of the older Christmas stories on Substack and YouTube. This year's is one of my favourites 'The Ghosts of Christmas Presents'. We're up to Chapter 3 now and things are getting strange.
buff.ly/rL7tz6Q
buff.ly/rL7tz6Q
February 12, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Every year I serialise one of the older Christmas stories on Substack and YouTube. This year's is one of my favourites 'The Ghosts of Christmas Presents'. We're up to Chapter 3 now and things are getting strange.
buff.ly/rL7tz6Q
buff.ly/rL7tz6Q
It took me a long time to understand what this chart was showing BUT its a great case of making something so interesting & attractive that it makes you *want* to understand it, to stick with it until it reveals its extraordinary insights.
buff.ly/bn1fS5j
buff.ly/bn1fS5j
The Stereogram Strikes Back
Luigi Perozzo's 3-D illusion gets a quantile upgrade.
www.chartography.net
February 11, 2026 at 1:02 PM
It took me a long time to understand what this chart was showing BUT its a great case of making something so interesting & attractive that it makes you *want* to understand it, to stick with it until it reveals its extraordinary insights.
buff.ly/bn1fS5j
buff.ly/bn1fS5j
Re-reading Peake's 'Titus Groan' for The Metropolitan has made me properly realise for the first time that all those great British fantasy epics I read as a child, LotR, Narnia, Once and Future King, are all books of the post-War period.
buff.ly/DXW46E7
buff.ly/DXW46E7
February 10, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Re-reading Peake's 'Titus Groan' for The Metropolitan has made me properly realise for the first time that all those great British fantasy epics I read as a child, LotR, Narnia, Once and Future King, are all books of the post-War period.
buff.ly/DXW46E7
buff.ly/DXW46E7
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
No one follows me for music recommendations, but I need to share this anyway. Very skillful, fun, and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi...
Angine de Poitrine - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
YouTube video by KEXP
www.youtube.com
February 10, 2026 at 7:02 PM
No one follows me for music recommendations, but I need to share this anyway. Very skillful, fun, and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi...
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
Portrait of Guercino, his mother Elena Ghisellini, black cat, and their totally A+ Lagotto Romagnolo dog. Here we also see his troubled eye from which he got his nickname. Today is his birthday.
February 8, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Portrait of Guercino, his mother Elena Ghisellini, black cat, and their totally A+ Lagotto Romagnolo dog. Here we also see his troubled eye from which he got his nickname. Today is his birthday.
30 years I’ve been using Flash, Adobe, man and slightly younger man. What makes you think you can stop me now?
February 3, 2026 at 9:14 PM
30 years I’ve been using Flash, Adobe, man and slightly younger man. What makes you think you can stop me now?
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
🎵On the sidewalk
🎵Sunday morning
🎵Just outside of
🎵Goofy's house
🎵Someone's sneaking
🎵 'round the corner
🎵Is that someone,
🎵Mick the Mouse?
🎵Sunday morning
🎵Just outside of
🎵Goofy's house
🎵Someone's sneaking
🎵 'round the corner
🎵Is that someone,
🎵Mick the Mouse?
June 30, 2025 at 10:15 AM
🎵On the sidewalk
🎵Sunday morning
🎵Just outside of
🎵Goofy's house
🎵Someone's sneaking
🎵 'round the corner
🎵Is that someone,
🎵Mick the Mouse?
🎵Sunday morning
🎵Just outside of
🎵Goofy's house
🎵Someone's sneaking
🎵 'round the corner
🎵Is that someone,
🎵Mick the Mouse?
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
This makes me weep with laughter every time I see it
January 13, 2026 at 2:26 PM
This makes me weep with laughter every time I see it
I wrote about Sherlock Hound for the Metropolitan’s Holmes series and Animation Obsessive were a bit help with research but now I wish I’d waited for their piece, which is typically brilliant
open.substack.com/pub/metropol...
open.substack.com/pub/metropol...
January 13, 2026 at 12:54 PM
I wrote about Sherlock Hound for the Metropolitan’s Holmes series and Animation Obsessive were a bit help with research but now I wish I’d waited for their piece, which is typically brilliant
open.substack.com/pub/metropol...
open.substack.com/pub/metropol...
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
If you're a sucker for extended sequences of crime-involved men coolly, meticulously and wordlessly going about their procedural business, then have I got a film for you. Such terrific stuff.
January 11, 2026 at 10:14 PM
If you're a sucker for extended sequences of crime-involved men coolly, meticulously and wordlessly going about their procedural business, then have I got a film for you. Such terrific stuff.
And this makes me realise that the Marvel movies take place in the Tommy Westphall universe en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_W...
January 10, 2026 at 7:27 PM
And this makes me realise that the Marvel movies take place in the Tommy Westphall universe en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_W...
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
January 7, 2026 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
In 1945 Time published a map called “The Floods Come” showing Allied forces pouring into Nazi Europe. Part cartography, part propaganda, part art. Red arrows, momentum, inevitability. Maps don’t just explain history. They shape it. Source: buff.ly/2LrNUhf
December 31, 2025 at 6:38 PM
In 1945 Time published a map called “The Floods Come” showing Allied forces pouring into Nazi Europe. Part cartography, part propaganda, part art. Red arrows, momentum, inevitability. Maps don’t just explain history. They shape it. Source: buff.ly/2LrNUhf
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
Thirty years ago today. The most beautiful, hopeful farewell.
December 31, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Thirty years ago today. The most beautiful, hopeful farewell.
Christmas Eve! That's means its the last episode of this year's Christmas story and, as you would expect, things get VERY seasonal indeed as Alfie and Nick reach the last task on their Christmas Wish List.
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
December 24, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Christmas Eve! That's means its the last episode of this year's Christmas story and, as you would expect, things get VERY seasonal indeed as Alfie and Nick reach the last task on their Christmas Wish List.
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
This year's Christmas story is full of modern technology, like e-commerce websites and drones, but hopefully also full of Christmas spirit. Indeed, slightly too full, as we should all be at this time of year.
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
December 23, 2025 at 2:01 PM
This year's Christmas story is full of modern technology, like e-commerce websites and drones, but hopefully also full of Christmas spirit. Indeed, slightly too full, as we should all be at this time of year.
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
This year's Christmas story is about two men who make themselves very popular by using the systems of an e-commerce company to send out presents. Popular with the recipients, that is, but not with the e-commerce company.
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
December 22, 2025 at 6:01 PM
This year's Christmas story is about two men who make themselves very popular by using the systems of an e-commerce company to send out presents. Popular with the recipients, that is, but not with the e-commerce company.
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
buff.ly/EPT6fJn
Just how might Father Christmas fit in with our twenty first century world of global logisitics systems and seamless e-commerce? This year's Christmas story, 'The Wish List', just might provide an answer:
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
December 21, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Just how might Father Christmas fit in with our twenty first century world of global logisitics systems and seamless e-commerce? This year's Christmas story, 'The Wish List', just might provide an answer:
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
20th December - not long to go til the big day, and a perfect time to catch up with this year's Christmas story, as things start to get very interesting indeed. And, judging from the snow, VERY Christmassy
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
December 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM
20th December - not long to go til the big day, and a perfect time to catch up with this year's Christmas story, as things start to get very interesting indeed. And, judging from the snow, VERY Christmassy
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
Judging from my inbox, a good number of listeners to this year's Christmas story have already figured out that its a sort of origin story for a twenty first century Father Christmas
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
December 19, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Judging from my inbox, a good number of listeners to this year's Christmas story have already figured out that its a sort of origin story for a twenty first century Father Christmas
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
This is great news. Colonel Redl absolutely blew my mind when I saw it as a teenager, and I’ve been trying to find it ever since.
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
‘Collusion does not require a dictatorship’: István Szabó on his Nazi actor masterpiece Mephisto
As his 1981 film is rereleased, the director talks about his Oscar-winning fable about an actor’s Faustian pact with the Nazi party – and its new relevance
www.theguardian.com
December 18, 2025 at 7:21 PM
This is great news. Colonel Redl absolutely blew my mind when I saw it as a teenager, and I’ve been trying to find it ever since.
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
This year's Christmas story is set in an e-commerce warehouse and in many ways is about how all this seemingly magical conveniences of the modern world are often really just people, hidden behind the scenes, working really, really hard.
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
December 18, 2025 at 7:03 PM
This year's Christmas story is set in an e-commerce warehouse and in many ways is about how all this seemingly magical conveniences of the modern world are often really just people, hidden behind the scenes, working really, really hard.
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
Reposted by Tobias Sturt
"All I Want For Christmas..."
YouTube video by John C. Worsley
youtu.be
December 18, 2025 at 2:54 PM
This year's Christmas story is about a man who became so disgusted with the modern world, he hid away as a hermit inside an e-commerce warehouse. And also about how Christmas might tempt him back out again.
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
December 17, 2025 at 12:01 PM
This year's Christmas story is about a man who became so disgusted with the modern world, he hid away as a hermit inside an e-commerce warehouse. And also about how Christmas might tempt him back out again.
buff.ly/5sUTgEh
buff.ly/5sUTgEh