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mikepress.bsky.social
Writer - about music, about London, often both together. Sometimes about design. One half of the Walk on the Wild Side project. https://walkonthewildside.substack.com We write, take photos and organise walks.
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3 elections in as many weeks. Centre left parties in two of them take on populist right and win, in 3rd they emulate populists and lose. Could there be a lesson here? And is there even a remote chance U.K. Labour might see it?

submitted 6 days ago • 3 comments

Just politely ask to rejoin and let’s never speak of 2016 ever again. Like that time Auntie Marjorie ran off with the Assistant Manager of Greggs in the High Street, but she and your Uncle Frank are back together now. And no one in the family is allowed to mention sausage rolls.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Got some new newsie bits on my website news page with some new news. Bit of a catch up really but also, I have a date this Saturday 26th April with some birds... www.lisaknapp.co.uk/blog/lisaknapp @thenestcollective.bsky.social

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

"Music can be imperfect & still be wonderful; a performance can be meaningful & important while still being full of inevitable human flaws. In the end, quite a lot of things did go wrong & none of it mattered". I wrote about our recent gigs, my first in 25 years❤️ www.newstatesman.com/culture/musi...

submitted 15 days ago • 22 comments

Listening to @ianleslie.bsky.social talk about his excellent new book in Edinburgh got me to wonder why, half a century on, do they still matter? What relevance do they have today? It's very much a personal reflection.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

This looks like a lovely thing. If I were in or near London i’d defo consider going and standing awkwardly in a corner.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

It’s a great show. Be part of it!

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

The Papal conclave is expected to start between the 6th and 12th of May. Eurovision is between the 13th and 17th of May. Social media is about to get very confusing.

submitted 17 days ago • 72 comments

BBC bans Evan Davis from informing the public on heat pumps. “As the world has ‘progressed’ in the past few months” the BBC “has become concerned that anything like this - informing people about heat pumps - can be interpreted as treading on areas of pulic controversy” youtu.be/RJPKgngqoX0?...

submitted 17 days ago • 76 comments

Is it too ululate to say we love you? The Yoko Ono discography pondered conradbrunstrom.wordpress.com/2025/04/22/i...

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

A splendid evening in Edinburgh last night, listening to Ian Leslie talk about his remarkable new book on Lennon & McCartney. The venue, a church on Leith Walk, was cold but perfect. I was seven, sitting in the back of a car on a dreich afternoon in Leith when I first heard The Beatles.

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Somewhere between our rage and our hope are our values

submitted 26 days ago • 1 comment

Last week’s show had some real gems- really worth a listen!

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

The musical story of a basement club in London's Chinatown.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

Obama: Imagine if I had done any of this. Imagine if I had pulled Fox News’ credentials. Imagine if I had said to law firms that you will not be allowed into government buildings. It’s unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me

submitted 34 days ago • 423 comments

I went undercover to Reform UK's biggest ever rally and I found angry white men raging against migrants, trans people and potholes. But I also found a lot of empty seats and a shrugging at Labour's reform policies www.opendemocracy.net/en/undercove... Me, for @opendemocracy.net

submitted 39 days ago • 15 comments

Congratulations to @johnharris1969.bsky.social on the publication today of Maybe I’m Amazed. He’s my friend but even if he weren’t I’d be recommending this marvellous book — a moving, heartfelt memoir that will change the way you think about music and the mysterious power of the human brain.

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

Suits and drums and bubblegum, plus rattling jewellery. We take you down side alleys, into tailor’s workshops and theatres, finally hanging out in a jazz club with The Rolling Stones. It’s the third part of our Beatles Soho tour.

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

"Can you see the hand wave, the trick of the mind people slip into so naturally they don’t even realise they’re doing it? They’re saying they’re not being listened to, when what they actually mean is they’re not given a veto." On the government's attempts to defang NIMBYism

submitted 49 days ago • 15 comments

The second part of our journey through London's Soho with The Beatles.

submitted 46 days ago • 0 comments

Exploring the story of The Beatles through the streets of London's Soho.

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

Exploring the story of The Beatles through the streets of London's Soho.

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

The first part of a series about The Beatles in London’s Soho

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

The first part of a series about The Beatles in London’s Soho

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

Toppermost is a wonderfully eclectic mix of musical discovery. If you’ve not done so, go discover it.

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

From the surgery house garden, 6.00pm, ‘twixt equilux and equinox. West Ayre, Hillswick, Shetland. iPhone 14 snap, unedited.

submitted 51 days ago • 3 comments

Have we underestimated Yoko Ono all along? And did she keep the Beatles together? By Glenn C. Altschuler, Minnesota Star Tribune www.startribune.com/have-we-unde...

submitted 52 days ago • 1 comment

Me and James are in the Times today: a newly-written piece based on my new book Maybe I'm Amazed - about autism, our highs & lows so far... and, most importantly, his obsession with Kraftwerk www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

submitted 53 days ago • 6 comments

Brilliant exhibition of a lifetime’s stuff by Mick Jones of The Clash and BAD.

submitted 55 days ago • 0 comments

The Ship on Wardour Street. Where Keith Moon was banned for letting off fireworks. Inside.

submitted 56 days ago • 0 comments

A very timely read.

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

You can find the original pattern for Tom Bakers Dr Who Scarf, made by Begonia Pope for the BBC, as well as the story behind it here on Open Cuture : www.openculture.com/2024/12/the-... @openculture.bsky.social #drwho #tombaker #scarfknitting #knittingpattern #knitting

submitted 62 days ago • 4 comments

Music night. Ella sings the Duke Ellington songbook. This is for Diana Press, who died on 2 March. I was lucky enough to spend time with her on visits to Dundee, & she was always the most warm & delightful company. She had many gifts, but I'm especially remembering her gift for friendship.

submitted 61 days ago • 1 comment