Tildavid

Nobody can ever again say "You never see David Bowie and Tilda Swinton together, do you?" More about this new video in Guardian Online today: The Stars (Are Out Tonight).

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso - Saent Saens

From Lincoln Center with Maestro Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic

Joshua Bell plays Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in A minor Op. 28 by Camille Saent Saens.

Exhilarating and amazing

Never mind the Papal election

Fred is here with the special chimney and the three-part ladder. I'm really worried about him because he was so shaky when I gave him the usual mug of tea before starting. The tea was sloshing everywhere. "Are you sure you're okay to go up there?" I asked him. "Right," said Fred. His hearing is gone as well. Anyway, the cardinals will have to wait. We had dibs on Fred's special chimney rental first.

When Hell is a place called home

Runaway Love - Ludacris ft. Mary J. Blige - YouTube

Sparkly new website

The New Short Stories website has had a makeover, ready for the seventh anthology. There's a bit of a contretemps with the Pope resigning, as the special chimney will now be needed in Rome. Fred is all in a tizz because he does that one as well. Who knew!?

A new song by Nick Cave

Enigmatic and atmospheric. Ray Winstone is in the video. There is another strange song called "Finishing Jubilee Street" on the new album "Push the Sky". It starts: "I'd just finished writing Jubilee Street. / I fell into a very deep sleep. / And when I awoke I believed / I had taken a bride named Mary Stanford." This, as if it were needed, which it's not, seems to signify Jubilee Street as a significant composition.

Water is life...

I hate it when... people love the video and cry their eyes out but don't visit the link and contribute to the charity. Water is Life

A gift taken back

February update – Perfidious Oxford? | Save Kensal Rise Library!

The latest twist in the story of how the generosity of an Oxford College at the turn of the 20th century is being undone by the meanness of their 21st century moneygrabbing descendants, with the collusion of Brent Labour council and the Tory LibDem government. Make no mistake, they are all as bad as each other. It's the local people, ordinary people, versus politicians and greedy sods with sinecures.

A new short story by Zadie Smith

“The Embassy of Cambodia” - The New Yorker

When the Embassy of Cambodia first appeared in our midst, a few years ago, some of us said, “Well, if we were poets perhaps we could have written some sort of an ode about this surprising appearance of the embassy.”