Sir Sadiq will get the top lines, but one of these two people is also in the House of Lords. Clue: it's not the one from Bolton. Arise, Dame June Sarpong!

Save 25% off the price of Sixty Years of Hurt, out in February, if you pre-order via Waterstones with the code OCTOBER25. The cover shows various English football figures in states of hurt from the past six decades. Might the hurt end next summer in North America?

I'm pleased to announce the existence of Sixty Years of Hurt: England, and the England Football Team. It's a book that brings together football, politics and society. It's out in February and, today and tomorrow, you can pre-order it from Waterstones with a nifty discount, using the code OCTOBER25.

This week's Wednesday Essay is about the bad apples that populate every sector of life. These essays can't all be sweetness and light. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/bad-app...

Tomorrow I'll be performing songs from the Gallagher brothers down in Brighton. This week's Wednesday Essay summarises the themes of the show: Noel's songs and Liam's attitude. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/an-even...

This week's Wednesday essay is a Eurovision preview. Best of luck to Remember Monday, whose entry is as much about positioning them as stars as attempting to win a singing contest which is only vaguely about the song. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/eurovis...

This week's Wednesday Essay compares today's greatest popular entertainer, who is out on tour promoting her album Cowboy Carter, with her immediate equivalent from past pop days. It's not Diana Ross that Beyoncé most reminds me of, but Frank Sinatra. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/beyonc-...

Everybody’s Doing It, So Why Can’t We? In this week's Wednesday Essay, I take the lead from a Cranberries album title and ask whether one party is set to benefit from being a lot like the other, bigger ones www.jonnybrick.com/blog/everybo...

This post, written at the end of last year, becomes timely, and also contains a mix of misplaced and sure certainty over some of my predictions for the 2025 Rock Hall class. It's all fun and games! www.jonnybrick.com/blog/on-the-...

The final Friday of the month brings a pay packet but, in a more musical vein, the Payday Playlist. April's edition, for A Country Way of Life, finishes off the Opry 100, with 50 more Opry members who are all ambassadors for the genre. countrywol.substack.com/p/payday-pla...

Am I A Patriot: would I die for king and country, or merely exercise my right to chuckle at it? Read the Wednesday Essay for April 23 here: www.jonnybrick.com/blog/am-i-a-...

Alex Allison’s new book Greatest Of All Time makes him the new custodian of the football novel. In a piece which tries to capture its excellence, I also round up a few other examples of the form. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/the-foo...

The latest episode of Reform UK need the Muslim vote. Who are the Paul Marshall right going to scapegoat now?

And the nominations for the perfect pop song are… To help plug Now That's What I Call NOW, I gather contenders including smash hits for Hanson, Deee-Lite, New Radicals, Jellyfish, The Cardigans and Britney for this week's Wednesday Essay at jonnybrick.com. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/the-per...

My new book Now That's What I Call NOW: A History of Pop Music in Britain, 1983-2025 is out today. I run through the NOW compilations and select one song from all 120 of them that captures their particular moment. Find the book, seven years in the making, here: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F4QYSN8J

Big Brother returns (again) but why watch reality TV when reality makes such gripping TV? I argue in this week's Wednesday Essay that reality TV has irrevocably changed reality. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/reality...

In the first of a two-parter, March's Payday Playlist gathers 50 songs by members of the Grand Ole Opry, which is celebrating its centenary in 2025 as country music's Mother Church. This first part takes us from the 1920s right the way through to the 1980s. countrywol.substack.com/p/payday-pla...

The BBC reduces the life of a top DJ whom THEY USED TO EMPLOY to someone he once interviewed, just so people can click on the piece. Rotten, but that's how things are.

Two plugs this week for things what I wrote: 1 #ontheplane, the game you cannot lose, which marks the announcement of the England squad for this month's World Cup qualifiers www.jonnybrick.com/blog/the-gam... 2 Journalism, Truth and Trust (pic: Maria Ressa) www.jonnybrick.com/blog/journal...

Find the book, out today on Pitch, here: www.amazon.co.uk/Shades-Green...

Shameless. He's got money, why can't he help? This week he said Stop The Boats was wrong. What about extricating himself from being Johnson's Chancellor? History might be unkind to Rish!

It's a bit early for it but, given that Herr Tuchel will be very visible next week, it's time to play the game you cannot lose: yes, it's #ontheplane: World Cup 2026 version!! Remember, any answer is the right answer, even if he's currently 15 years old. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/the-gam...

Inspired by a Radio 4 debate, I ask in quite a personal piece whether younger folk can learn from the Congregation Generation of my grandma's age. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/the-dea...

The Talent is the Institution Now Ahead of my appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Counterpoint, in this week's essay I ponder how institutions like the BBC are now subordinate to the talent they employ. I also discover that Jo Whiley has a big birthday this year. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/the-tal...

Nobody seems, still, to have said that three days after the trophy parade through the city, it'll be 40 years since the Heysel disaster. Someone ask the club how they'll be marking it.

This is all they can do: statement, question, no conclusion. From the people that helped Brexit, Johnson and misinformation get over the line. Put someone on Musk, get them to report on him every day. Why not the mighty Rianna Croxford, when she's not busy purusing the Diddy case?

These people are without shame. Munira is Dougie Smith's partner (in crime) and walked away when Johnson threatened her career. Completely shameless, and I've not even bothered to go beyond the paywall.

In this week's Wednesday essay, I cram Ed Sheeran, a Birmingham school sponsored by an orchestra, Spotify the Mood Machine and the idea of web plantations into 1200 words. Have a read, and visit jonnybrick.com/blog to peruse the seven essays from 2025 so far. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/web-pla...

This Wednesday's essay on the blog at jonnybrick.com is all about rock'n'roll, Sheffield style. I think Arctic Monkeys, led by Alex Turner (pictured), are the last great British rock'n'roll band; British, because Fontaines DC are Irish. www.jonnybrick.com/blog/arctic-...

The Times used to be a newspaper of some repute. It isn't now, and I read it every day for 15 years. Again, every columnist of note should hand in their notice and get a Substack. It's starting to look like a Farage sympathiser, and nobody will interrogate it/them. Whhhhhat's all that about?