Helen Barrett

@helenbarrett

Features journalist - NYTimes, Financial Times, Telegraph. On a book break.

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Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 26d

Plus the Crystal Palace terraces restored and Paxton returned to the colonnades - brilliant achievements by CPP Trust, Historic England and many others.

Restored terrace at the site of the Crystal Palace

Joseph Paxton statue against the colonnades in Crystal Palace park

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 26d

Unveiled this evening: the 170-year-old, grade ii*-listed, wildly inaccurate Crystal Palace dinosaurs, now restored to their original colours and off the Historic England at-risk register.

Enormous model lizards in Crystal Palace Park

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 26d

YES AND SO IS CARYATID.

nytgames &
Sorry, but yesterday's Wordle solution is a real word.
Don't believe us? (Spoilers ahead.) →

nytgames &
...
P
H
A
W
exclamation | Used to express impatience, disgust, contempt, disbelief, etc.
It's an example of an onomatopoeia, which is a word that sounds like the noise it describes.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 26d

Another category would be: 'Whatever arrangement they choose'.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 26d

Philistines.

NYT Spelling Bee claiming CARYATID is not a word.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 27d

The BEST man-repellers. And so chic.

Diana Ross high-kicking while wearing culottes some time in the 70s.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 28d

I think 'hiking' is correct and Major got it wrong (just checked -- surprised me too).

Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning – all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle?

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· 28d

This feels like a catastrophic misreading of Orwell.

Last week, 33 years on from Major’s invocation of Eternal Britain, Ann Widdecombe was murdered in her Devon home, a bungalow in a small community at the edge of Dartmoor National Park. Just the kind of place, in fact, where Orwell might have pictured old maids hiking to Communion through the mist: and the last on earth where, you’d imagine, something so horrifying might happen (outside an Agatha Christie novel, at least).

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 12

My kind of pub.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 9

Would probs still eat it.

Wedding with catastrophe as caterers drop the cake.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 8

Good to see the old Tower Tavern in Fitzrovia (closed since the pandemic) repurposed as a cultural venue, complete with impenetrable, Cold War-ish name.

TOWER TAVERN ‘Centre for Interdisciplinary Exchange’ sign

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 7

Happy birthday Ringo Starr, 86 today. He still owns Maureen's red vinyl raincoat.

Ringo Starr photographed in 2025 with drum kit and wearing the red vinyl raincoat he wore for the Beatles' rooftop concert in 1969.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 6

I wonder if the skiffle group were any good.

Poster: Woolton Parish Church Garden Fete, Saturday July 6, 1957. Includes 'The Quarry Men Skiffle Group'.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 6

Tell me about your favourite antiques halls. I mean those warren-like places in every UK market town, full of Spitfire prints, Clarice Cliff ceramics, ragged bits of Victorian lace and 80s make-up. Usually empty; stallholders always absent.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 5

A defiance to proprietary wrapped in sheeer exuberance. No one does that like Little Richard, nor Black America.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 5

God yes, and this 🤢🤢🤮

After volunteering in an Essex by-election in 2015, Cottrell proved himself a talented fundraiser and a natural Farage whisperer, capable of determining when his boss wanted a urga, a punt, a moment's peace, or, a "PFL" — a proper f***ing lunch. His cut glass accent, segular claims to have a trust fund u £250 million and willingness to buy drinks, were a source of amusement, but he also worked tirelessly for Farage. The pair became close. Farage said he was like a "son" to him. One person said the dynamic was more that of a master and servant.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 5

Coincidence, I'm sure.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 4

'How we care for our youth, and what we owe them, is a question for all of us.' What a squandering, spiteful mess of a policy austerity was. What a terrific book this is.

'Up the Youth Club' - book by Emma Warren

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 4

I wrote about Beatles books without the word 'Beatles' in the title: the ones the Beatles read; the ones in their milieu; the books in the bibliographies of those books — and so on. helenbarrett.substack.com/p/my-beatles...

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 3

Someone from the Wirral once told me Chester wasn't the north.

geographical reality. As a native of the prosperous city of Chester, I'm frequently informed I can't be northern "because Chester's posh". And yet it is in the northern county of Cheshire, the North West government region and the Northern Province of the Church of England; it's northern by accent and self-definition. But northerner-than-thou types say we Cestrians forfeit that identity because our most successful industries
are tourism and financial services, not hewing lumps of coal out of the ground.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 3

Oh god, the projection.

Asked what he thinks about Mandelson now, McSweeney replies: "I hope that one day he recognises the damage he has done to a Labour government that carried the hopes of millions of people.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 2

Who would want to miss Tokyo's 7-Elevens?

Sign in a Tokyo 7-Eleven that reads: "Rice with tea poured on it"

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 2

What can it all mean?

Tasmania
Tasmanians warned of
'loving Neil to death' as 1,000kg seal's antics feed
'double-edged sword' of fame

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jul 1

Pauline Boty, who died 60 years ago today, taken by John Aston in 1962 and posted by her estate on Instagram this morning. The photograph is new to me. I love it.

Pauline Boty running in the street outside her flat in Addison Road, Holland Park.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jun 30

Margo's wardrobe budget seems to have doubled in the second series of The Good Life. The kaftans were vivid but for me, the Frank Usher numbers were best.

Penelope Keith as Margo in Series 2, Episode 4 of The Good Life, dressed in a silver mink stole for a scene in a magistrates' court.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jun 30

From the NYT's obit of Mark Singer, the staff writer at the New Yorker who profiled Trump nearly 30 years ago:

Observing him over several months on construction sites, in his Trump Tower office and on a private plane, Mr. Singer concluded that Mr. Trump, in the period before he became a reality TV star, was a man "who had aspired to and achieved the ultimate luxury, an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul."

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jun 28

I found the worst painting in the world.

Terrible painting of a random couple in a street gazing at each other.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jun 28

Maximum points if you can identify the cinematic reference in this t-shirt, as modelled by @jondennis.bsky.social

T shirr reads: MODERNIST DESIGN FORUM - SANTA CRUZ 1970

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jun 26

YES IT WORKS.

Floor fan with ice packs in front of it.

Helen Barrett@helenbarrett· Jun 25

Still got the 'Kate Bush' my mum made for me.