Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 27/09/2026This was as every bit good as I wanted to be; especially from someone who desperately wanted to glide through life and keep herself contained. You can’t help but feel like you’re intruding as you read it. 110
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 20/09/2026First time watching this quite-good-n-it’s-own-way film for 25 years or so and it is genuinely shocking to read how many films I have never heard of Edward Burns has directed since. 111
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Happy Batman Day (which social media is telling me is a thing)! 021
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I understand food trends are a thing, but it does seem odd to me to be pitching *black pudding* as a healthy option… 000
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I don’t think I’ve ever received a piece of post that quite so perfectly sums up my entire cultural interests 050
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Loved this. It starts with a boar loose in a shop and then becomes something very, very different. 260
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Fantastic to see The Hay Wain as part of Ipswich’s Constable 250 celebration. Seeing all the preparatory work leading to it was great; it only really came together for him when he started painting at scale. A very noisy and busy exhibition though. 110
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Things I was frightened of as a child: This, and only this, illustration by John Tenniel known to me and my sister as ‘Alice Long-Neck’. 111
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Some old paintings of mine seem to be getting some attention over the last few days. I haven’t painted for a good few years at this point, but I’d like to share this one of Diana Ross. 051
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 27/08/2026I was very taken with this. I found it constantly and gently surprising and I’ve rarely read a book which managed the passing of time so well. A real highlight of my reading summer. 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 09/06/2026I really enjoyed this. Very droll in the Barbara Pam vein, but also more pitiful, and the better for it. 030
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 30/05/2026I just adored her music and (I think) is the artist I’ve seen live the most times. I painted her a few years ago: 010
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 28/05/2026Somehow this book has a more devastating ending than Villette… there’s a inescapable sense of poor decisions made as the result of the loneliness of old age that sits throughout the book, but the ending is just unspeakably sad. 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 27/05/2026Enjoyed a Robin Williams 35mm double-bill at the Prince Charles where he played a not very good teacher in Dead Poets Society and a not very good therapist in Good Will Hunting 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 25/05/2026Everyone I trust is saying wait ‘till it’s on Disney+, but on the other hand: large rooms with air conditioning… (A Mandolorian piece I was commissioned to do a few years ago) 140
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 21/05/2026A memoir that is strangely most alive when Storey writes about the shadows cast by his brother’s early death and his own mental health. At the start, the book crackles and whips; the text seems alive with the immediacy of childhood. But it all fizzles out once the teenage years come along. 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 16/05/2026And in the interests of fairness: here is my own flat art of the two leads from a few years back. 030
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 04/05/2026This made for a great double bill; not just for their takes on a fading industry, but what they say about the impotence of leading men, highly romantic camera movements and how a good needle drop can make a scene. They are very much in dialogue with each other. 000
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 01/04/2026Great book from the best about art and integrity. And bonus points for a perfect summary of TNG on p. 173. 080
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 22/02/2026Maybe the single greatest paragraph about England ever: 120
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 22/02/2026Been fortunate to read lots of very good things recently, but this stood out. Taylor was exceptional at balancing wit and heartache, and she was so perceptive about both. 2124
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 21/02/2026I’ve been on a bit of a Sidney Lumet kick recently and have loved how deeply he explores how over time circumstance causes compromise. 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 20/02/2026I knew I would love this, as I love all her books, but this crept up on me and bowled me over. The first couple of chapters feel like a speed run through classic Brookner, but then it becomes a rich reflection on grief and how our lives can be suddenly upturned overnight. 030
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 16/02/2026Lucien Freud: Drawing into Painting does a decent job of trying to capture the process an artist whose models could sit for at least 120hrs for a piece. There’s a sense of time passing in the gallery; an artist obsessed with the new. 251
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 16/02/2026I loved the heart and intelligence of this movie. A very special film. 010
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 15/02/2026Read this after the umpteenth rewatch of Brief Encounter: even her daughter can’t capture why a very comfortable, conservative life led to such luminous performances. 151
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 08/02/2026A very old painting I did for a friend of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now 0183
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 08/02/2026I’m not sure I could recommend this film, but it contains some amazing things; the soundtrack, the ending, its depiction of Hollywood in the 70s , its moments of surprise. But overall, it is a little bit sceevy. 000
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 07/02/2026I feel like I’ve had The Perfect Kiss on loop in my head for the last week or so, so I decided to sit down and watch this… 010
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 05/02/2026Beautiful book about the small, slight things that somehow manage to change and not change relationships. Every page is like a sliver; Lehmann writing more in phrases than sentences. Gorgeous. 141
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 04/02/2026I adored reading The Landbreakers a few years ago, so decided to hunt down Ehle’s follow-up. Here a man throws away his ordered life to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons. 010
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 01/02/2026Lush Melodrama and angst over drapery… what more do you want from a film? 010
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 01/02/2026I’ve got that bug that’s going round but I still devoured these. There’s a story called ‘The Drowned Man’ within these that I just found absolutely devastating. 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 20/01/2026Not too sure about this one; an interesting lead gets lost as the flashbacks (progressing further and further back) begin to dominate. And the act of violence at the end of the book and subsequent resolution felt a little too tidy for me. 010
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 17/01/2026Great film. Robert Redford was one of those actors acutely aware of his persona and presence and here he channels it to embody the shallow charm of a political grifter. 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 11/01/2026Adored this drama about how we’re all performers in the end. Loved the brief moments of extravagance where fantasy slips through into reality. 051
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 10/01/2026It was a bit grey outside so I decided to watch some grey inside. 050
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 03/01/2026Saw Marty Supreme last night. The only word I can use to describe it is ‘vulgar’ (in the best possible way). Sat open-mouthed at times in both joy and horror. The energy of this film! 140
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 01/01/2026My system for new films is as follows. After watching, films get filed away in wallets due to lack of space. If they were a bit of a gem they get put on the shelf. These were the few that made the cut this year: 040
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 01/01/2026I was fortunate enough to read plenty last year. These were the books that have stayed with me: 4162
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/12/2025My favourite (/only) December tradition is reading collections of short stories. This hit the spot. 030
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 16/11/2025This was a great watch. Lovely thriller with an unsentimental view of the movie industry, a compromised lead character and little need for subtext. Donna Reed is gentle and George Sanders is smarmy: perfection! 020
Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 14/11/2025So very sad to read of the death of Rachel Cooke. An indelible, witty, generous writer. Dipping into this book to get a sense of herself self; I was drawn to these words she had chosen from Anne Sexton 020