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Tim Rding

@timrding.bsky.social
236 followers 261 following 405 posts

I spend most of my time teaching. Outside of that I read an awful lot, watch old movies, and love Doctor Who. I also like walking, cathedrals and eating well. As Rocky once said: “I’ve got gaps”

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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Favourite British films: A Canterbury Tale The Red Shoes I Know Where I’m Going! A Matter of Life and Death The Small Back Room There are others, but you should go with your heart on these things.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
But… I can’t stand extensive plot recounts of novels in literary biographies. Just feels like a desperate and easy way to reach a word count.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This 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.
A copy of Anita Brookner: Art & Life by Hermione Lee
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
You’d think he’d be part of the Sundance boom and the fizzle out, but he keeps going. He’s inoffensively basic, and She’s All That brings some nostalgia with it that makes it watchable; but you’re right - swathes of his films have just disappeared.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
First 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.
A blu-ray copy of She’s the One by Edward Burns
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Top Ten of ‘71 The Last Movie Vanishing Point Carnal Knowledge The Devils Little Murders Play Misty for Me McCabe & Mrs Miller Quest for Love Duel Klute
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Happy Batman Day (which social media is telling me is a thing)!
A black and white painting of Robert Pattinson as Batman. I think I did this one mostly in liquid charcoal.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I understand food trends are a thing, but it does seem odd to me to be pitching *black pudding* as a healthy option…
A packet of black pudding, a product made of blood and fat, being sold as being high in protein and iron
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I don’t think I’ve ever received a piece of post that quite so perfectly sums up my entire cultural interests
Two books: The Doctor Who Production Diary - The Troughton Years by David Brunt and Anita Brookner - Art & Life by Hermione Lee
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I suppose it’s setting out that an ordered life is going to be disrupted, but it just reads as really twee when you’re reading the book for the first time.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
That makes a lot of sense. I will say; it is an odd book. But its restlessness makes it very readable.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Loved this. It starts with a boar loose in a shop and then becomes something very, very different.
A hardback copy of The Girls by John Bowen
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I then somehow managed to accidentally end up in a Masonic Hall outside the exhibition. It was very, very odd.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Fantastic 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.
The Hay Wain by John Constable
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
It was on a pack of playing cards. Every day, one of us would dare the other to go a hide it somewhere so that she would go away. Every night she returned to the cupboard…
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Things 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’.
Alice with a long neck by John Tenniel
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I was! Right in front of someone with a very loud and distinctive laugh…
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Some 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.
A watercolour of Diana Ross
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Thanks so much!
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I’ve got that sitting on the watch pile. Will be really interested to hear what you think.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
That is a very generous of you. I really appreciate it. I find it almost impossible to find the time to draw nowadays, so it is very kind of you to say.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Part of my ‘Gravesend on film’ series, along with Les Mis and The New World.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
I think the whole series is worth reading. Would’ve been great to have them adapted as a series starring Sim.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Really good film. The setting, the music… it all works.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I like: the first four, The Counselor (for Cormac McCarthy), his storyboards and the idea that his multi-camera style of shooting matches how the BBC made things when he worked there in the 60s. That’s it.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Great film. Saw it blind at the London Film Festival (solely because it was set on a train) and it really impressed me.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Oh, when he’s good… he’s great. He’s just not good way more frequently than he is. It makes you think that when he is good, it’s a complete accident.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
10 good films, 10 films with one or two good things, 10 absolutely awful, horrendous appalling movies.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Just love this time of year when we can all reminded how many awful and/or forgettable movies Ridley Scott has made: www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/ridley...
hollywoodreporter.com
All 30 Ridley Scott Movies, Ranked From Worst to Best
Historical epics, dystopian futures, crime thrillers, a few androids and so many Russell Crowe accents. Travel from the distant past to the 'Alien' future as we rank the legendary director’s films.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Funny to see how The Social Reckoning is now being marketed as a thriller… how drastic were those reshoots?
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I 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.
A paperback copy of ‘Fenny’ by Lettice Cooper
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Haha - oops, sorry. Too many great films… I’ve got the old Network Black Narcissus blu; hopefully it’ll get re-released at some point. Saw BN projected on nitrate with an introduction from Thelma Schoonmaker. It was incredible.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
hmv.com/store/film-t...
hmv.com
The Small Back Room | HMV Store
Michael Powell (Director) | Emeric Pressburger (Director) | Michael Powell (Producer) | Emeric Press The Small Back Room Blu-ray Free shipping over £25
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I think it’s an excellent film for all those reasons you’ve both mentioned above; I love how it’s quite an austere film, but there are these moments of The Archers magic and strangeness that break through.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I saw it for the first time just before The Hurt Locker came out and Small Back Room just blew it out of the water.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I might even push it to your number 7 too. Superb list.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
An all-timer for me. The film, that experience… it’s extraordinary. I think the whole of human existence is captured in that film.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Incredible film. I once saw it projected from 35mm on Epiphany and the whole audience sat in silent communion throughout the end credits.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
A beautiful piece of writing
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I agree. I just loved it. A quietly soulful, brilliantly acted piece of adventure.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Matt Damon shoots a bow and arrow in The Odyssey about as well as he plays golf in The Legend of Bagger Vance
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
This is beautiful. Always talk about him John. Thinking of you and your family.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I have looked at that cover with as much empathy and imagination as I can muster, and I cannot see how it captures anything about that novel. The classic Virago covers bring perspective and imagination… that new one makes the novel seem that much smaller
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Those Viragos are just beautiful designs. Your thread made me want to read/re-read a bunch of books and sit down and look at a bunch of artists. The combinations were exquisite.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Such an amazing thread. Really inspiring stuff!
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Still thinking of Hockney…
Billy Wilder by David Hockney (1982)
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
I think of Hockney and I think of all those times that he’s made me stand still. How images I had continuously seen on screens seemed vivid and still and eternal when I saw them up close. Every time felt like a privilege.
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
I really enjoyed this. Very droll in the Barbara Pam vein, but also more pitiful, and the better for it.
A paperback copy of The Cost of Living by Kathleen Farrell
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Thinking of you both. Hope you can rest up
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Tim Rding @timrding.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
I once started talking about this to a man who delivered a sofa to my flat after he noticed I liked the Bond films, and he immediately turned round and walked out without saying a word…
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