Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
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rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
@rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
460 followers 170 following 2.5K posts
Books. Translation. Publishing. Films. Music. 🇩🇰🇬🇧🇪🇺
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rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
What the hell, iPlayer seems to have removed the option of seeing the list of films alphabetically/chronologically in favour of a netflix-style choice of woolly categories which probably don't even include them all. Way to enshittify, bbc.
September 19, 2026 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
jonathancoe.bsky.social
Authors! If you must respond to your bad reviews, do it as graciously as Oliver Hardy when Walter Winchell trashed the film 'Nothing But Trouble' in 1945.

(Bookmarking this post in case I need it in November.)
September 18, 2026 at 1:33 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Read: Leonard Michaels: The Men's Club (1978).
Novella about the first meeting in a group of men and their inevitable stories of women and sex. Of its time, but also relevant for today. Oh, and funny. A very enjoyable read.
September 18, 2026 at 11:45 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
nicolashenin.net
Nice campaign by the Norwegian Consumer Council about the declining lifespan of products. Enjoy!
September 17, 2026 at 7:34 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
thisismyglasgow.bsky.social
One of the staircases in the City Chambers in Glasgow. Designed by William Young and built in the 1880s, its internal decorations have to be seen to be believed. Luckily, they run regular tours so you can take a peek inside.

#glasgow #architecture #architecturephotography #glasgowcitychambers
September 16, 2026 at 7:04 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Nope, still not quite autumnal.
September 15, 2026 at 8:09 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
glennf.com
All three artists and these characters are in The One Matt Bors Comic, a book coming this fall.
September 14, 2026 at 2:41 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
There are three comics from this century I regularly think about. The Matt Bors one below, The Terrible Sea Lion by David Malki …

wondermark.com/c/1062/
September 14, 2026 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
mattbors.bsky.social
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
September 13, 2026 at 11:54 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Read: William Thackeray: Vanity Fair (1848).
Ticking one of the big Victorians off the list. Funny, gripping, entertaining, with great characters, but also too long.
September 11, 2026 at 8:09 AM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Mary Norton's least successful sequel
September 8, 2026 at 12:50 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Read: Winifred Watson: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (1938).
Frothy, silly, delightful Cinderella story about frumpy, middle-aged spinster Miss Pettigrew's crazy day among the rich, young and beautiful. Late in the book we learn her advanced age: forty.
#SpinsterSeptember
September 8, 2026 at 7:49 AM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Roll on, zombie apocalypse: olives were almost half price, so we're prepared.
September 7, 2026 at 5:10 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess
pmamtraveller.bsky.social pmamtraveller.bsky.social @pmamtraveller.bsky.social · 12d
"The Princess and The Pea" by Edmund Dulac
September 7, 2026 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
adactivity.bsky.social
A girl I dated in my early 20s once while asleep opened her eyes and sat up to say “my apartment has two bathrooms” and I was like “no it just has one” and she laid back down and said “it hides when you come over”
September 6, 2026 at 3:48 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
ceej.online
My wife, a prodigious sleep-talker, failed to disclose her affliction when we started dating, which led to the fright of my life the night she sat bolt upright in bed and in a low flat monotone loudly declared that “THIRTEEN BABIES REMAIN UNFATHERED.”
June 11, 2024 at 11:35 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Rewatched the wonderful Annie Hall last night, first time in ages. Reminded why it took me years to love When Harry Met Sally which I resented for its wholesale theft of the Allen universe. Here: split screen convos, use of It Had to Be You, addressing the camera, walk and talk in picturesque NY.
September 6, 2026 at 7:58 AM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Read: Barbara Pym: Quartet in Autumn (1977).
Booker nominated, bleakly funny portrait of four old widowers/spinsters. Good, but I think I preferred Excellent Women.
#SpinsterSeptember
September 4, 2026 at 7:18 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
mooseallain.bsky.social
A playful illustration featuring a poll asking if one likes Venn diagrams, with options to tick a circle for "Yes," "No," and "Ambivalent", the latter illustrated by overlapping circles.
September 4, 2026 at 6:20 AM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
This website is still free.
Q: Any nerds have a favorite translation of Gogol's stories? A: I just used Gogol Translate.
September 2, 2026 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
stephencollins.bsky.social
First day of school
Scene is morning on a suburban street, a DAD, MUM and their four year old daughter LUCY are in their front garden, taking the first-day-of-school photo. 1 DAD: OK stand by the hedge - smile Lucy! 2 [We see both daughter and dad as he takes the photo] *Click* 3 [We see just the Dad looking at the photo he has just taken on his phone] DAD: No I’ll have to take it again… she blinked… 4 [Again we see both Lucy and dad as he takes the photo - but this time Lucy has grown bigger] DAD: Smile Lucy! *Click* 5 [Again we see just the Dad looking at the photo he has just taken on his phone] DAD: No I’ll have to take it again… she grew…. 6 [Again we see both daughter and dad, but this time she is bigger still] DAD: Smile Lucy! *Click* 7 [Dad looking at phone again] DAD: Nope. She grew again. LUCY [From off-scene]: *URRRRGH* 8 LUCY [Now a 6th-former]: Of *course* I grew, dad! I’m like, a *living organism* persisting through *time* in a constant state of *growth*? 9 DAD: Well yes, I know that darling It’s just you seem to be doing it a bit *faster* today than - VOICE FROM OFF-SCENE: Awright babe 10 [We see a TEENAGE BOY, spotty, grinning, etc] 11 DAD: [looks shocked] 12 LUCY: Take one of me and Kev, Dad! [ends]
September 2, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
simonguy.bsky.social
"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
A photo of a litter bin logo.
September 2, 2026 at 9:06 AM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
Sunset 20:09
August 31, 2026 at 6:09 PM
rayburnmaarup.bsky.social
August reading [✓]
Favourite: either The Equestrienne or Bazán's short stories, both outrageous and fun.
August 31, 2026 at 7:03 AM
Reposted by Steffen Rayburn-Maarup
danielsugarman.bsky.social
The world's most notorious custard-pie thrower is dead. What an obituary. He got Bernard-Henri Lévy seven times.
​Known to his army of fans as L’Entarteur or Georges le Gloupier, Godin launched his career as a serial deflator of egos in 1969, when he planted a tarte à la crème on the face of the French novelist Marguerite Duras (“She has a kind of intelligence and cleverness that serves only her own vanity,” he complained), and he went on to “pie” a cast list of celebrities for sins ranging from pomposity to “choosing to function in the service of the capitalist status quo”. The same could not be said of Bernard-Henri Lévy, one of France’s “new philosophers,” whose provocative views on sex, frequent appearances on television and penchant for white silk shirts unbuttoned practically to the navel, had made him a cult figure – and one of Godin’s most satisfying victims. Levy once declared: “I am the most gifted writer of my generation,” and often boasted of his reasonableness and tolerance, but he was forced to endure footage being repeatedly shown on French television of himself, covered in cream, during a visit to the Belgian city of Liège, trying to strangle Godin and shouting: “Get up, or I’ll kick your head in.” Noël Godin was born on September 13 1945 and came to pie-throwing after a rebellious youth in which he scandalised the priests in the confessional by speaking of his “horrible sexual life”, and was thrown out of Liège University after emptying a pot of glue over the head of a law lecturer who had helped write the constitution for the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar. He found work at Friends of Film, an obscure magazine published by the Belgian Catholic League. It had a tiny readership, which was just as well, as Godin made up most of his articles. In one he claimed that Louis Armstrong had once been a cannibal and had invested in a film called The Vegetables of Good Will in which Claudia Cardinale played a giant endive. In another he conjured up a fictional blind Thai filmmaker named Vivian Pei, describing her film, The Lotus Flower Will Never Again Grow on the Edge of Your Island, in such convincing terms that an Asian film specialist travelled to Thailand in an effort to track her down. “We’re very careful not to hurt people,’’ he explained. “Well, they are hurt, but always in their amour-propre.” In 1995 Godin published an autobiography, Cream and Punishment. His other targets over the years included the New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard (who charmed his assailant by hailing the attack as a homage to silent film), the French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the Ryanair chairman Michael O​’Leary. He tended not to pick Belgian victims, he explained, because few would notice if he did.
August 30, 2026 at 10:56 PM