James
@james_j_bailey
Followers
10,046
Following
5,488
Media
1,217
Statuses
12,040
Writer who lives in Manchester // Rep’d by John Ash at Creative Artists Agency // drjamesbailey on instagram and the blue place
Manchester
Joined February 2013
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Eagles
• 230970 Tweets
Dick Cheney
• 192590 Tweets
Packers
• 130317 Tweets
ENGFA ACTRESS 100M
• 118238 Tweets
श्री गणेश
• 113163 Tweets
Ganesh Chaturthi
• 103865 Tweets
Ganesh Chaturthi
• 103865 Tweets
गणपति बप्पा
• 81210 Tweets
Saquon
• 76054 Tweets
Jalen
• 58603 Tweets
Barkley
• 44004 Tweets
भगवान गणेश
• 41183 Tweets
#二度と撮れない画像を貼れ
• 34726 Tweets
Jordan Love
• 32308 Tweets
#GanpatiBappaMorya
• 28779 Tweets
Party Love AndaLookkaew
• 26724 Tweets
JustinOn NCAA100Kickoff
• 25401 Tweets
ビッグラン
• 15478 Tweets
イコラブ
• 12766 Tweets
#学マスデビュー初心_名古屋
• 11232 Tweets
Nikocado Avocado
• 10555 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
Thinking, as I often do, about ‘Route of ghost’
214
7K
85K
why does Pope Francis look like he’s slaying the comedy roast on Drag Race
133
5K
66K
I went to Madrid to see Isabel Quintanilla’s painting of her bathroom shelves, and now I’m showing you Isabel Quintanilla’s painting of her bathroom shelves.
85
2K
36K
Please help me, I went out for some milk and am now in grave danger of purchasing a second-hand toucan lamp
372
507
31K
There’s a bush in our garden that spends 11 months of the year being extremely drab and insular, but pops up in May wearing an enormous purple feather boa. We call him Clive, but we haven’t really asked ourselves why.
264
760
26K
‘Believe’ by Cher was number one in the UK for five days longer than Liz Truss was Prime Minister
105
3K
21K
Sinéad O'Connor was brilliant, smart and courageous as fuck. I hope she’s remembered for her sense of humour, too.
Here she is attending an anti-Sinéad O'Connor demonstration in disguise. Truly one of a kind 🖤
51
3K
17K
Please stop what you’re doing and watch Tina Turner and Cher duetting in the campest way imaginable 💜
161
3K
16K
I am once again thinking about how, aged 11, Courtney Love failed to get into the Mickey Mouse Club after choosing to recite Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy' at her audition
55
1K
15K
As a teenager, my mum was good friends with Morrissey's older sister, and still likes to tell me about the time he sighed "for what must have been 20 seconds" because she was standing in the way of the toaster when he wanted to use it 🍞
200
1K
14K
I spend a lot of time thinking about Grace Jones being bewildered by Uber
133
1K
14K
Wishing I had the confidence of the first-year undergrad I once taught, who, despite having never read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, wrote an entire essay on it, which concluded: ‘and maybe even the darkest hearts can still let a little light in after all?’
167
725
12K
Began laughing hysterically at the memory of me and the only other queer kid in my class at primary school refusing to play football at break time in favour of playing ‘The Bill’, which consisted of the pair of us walking slowly in sync while quietly humming The Bill’s theme tune
117
436
11K
This comment, left under a Guardian piece naming It’s a Sin as the best TV show of the year, has absolutely broken me.
90
1K
10K
Since he’s this year’s Christmas number one, here’s a reminder of the time George Michael sent £15k to a Deal or No Deal contestant to pay for her fertility treatment, and another £25k to a woman he saw crying in a café 💚
82
1K
10K
Still thinking about the group of women sitting in front of me for All of Us Strangers last weekend, who sobbed through the last 15 mins. When the lights came on, one tried to lighten the mood by saying “All of Us Crying, more like!”, to which another snapped “NOT NOW, NATALIE!”
50
503
9K
My mum’s been helping to renovate a long-empty house, and I can’t stop staring at all the layers of ever more brain-melting wallpaper
435
571
9K
Thinking about the time my mum rented us Mrs Doubtfire on video, and when it ended she turned to my sister and I and said "that was very funny, but neither of you should deceive people like that"
10
146
6K
Some very exciting personal news: I’m spending the night in a tiny cottage on a rainy hillside, and am about to start reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier FOR THE FIRST TIME! 🔥
703
142
5K
I’m ready to speak my truth: I hate the awful Go Ape outdoor activity sections on
#TheTraitors
. You suddenly go from an intense Agatha Christie whodunnit to a drab team-building exercise on a NatWest away day.
104
206
5K
This dog on
#Crufts2024
looks like she’s starring in an ITV drama about a retired detective chief inspector in a quaint Yorkshire village, who has a shrewd mind and one last case to solve
103
431
5K
I stroked next door’s cat under the chin 2 weeks ago, and every day since she’s turned up on my doorstep, so that’s nice isn’t it 🐈
143
85
4K
No one can leave my sister’s living room because Ethel has ONCE AGAIN bitten off the door handle and is refusing to give it back. Please keep us in your thoughts at this difficult time.
110
319
4K
Liz showing up here like that woman who worked in your office for 4 months in 2013 but still comes to the Christmas do at Las Iguanas
48
214
3K
For anyone struggling with impostor syndrome today, remember that someone was once commissioned to create the artwork for a Kylie Minogue compilation CD and came up with this:
103
406
3K
Since today’s his birthday, here’s a reminder of the time George Michael sent £15k to a Deal or No Deal contestant to pay for her fertility treatment, £25k to a woman struggling with debt, and £5k towards a student’s nursing degree 💚
16
569
3K
Here’s something: I’m starting a new job as a Literature Relationship Manager at Arts Council England, where I’ll be supporting writers, publishers, festivals and bookshops to do lots of great things. I’m really looking forward to it! 📚
167
85
3K
(from Usborne’s World of the Unknown: Ghosts, aka the best book to ever exist)
37
127
3K
For some reason I’m crying with laughter recalling when I was 17 and working in a dusty medical records office with 3 women named Barbara, Margaret and Debs. One day we all ate our sandwiches on a bench in the hospital car park and Debs said it was “just like Sex and the City” 🍸
18
78
3K
Since the winner of the Booker Prize will be announced today, a reminder that Muriel Spark helped spread a rumour during the 1994 ceremony that Iris Murdoch’s husband was stealing potatoes from guests' plates 🥔
28
300
2K
My cousin has adopted the most hauntingly melancholy puppy in the world and named her Lana Dog Rey 💜
20
106
2K
I so wish Muriel Spark were around today to troll us all on Twitter with her immaculately unhelpful writing advice. Truly one of a kind.
71
456
2K
Imagine making your first music video after being arrested for a “lewd act” in a public toilet, and deciding that it should include mirrorball urinals. I bloody miss George Michael. 🪩
#GeorgeMichaelOuted
47
209
2K
A moment of appreciation for the pie dish I just bought from the charity shop for a grand total of £3.50 🥧
48
44
2K
I’m going to look at buying my first car this weekend. Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about cars and will be bitterly disappointed if this one isn’t available.
75
79
2K
To mark Grace Jones’s 75th birthday, please enjoy her insisting that ‘Pull Up to the Bumper’ is simply a pleasant song about the joys of manoeuvring a long, well-waxed limousine into a very tight space, and ‘shame on you’ if you think otherwise 🚘
46
448
2K
One of the problems with having spent so much of my life reading Muriel Spark is that when someone books a Teams meeting at, say, 9.45, I automatically hear Miss Jean Brodie utter “she thinks to intimidate me by the use of quarter hours?”
30
127
2K
In the queue for Barbie last weekend, 2 women had a row about money one owed the other for a holiday. It’s taken me a full seven days to come up with this, but:
BARBIE QUEUE BEEF hahahaha 👑
28
75
1K
I tumble-dried my pyjamas and now I have to become a Tim Burton character in order to wear them
31
88
1K
US drag queens: I’m Calexis Iman Dupree Davenport St James, from the illustrious House of St James! ✨👑
UK drag queens: I’m Electra Fence because once I touched an electric fence and electrocuted myself and landed in a pile of cow shit.
#DragRaceUK
5
109
1K
Here's an AS Byatt quote that I've thought about a lot over the last few years (it's in 3 parts):
'I remember sitting down and thinking: I am terribly depressed and this cannot go on. And then I thought: You can kill yourself or you can get interested in absolutely everything.'
12
257
1K
Why does the artwork for the new ABBA single look like a poster for the most harrowing A24 movie yet
18
216
1K
If you’re feeling a pang of guilt about having a takeaway tonight, remember that Barbra Streisand saw fit to install an entire DICKENSIAN STREET, including several fully-staffed ‘shops’, in the basement of her house, to show off her favourite antiques.
Please order extra chips.
62
141
1K
Imagining the novel Ali Smith is furiously composing during all of this: Narrated by a nurse, a precocious child called Germ, a tree stump, a Microsoft Teams call, NHS 111 automated advice, and the ghost of Kenny Rogers. Musings on Charlie Chaplin throughout.
Out this afternoon.
22
162
1K
Me sitting down for Happy Valley even though it isn’t on for another 943 hours
19
80
1K
I’m having my first ever author headshot photo taken tomorrow (news incoming!), and am already bracing myself for bitter disappointment when it doesn’t bear any resemblance to Muriel Spark posing with Patricia Highsmith’s cat on a balcony in Rome
29
58
1K
Do you know what I’m a big fan of? EXCESSIVE FORMALITY IN POP SONGS. If you’re Erasure singing “oh baby, refrain from breaking my heart” or Diana Ross chirping “respectfully, I say to thee: I’m aware that you’re cheating”, then I’m simply all ears 💛
104
86
1K
“I hope your hell is filled with magazines, and on every page you see a picture of me” - Ronnie Spector
4
199
1K
Please enjoy Muriel Spark casting a withering eye over hipsters way back in 1963
21
120
1K
Muttering “I used to go clubbing!”incredulously to myself as I spend the early hours of Saturday morning scraping little balls of moss off my driveway
54
23
983
On this day in 1836: Writing in her diary, Charlotte Brontë reflects that teaching is perhaps not her dream job.
‘Am I to spend all the best part of my life in this wretched bondage, forcibly suppressing my rage at […] the most asinine stupidity of these fat-headed oafs?’
25
165
938
Kate Bush walking a stuffed crocodile through a car park
Which photo of your favorite artist could have been an album cover?
991
126
3K
13
105
923
a very dull thing to tweet about, but here’s my favourite lamp 💡
73
7
917
I’m spending the day researching my next project on Muriel Spark.
This image, you might say, is a mood, a vibe, a lifestyle, and a possible book title. 💀
42
77
918
If this really is twitter’s last gasp, here’s a final reminder of the time I accidentally hung up on Liza Minnelli and almost found myself single
19
84
784
Thinking about the Christmas my boyfriend got me the same Joni Mitchell CD that proves Emma Thompson’s husband is unfaithful in Love Actually, which prompted me to do a whole bit where I pretended to reach the same conclusion. Alas, he hadn’t seen the film and was just confused.
8
19
779
I won’t know peace until there’s a 12-part docuseries about the time Kate Bush did a photoshoot with an alligator in a car park
23
132
747
Anyone sad enough to be making jokes about Madonna would do well to remember that she’s made it her life’s work not to give a shiny shit what you think of her
27
74
742
I’m going to need a special episode of Inside No. 9 set inside a Center Parcs lodge, please
6
51
716
Everything is absolutely awful, but I’ve just baked a Manchester tart so large that it could be rented out as a modest studio flat for the competitive price of £1,095 per calendar month
39
16
719
Find someone who looks at you the way my boyfriend looks at his framed poster of different varieties of cheese 🧀
19
25
686
Marking Kate Bush’s birthday by telling you that, aged 12, she responded to the death of her pet hamster by writing a poem for her school newspaper entitled ‘EPITAPH FOR A RODENT’ 🐹
8
145
681
Your Halloween reminder that Muriel Spark would dodge annoying interview questions by holding a wind-up cackling skull over her face.
5
117
622
I recently asked a family friend when they first knew I was queer, and they immediately mentioned my 5th birthday party, when I asked everyone to stop playing football in order to join me in drawing pictures of Tina Turner 💔
17
23
582
My phone just autocorrected ‘Tina Turner’ to ‘Tina Turnitin’, in case you were wondering how working in academia continues to affect me
10
45
591
Absolutely love this - Paul O’Grady supporting the 2010 student protests on his live TV show
“Education should be for everybody, not just those who can afford it”
5
131
574
Imagine having these three geniuses on your front cover and choosing that as your headline
22
37
575
It’s really quite cruel of this novel to not actually exist, isn’t it
9
111
553
A mini-tour, with a little psychedelic experience at every turn
💛🧡🩷💜🧡💛
52
23
559
Ethel insists I shake her paw continuously. If I stop she cries. We have been shaking paws for 38 minutes at this point. Please can someone come round and take over. We can work shifts, it’ll all be fine. I’ll cook you a meal. Please hurry x
28
53
524
I’m not sure I’m allowed to talk about it yet, but the most exciting thing to ever happen in my life has very recently happened, and I say that as someone who once had a portrait of an octopus made from bits of dry pasta shown on Art Attack 🐙
17
7
526
Do you think these photos of Kate Bush pretending to be a bat would look good as a set of commemorative stamps?
Interviewer: we meant do you have any questions about the job
6
66
535
RIP April Ashley, a trans trailblazer who remained iconic to the end
6
70
503
Apropos of nothing, I'm thinking fondly today of the art supply teacher I had in high school, who - like a low-rent Jean Brodie - dismissed the entire curriculum and just had us draw sketches of Dorian from Birds of a Feather while he chain-smoked out the window
36
37
505
Sinéad O'Connor attending an anti-Sinéad O'Connor protest in disguise is my new favourite thing
10
96
491
I think it’s really important that you all stop what you’re doing and take a look at my day-glo dahlia
35
26
477
Thinking about when I was 17 and on a date with a highly pretentious older guy. He asked me what my favourite piece of music by Philip Glass was, but I thought he said ‘Cilla Black’ and responded “probably ‘Surprise Surprise’? Or even the Blind Date theme tune, if that counts?”
23
33
462
Obsessed with Dame Judi Dench having a special Dame Judi Dench coaster for her special Dame Judi Dench mug 💜
4
39
482