The 286 Project

If you want to know about @the286project and know what King of the Journeymen is, watch this. THEN SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ⬇️ @the286project" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@the286project AND BUY THE BOOK ⬇️ pitchpublishing.co.uk/shop/king-jour… #boxing #podcast

I think the problem surrounding the word "British", is that people like Mayuran dont recognise or realise or understand that "British" is a relatively new concept, and people are emotionally and ethnically tied to their ancestral roots by region. The Scots, The Welsh, The Cornish and The English, are those things. And then inside those areas there are locational attachments. People only really became nomadic during the Blair era when young people started going off to university. Its why people are so attached to their own sports teams, from their own area. Just between Camborne and Redruth - a distance of 5 miles, there are differences. Look at Liverpool, and they're almost a separate country, despite being inside England and Britain. There are things that only natives understand, that are almost impossible to articulate - like hating the French. To the native people of Britain, trying to crowbar everyone in to a very narrow umbrella term of "being British" doesn't work because we are much more than one word, one flag, one place and one people, and we're thousands of years old, and we're many very different tribes.

Hello @JESnowden. Thank you for the follow. Can you please subscribe to @the286project by clicking on the following link: @the286project" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@the286project

Listening to Cord Jefferson discussing his film American Fiction. One of the best satires of the last decade.

I've done this on several occasions, especially with academic writing/writers. Just a quick email to say "Hey, I read that article you wrote. I loved it. Great work!" Takes 30 seconds and has been nothing but positive for me.

Abel Ferrara and screenwriter Nicholas St. John wrote King of New York specifically with Christopher Walken in mind - despite never having met him. Getting Walken was an absolute must. Abel explains what it was like meeting with him for the first time to discuss doing the role: "Walken showed up as advertised, tall, elegant, mysterious, and like every time I would ever meet with him he just appeared, alone, carrying a black bag like a doctor. We all sat quiet for a moment. I had no idea where to begin. He started talking. He said you can’t play a king; it’s the attitude of the other actors toward you that makes you one. Then he stood up and said, “I read the script and I know exactly what you guys want, and I can give it to you.” We couldn’t even manage a response. He said he had to go and left, never having taken off his coat. I went right to the phone to call Jay (Julien, the producer) to try to figure out what just happened. He said, “Well, I guess you have your actor.” Quote from GQ gq.com/story/when-abe…

52 years ago, Rodrigo Valdez defeated Bennie Briscoe by TKO in round 7 of 15 to win the vacant WBC middleweight title. The single stoppage loss in Briscoe's 96-fight career.

@SprtBookReviews Dark Trade by Donald McRae Sporting Blood by Carlos Acevado Unforgivable Blackness by Geoffrey Ward Can I also recommend the autobiography I ghostwrote, King of the Journeymen: The Life of Peter Buckley?

🥊📚 What are your favourite boxing books? Reading a load of old ones about 40s and 50s, but looking for all your favourite boxing books (or recommend your own).

I'm reading Miles Davis' autobiography for a profile on him in honor of his centennial. Several things jumping out already: 1. Insatiable curiosity. Miles fell in love with music as a preadolescent and built his life around learning everything he could about the medium. 2. Surrounding yourself with top practitioners in your field. Miles came from the hot jazz scene in St. Louis. After he got into Juilliard and moved to NYC, his focus was playing gigs with legends like Charlie "Bird" Parker, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie. It's insane to think that all these legends were playing together, all at the same time. But they were. 3. Expanding your horizons. Even as he was building a reputation on the jazz scene in NYC, Miles' insatiable curiosity drove him to go to the library and check out scores from contemporary composers like Stravinsky and Prokofiev. He couldn't fathom why all the greats he played with didn't educate themselves in the same way: "I wanted to see what was going on in all of music. Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery, and I just couldn't believe someone could be that close to freedom and not take advantage of it." Genius doesn't come from nowhere. Even the greats have to work at it. Miles had a singular focus since he was a boy, built his life around it, and changed American music forever.

An analogy, I spent years in a mentally and economically abusive marriage; endless insults, psychological warfare, constantly being made to feel stupid, confused and financially abused and dependent. You stop trusting your own judgement after a while. You become grateful for scraps of decency because your baseline for “normal” has been dragged through hell. With the help of friends and family, I eventually woke up and left. A couple of years later, I met someone else. He sold me a sob story, presented himself as kind, understanding, different. At first, compared to what I’d escaped, he looked wonderful. Then, slowly, the mask slipped and I realised he was another monster entirely. Different tactics, same outcome. I remember sobbing to one of my best friends, who works as a councillor specialising in domestic abuse, asking her why I kept choosing such awful men. She said something that never left me: “They only have to be slightly less shit than the last one and you think you’ve done well. Predators look for vulnerable, exhausted people and sell them hope. At first, you’re so relieved somebody appears kinder than the last abuser, you’ll tolerate things you never should.” And honestly, that is exactly how the British working class feels politically. Labour was supposed to be our party. They abandoned us, lied to us, sneered at us, and treated us with contempt whilst pretending to care. So millions drifted to the Tories, who arrived with flowers and promises and patriotic slogans, only to economically cripple the country, flood communities beyond recognition, destroy social cohesion and then call us stupid for noticing. Then Farage and Reform arrived, presenting themselves as the outsiders, the ones who finally “got it”, the ones who understood the betrayal and anger and exhaustion. People desperately wanted to believe again. They wanted somebody, anybody, to stop treating them like a disposable inconvenience in their own country. And then what happened? The same arrogance. The same insults. The same sneering at ordinary supporters the second they became inconvenient. The same obsession with ego, cliques, media games and controlled narratives. Different badge, same psychological manipulation. Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, The Times, GB News, Talk, Reform figures, they can all spend all day calling ordinary people thick, racist, paranoid, uneducated, extremist, “that lot”. But after years of this treatment, the insults barely even land anymore. We’ve learned to take the punches. We’ve learned what manipulation looks like. We’ve learned what gaslighting sounds like. People are tired of being love-bombed before elections, then mocked and discarded afterwards by people who suddenly think they’re too embarrassing to stand beside. That’s what created Restore. Maybe it will fail. Maybe it will disappoint people too. But at some point, abused people stop caring about the risk of trying again, because staying with the people who have already lied to, exploited and humiliated them becomes intolerable. They all created Restore. We've been in a very abusive one way relationship with successive governments now since Major, and we're done. And the more abuse they all throw at us, the more we're done.

This is excellent. Brilliantly said.

The late, great Matthew Saad Muhammad passed away 12 years ago today. In his memory, tune into one of his classic wars. I’d suggest the Richie Kates thriller.

@snboxing Who do you think they should fight next?

Great performances by Sanchez and Catterall on Saturday. Both did a ton for their respective careers.

By picking Verhoeven, Usyk signaled that he's no longer taking his career as seriously as he once did. Prior to Saturday he had talked about retirement. Now after a nightmare showing, heavyweights will be licking their chops to put him there. My column: saturdaynightboxing.com/2026/05/opinio…

@realsashastone Think it won the Palme D'or this year.

Can't wait to see this movie because it is among the first to challenge the progressive Left's worldview (like Eddington, The Curse series). It is mostly in English, even though this clip is not. Fjord. Look for it. youtube.com/watch?v=Tz6GHd…

There's been an assumption around for a while, ultimately grounded in psychoanalysis/psychotherapy, that *talking more* is the solution to our problems, that, by *revealing all*, we will deal with our problems - not just personal but societal, global - freely and openly. I think that dream has died. For the most part it creates chaos and confusions, generates as many problems as it solves, makes being with other people (and their various cultural productions) virtually unbearable. Dumping large dollops of the self into the public sphere does not make the world a better place. Just look at most reality TV for evidence of this. The human self ends up as a circus act, entertainment. In this context, reticence, fortitude - and the skill to do things other than talk and manipulate people - start to look much more attractive.

@PhilR2025 @mrstevehunt @boxingmoviepod I am a fan of Michael Mann. But not a fan of this film.

@mrstevehunt @boxingmoviepod Is it ok to really like this film? Because I do.

It's a @boxingmoviepod Monday! Don't miss it! #boxing #boxingmovies

It's exactly 50 years since a scaffolder from Bradford called Richard Dunn stepped into the ring with Muhammad Ali. I recently spent an afternoon with Richard re-watching the fight for @itvcalendar - if you want more check out my documentary - itv.com/watch/news/whe…

@OBEhizele Can relate.

People ask how I manage to stay calm and consistent. Firstly, it is hard to get triggered by people you don't rate. Secondly, I genuinely don't have the time or energy for nonsense. Thirdly, most people are operating within their intellectual limitations, and I keep that in mind.

@bekibox @MrsJayneW @redrumlisa

The next interview will be with an award winning screenwriter who has written for Doctors, Holby City and Eastenders. More details coming soon. #screenwriting #scriptwriter