Score card 2012

Okay, so it’s January, which means, as I sorta promised last year, it’s time to see how I got on with my rather ambitious goals for 2012. In summary I hoped to: Novels: Finish Queen Of Clouds and have started The Poisoner’s Road Shorts: Write and publish 10 short stories Band: Release 2 or 3 […]

Crackle and buzz

So the other day Murnie released our new ep, Crackle. We’re a wee band, and just like thousands of other wee bands out there it’s both inexpensive and easy for us to record our music and make it available to (theoretically) anyone who wants to hear it. What’s difficult sometimes though is getting feedback. Any […]

Crackle

It’s the end of the year, but there’s just enough time to squeeze in a brand new Murnie ep. Our second release of the year has taken a bit longer than expected to come to fruition because…life. Anyway we hope you enjoy it. And for those who like these sorts of things, here’s a few […]

Feeding the song book

On Hogmanay, wur band releases its second ep of the year and its third in a little over 15 months. As has become my tradition, I’ll blog about the songs on Crackle on release day, but what’s interesting (to me at least) is that this leaves us with only four songs left from the original […]

Christmas Quintet

Really pleased to announce that my punky musical story, Arrhythmia, has been reprinted in Infinity Plus’s new Quintet anthology. Yeah, so Arrhythmia was nominated for the BSFA award and it’s one of the stories I’m proudest of, but what’s really cool is that it sits snugly in amongst stories by four writers whose work I absolutely adore. For me, […]

By the scruffs

Over on his blog Hal Duncan has been adding to the oeuvre of his wonderful Scruffians stories with a series of Scruffians rhymes. I have to be honest and say that I probably love the Scruffians stories, featuring a cast of incorrigible, immortal urchins, most out of all of the things that Hal does. He’s […]

Turning back to black

Yet another maundering on horror fiction, this time occasioned by my finishing the first horror novel in years that I’d say, on balance, I both enjoyed and found mostly successful. The book in question was Adam Nevill’s award-winning, The Ritual, and…yeah, interesting. I’m not going to go into a whole of detail here, but will touch […]

It was a hundred and forty years ago today

On St Andrews Day, 1872, the first ever official international football match was held at West Of Scotland Cricket Ground in Glasgow. The game, of between Scotland and England, was watched by 4000 people, and ended goalless. I’m very much hoping (and would be HUGELY surprised if it does) that the score won’t be the […]

Pyser returns (hopefully)

Seem to be in the mood for reminiscence today. So, here’s one for you. Exactly sixteen years and one week ago I went to a gig that I can honestly say changed my life. Ben Folds Five at King Tut’s. It changed my life because it made me want to join a band, write songs, […]

Grey is the palette of terror, apparently

This was what crossed my mind while watching the recent remake of The Wolfman. It wasn’t the only thing that went through my head. Other musings included: how Chaneyesque Benicio del Toro looked, in and out of make up; how Hugo Weaving always makes any film a little bit better; and really, when it comes […]