That time of year again: before Stag & Dagger 2012

This week has become an annual fixture for me. It’s the week before Stag & Dagger, and that means my working days are spent exclusively soundtracked by the bands taking part in the festival as I attempt to pull together an idea of who I want to be watching. It’ll all change on the day, […]

April -reading

Again, a month’s readings interrupted by other things. Which is not a complaint, just a bit of scene setting. In April I’d intended to go ahead and read the other BSFA nominees that I didn’t managed during March (The Islanders and By Light Alone), but by the time my reading schedule had cleared I wasn’t […]

Oh, Canada : in Stereo

Aw, look, I don’t really do gig reviews, but I can’t let last night’s Dan Mangan/Zeus show at Stereo pass without comment and, in the process, go on to admit that I may becoming obsessed about the music coming out of Canada at the moment. But first, some back story… A little under a year […]

You are in a clearing

A friend on Twitter (@munchkinstein) has taken to engaging with others in the style of an old text-based adventure. Remember those? In the days before we had much in the way of graphics on our computers, or indeed much in the way of computers, we enjoyed completely immersive, narrative driven, adventure games built entirely out […]

Putting in good words

Wur band’s new ep has just had its first review. It’s from the wise and venerable music blogger, Bluesbunny, and very nice it is too. And buried in there near the end is a nice little comparison about the style of our lyrics, which pleases me no-end. I’ve been a lyric writer since my teens, […]

Songs out of Stuff competition!

If you’ve been following my band, Murnie, for a while (c’mon, we’re getting on for NINE years, you must have stumbled across…no? Oh well) you’ll know we have a longstanding thing (no, madam, titter ye not, etc) about making up songs out of stuff people send us. That’s right, Stuff. Bits and pieces, odds and […]

The price of things and the value of things

In the light of the US Department Of Justice inquiry into the attempt by the Big Six publishers over there to establish (or ‘fix’) prices for e-books at a nominally substantial level, I think it’s worth pointing out that they’re not just doing so because they’re greedy. This article explains how e-books are priced, and why it’s […]

Voice

My friend, Michaela Staton, posted a very sweet tweet yesterday in response, I think, to having read Lost Sheep in the new Dark Currents anthology. The tweet was a compliment and delightful to receive, but I’ve been thinking quite deeply about the implications of it. Michaela said that what she liked about my writing was: […]

Ahabs

I wasn’t going to comment on the ongoing palaver that arose during and since the Eastercon awards ceremony. I think all that could possibly be said about that misjudged introductory speech must have been by now. So this post isn’t about that speech. It is however about the reaction to it. And I wouldn’t even […]

A good thing

So, 2012’s Eastercon has been and gone, and left me feeling (with a nod of gratitude to Jim Marshall) like a fan in front Nigel Tufnell’s stack in Tap’s heyday. It was a good thing, there was a lot of it and I possibly indulged a little too much. It had started so simply. No […]