Golden Oldies

In my teens I watched a lot of bad movies. It was the early eighties, and our family had just got our first VCR. It was a betamax, but in those days video shops stocked movies in three flavours – VHS, Beta, V2000 – so we weren’t stuck for dodgy old horror movies or low-low-budget […]

And the winner isn’t…

Well no surprises there. Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things deservedly won the Best Collection statue at the British Fantasy awards. Well done to Mr G, and to all the other winners. Especially pleased to see Gary Couzens pick up the Best Anthology award for Extended Play, which featured great stories from Phil Raines, Marion Arnott, Rosanne […]

To those who wait…

…and we’ve waited a heck of a long time. OH. FUCK. AYE. No wait, it’s even better in French.

Visions Of The Future

Courtesy of the ever-eclectic Boing-Boing, I’m totally charmed by these 1910 French lithographs depicting life in the year 2000. Probably my favourites are these marvelous armoured bicycles and this uncanny prediction of Mad Max or perhaps Death Race 2000. Wonder if those clever, clairvoyant Frenchies have managed to predict the result of tonight’s footie game […]

Bet they never got that in Yokohama

The scene : Bar Miso The time : Thursday 7th September The action : Shrimp Bento box, Kirin beer … and the marvelous musical antics of Scunner. Proper bo.

See amateur historians?

They don’t half come up with some odd notions. Maybe it’s the persuasive power of the way a character like Merlin is portrayed in the fantasy tradition, but Merlin as an auld geezer stoatin around Partick. It just doesn’t compute, y’know?

Recommendations

Saturday night was spent in the most marvelous celebration of the music of Mr Joe Kane. A grand night out, featuring the magic of Kevin Price, the glamorous fun of Miss Leggy Pee and the rambunctious music of The Plimptons all leading up to a cracking performance by Joe’s band, Idiots Against Time, showcasing the […]

A moment of praise…

…for Keith Brooke’s Infinity Plus. Over the last ten years Keith has grown IP into a colossal repository for great, free, short genre fiction, and that’s not counting the fine selection of reviews, interviews and other bits and bobs. Sadly, the site has become too much work to keep going now, so Keith’s calling it […]

Off my definitively unturtlenecked chest…

As in, I’m going to have unload, before I explode. So, please be aware this is a (very rare for me) rant, pure and simple. It’s about Macs. I don’t like them. Or rather I don’t like the idea of owning one of them, or being associated with the company that makes them. I’m sure, […]

And the winner is…

Having been fortunate enough to have both of my books shortlisted for awards, I’d have to say that I’m generally in favour of them. Sales aside, it’s nice to know that people thought well enough of your work to want to mark it as worthy in some way. It’s not only gratifying, it gives a […]