So sorry, everyone. I’ve been here for a bit, which is why I’m now missing out on all the pub day fun. It’s tiresome, but what—apart from a spectacular suicide involving a funicular and a porpoise costume—can you do? I’ll be back soon. Love and peace, weirdos.

Honestly, if it had been up to me, she’d have won again the following year just for this.

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Rhetorical questions; what’s that all about?

I see that Connections has its own little scoring bot now, which is nice. I’m especially tickled by this screen, where it gamely tries to piece together what those hapless meat puppets can possibly have been thinking.

What idiot called it The Lord of the Rings and not Unexpected Item in the Baggins Area?

On special at Lidl today: • A vacuum robot • A blood pressure monitor • Kangaroo steaks • A cocktail shaker • A flame gun If we could but live the lives that have been dreamed for us.

Wanna go back downstairs and unsee my etchings?

British Amazon ratings: A primer ⭐ : Good lord, no. ⭐⭐ : Still a no, I'm afraid. ⭐⭐⭐ : Well, if you absolutely must. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ : Fine, if you like that sort of thing. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ : Quite interesting, actually.

Tomorrow! Join @paraicodonnell.bsky.social author of The Naming of the Birds The Writer's Center !🖤🐦‍⬛💙🗡️✨ In convo w/ Tin House Publisher & Editorial Director Masie Cochran. 4pm PT / 7pm ET - Tues 1/7/25 Free, but pls register: writer.org/event/paraic...

The Well, Actually of Loneliness.

When you do a demonstrably perfect joke and it gets precisely two likes.

My favourite episode of Frasier? Gotta be the one where the irresistible farce meets the immovable objet d'art.

Just tweaking my list of all-time favourite games for 2025. One new entrant, but otherwise no major upsets. • The one where everyone is undead, so it's nice and quiet. • The one where you get to ride around gathering herbs on a horse. • The one where you get to tidy up a whole planet.

Probably not ideal that I keep forgetting this is happening. In my defence, though, pretty much nothing else that's happening feels remotely plausible just now.

`...thinned / To an air-sharpened blade...‘

Today marks 6 years since the passing of my friend Simon, who many of you will know as @simonnricketts on the other place. He was a good boy, who I miss terribly. If you knew Simon in any way, please remember him. Thank you. x www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfXj...

Every Sigur Rós has its thorn.

My friends, I have discovered the existence of decorative electrical tape and nothing is ever going to be the same.

Fiction to look out for in 2025: From Eimear McBride to Ben Okri. Emma Donoghue, Joseph O’Connor and Colum McCann are just some of the big names with new books coming out in 2025. Here’s our pick of Irish and international fiction for the year ahead www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Well, the people outside are frightful.

Molière walks into a bar. Bartender says, why the long farce?

Unresting death, a whole disco slide closer now.

21.XII.24 In deference to festive custom (and by way of belated introduction), here’s my thing about gardens and dying again. CW: Swearing, dying, miscellaneous filth. www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Then Jesus turned to me and said, ‘Child, where you saw only one set of footsteps, it was then that you started in about your cold press technique.’

The Etiquette of Kisses in Publishing Emails: A Concise Guide "xxxxx": We remain on speaking terms. For now. "xxxx" – Fuck it, maybe you'll actually earn out that $750. "xxx – You’re still under contract, just about. "xx" – I had to ask who you were. "x" – I’m having you killed.

Why are ads for fragrances so violently weird. Like, it's a just a pleasant scent with notes of sandalwood and vetiver, why are there eight-foot androids doing S&M in a Hamburg bus shelter?

I'm still mainly not talking about AI, because spending decades adjacent to tech bros will do that to you, but a thing that continues to be underappreciated in mainstream coverage is that literally every unicorn tech product you know about is held together at some level by open-source code. [1/n]

My cherished friend Melissa Harrison isn’t just a gifted nature writer. She’s a gift *to* nature writing, and I can’t think of anyone who’s done as much to make its wonders and consolations available to everyone. Do yourself a favour. apps.apple.com/ie/app/encou...

I took my first US road trip in 1997 (yes, I'm that old). First stop I made was at a Barnes & Noble in Columbia, MO (yes, I'm that boring). Since then, I've never once got in the cab to the airport without stopping off at Union Sq. So, yeah. Some feelings. www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/best-bo...

Oh, bless. Look what the tech bros have invented again. Yes, typewriters have been a thing for a century and a half, but just act excited when they show it to you, okay?

A magical realist novelist walks into a bar. Somewhere an old black dog stirs in its death crib, troubled by the resurgent sunlight, and for the first time in a century, the orange blossom in the churchyard at Santa Aña is brought to a shy ecstasy of flowering.

Taking a device-free day today. Just some lazy seasonal tunes as we decorate the tree together and remember what matters most.

My sister is coming for dinner, so we’re doing half of the roast potatoes with goose fat and the other half with lies.

Happy Shirley Jackson's birthday (part 1)!

At least it'll be a dry inexorable heat death, am I right?

Pretty ballsy of the all the other reindeer to start namecalling when they all went by Grommet or Ditzklieg or some stupid shit.

I̶͍͒ ̷̲̇a̸̩͊m̷͔̈ ̵̖͋n̴̨͝ę̴̉v̷̗̕e̸̼͝r̶̳̚ ̶͓͋d̴̯̓i̸̢̇s̴͕̚e̶̳̐n̸̙̊t̷̠̋a̴̩͐n̷͗͜g̴̖͒l̵͚̽ị̶̍n̸̨͂g̶͇͛ ̸̙͊t̷̨̀h̴͙̓ê̶̦ș̸͑ë̷̬́ ̶̱͒f̵̹͝ú̸̞ć̷̙k̴͍̇i̴̩̾n̵̠̊g̴̬͝ ̵̙͌f̷̫̐ã̷͎i̴̕͜ŕ̸̡ỹ̴͔ ̵̥̂l̸̗͊i̷̪͒g̶̜̓ḥ̴̿t̶́͜s̴̘̒, ̴͈̔a̴͇̒m̷͍̍ ̶̞̈I̷̻̍?̴̬͌

Well, I say 'memory palace', but it's really more of a boiler room where we keep Mother's old mannequins and some of the furs she was allowed to keep.

Oh, mother of fizzling christ, the game theory guy is here. Someone give him a Hefty bag full of shredded flight manifests, keep him occupied until his parents get here or the tartrazine wears off.

So, that pangram this morning. I trust that I was not alone among the faithful in feeling the teensiest frisson of gratification?

Passion fruit really are an exquisite pleasure, once you get past handling a leathery grenade full of suppurating alien protozoa.

It’s fine, everyone, I’ve updated the firmware on the robot vacuum now.

I swear to god, Hannibal Lecter could die and the NYT obituary would still be some milk-and-water bullshit about ‘the controversial gourmet and polymath’.

Taste the rainbow. Lick the sun. Eat a fucking comet, for all I care.

They vacuum up, your mum and dad.

—What’s in the box? —Pain. And typos, knowing my luck. Mainly pain, though.

:) youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/15-reasons...

right, it has been published 15 reasons why Christmas is stupid and bad and should be stopped: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/15-reasons...