I have not been as hooked on a video game as I have been with Dispatch for a very long time.

Re: David Walliams, I've never forgotten the woman who started the Milifandom posted about how Walliams had messaged her and invited her and some mates to his dressing room at BGT. She posted on Twitter pictures and the weird messages he'd sent her, and then nothing happened.

Completely hooked by Dispatch, not least because of its amazing soundtrack. I had no idea it was so synth-heavy.

ICYMI: The last Happening Again of the year is out now. It's not a festive one, but Christmas is mentioned multiple times. Featuring the likes of @sulkrooms.bsky.social, Robinson's Village, and @carpenterbrut.com.

Love to have my entire working life being real wage stagnation. It’s so great.

I genuinely affirmatively think that it is now a democratic imperative to spend as much time as you can offline. Read more offline. Socialise more offline. Discuss media you consume with other people offline. Out there is a real world full of people looking for real human connection - seize it

The new Happening Again just dropped into inboxes. It's the last one of the year, and I'll be back in January. Despite not being a festive issue, I seem to bring up Christmas a lot. Thanks to everyone who continues to read and subscribe. It means a lot, especially at the moment.

Absolutely full to the brim, this issue. Stuffed with the best of DIY knob-twiddling. And now Neil goes and hibernates...

Moonbuilding Weekly Issue 92, our review of the year special, is out now! Last issue of 2025! moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-92-1...

I remember doing the deal for Epic Mickey, and Bob Iger shooting laser beams out his eyes at me in the Disney dining room. “Don’t let this video game fuck up Mickey.” Oh well. That’s over.

Not everything needs a wrap up/year in review. Not every company needs to do the exact same thing as every other company.

Again, apologizing to all videogame environment artists who knocked up satirical posters for their games, I should not have rolled my eyes, yes, even you Cyberpunk billboard team, I am sorry

can't stop watching this clip of a tesla Optimus teleoperator taking his headset off before properly logging out the robot

Appear to have gone into Christmas mode early where my brain and body doesn't seem to care about the amount of chocolate I'm eating, as though in December it doesn't really count.

ICYMI: The 50th (!) Happening Again went out last week. Featuring musical delights such as @loulayorke.bsky.social, @dylanhenner.bsky.social, and the new one from Oneohtrix.

One of the more trivial but worst things about modern television is the algorithm's obsessive need to spoil important plot points for metrics. Just had what I presume is an important Pluribus scene spoiled by the official Apple account, and it happened with Stranger Things earlier in the week too.

ICYMI: The 50th (!) Happening Again went out last week. Featuring musical delights such as @loulayorke.bsky.social, @dylanhenner.bsky.social, and the new one from Oneohtrix.

two tech men having an incredibly annoying meeting next to me in the café and one of them just said "the thing I love about SEO is.....the culture", gobsmacking, beautiful piece of dialogue, would have struggled with it in a sitcom yet he just said it, in real life

The death of browsing is part of the reason art is the way it is now. Our opinions are largely fed to us by algorithms. Spending a spare 15 minutes wandering around a bookstore or comic shop or video rental place was how you found stuff you wouldn't ordinarily pick up and thereby expanded your taste

The new Happening Again has landed in inboxes, and is available to read now.

Moonbuilding Weekly Joe 90, sorry, Issue 90, is out now! moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-90-2...

The joy I felt watching a young family of four walk out of the local indie bookshop with two bags full, with one child carrying a book under their arm.

It's somewhat amusing that there doesn't seem to be a single modicum of professionalism from any corner of society anymore.

Not a comment on the programme directly, but 'Stranger Things' coming to an end does seem like the closing chapter of a very particular era of streaming.

Lord give me the strength to not download Fortnite to play this Simpsons map.

ICYMI: The latest Happening Again went out last week. It's packed to the gills with good stuff, including (but not limited to) @thenightmonitor.bsky.social, @flcartographer.bsky.social, and @selectivehearing.bsky.social.

Very glad I braved the cold and ice last night to see @jamesadrianbrown.bsky.social, @sulkrooms.bsky.social, and @polypores.bsky.social perform @ The Ferret in Preston. Cracking evening!

ICYMI: The latest Happening Again went out last week. It's packed to the gills with good stuff, including (but not limited to) @thenightmonitor.bsky.social, @flcartographer.bsky.social, and @selectivehearing.bsky.social.

I guess one difference between me and Elon Musk is that, if I was gaming an AI to say these things about me, and everyone could see that I had done this, I'd have simply no choice but to set myself on fire.

Now this is a double bill.

It's Friday night, it's stormy out, so why don't you read the latest issue of Happening Again and tuck into these fab music recommendations?

Some of these left if you want in

NEW ISSUE OUT NOW! This month’s Electronic Sound explores the strange and unsettling world of COLD WAR ELECTRONICA and we have a superb 35-track double CD to accompany the mag. Tension! Anxiety! Paranoia! Doom! Gloom! It’s all here! Get your copy at electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/magazine

This week has almost entirely been consumed with me fighting modern technology and, thankfully, winning. Take that tech oligarchs. I will savour these small victories.

whereas you know - I still vividly remember once spending something like seven straight hours rewriting the full HTML of my blog from scratch, just because I fancied a change - our experiences of the internet have been so different that we're essentially different species now

you saw it/still see it very clearly with this place - I'm happy to be here but many people have stayed on Twitter, even while admitting that Twitter is now rubbish, because the idea of purposely spending *hours and hours* curating a follow list from scratch just feels completely alien to them

basically believe that this mostly depends on when you got Properly Online - before a certain cut-off your normal internet experience was high agency/high effort, but it eventually became low agency/low effort, and it's impossible to create a social media experience that caters to both groups

Currently putting together the next one, but ICYMI the latest issue of Happening Again went out on Halloween. It's packed with bangers but special mention to @pulseemitter.bsky.social's Tide Pools which I think will be one of my Albums Of The Year.

twitter being bought and turned into a propaganda machine for fascism, which is directly pumped into every journalist in the world's brain, is one of the worst things to happen in the last few years. we might not survive it.

Taking it as a positive of consciously being more offline that I have no idea what this (possibly confected) BBC scandal is.

I am truly turning into my father with a rant like this but good lord is modern technology dreadful. The hoops you have to jump through to do the simplest things. Diagnosing a broken phone and trying to test replacements turned into a farce within minutes.

40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion

I’m really excited to share my new album ‘Apeiron Anxiety’ with you - available from @castlesinspace.bsky.social Bandcamp & the best record stores ;) (Also,happy cosmic birthday to you, dad. I owe you everything & miss you every day x) fieldlinescartographer-cis.bandcamp.com/album/apeiro...

Bought the GTA Trilogy for my Switch and I honestly think I could play Vice City forever.

lol

Not only did everyone seemingly go hard this year for Halloween, everyone also apparently put all their Christmas decorations up on the first of November.

Good morning! For those that missed it, a new Happening Again went out at the end of last week...

It is both tragic and funny that after all of the hundreds of billions of dollars poured in to GenAI, it still can’t do something’s as basic as this without just making shit up.

Happy Halloween! The new Happening Again just landed in inboxes. It's not all spooky listens, but there are a few albums perfect for tonight and this time of year.

Moonbuilding Weekly Issue 86, the fright night special, is out now ... moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-86-3...