Writing a book that's 80% complete: wow, everything's really coming together, I'm so excited to share this with my readers! Writing a book that's 95% complete: Time is a prison of eternal echoes that refuse to fade. Words bleed off the page and melt into meaninglessness. I need a latte.

In 2015, the Los Angeles SPCA gave their annual National Hero Dog award to a tabby cat named Tara. Yes, you read that right, a cat was given a dog award.

Found this in a book fair. The synopsis tells me this isn't very good, but it's an Elite Dangerous tie-in novel in the year 2026, so I'm coming home with it

Christ, why is he always soaking wet

On this day 70 years ago-May 1, 1956-the polio vaccine was first made widely available to the public. The vaccine’s developer, Dr. Jonas Salk, did not patent the vaccine so that it would remain available to as many people as possible in the US and internationally. Image: Harvey Georges/AP.

'Ron Weasley' yelling “Expensive Petroleum” while filling up his car might be the peak of comedy. Original post

Mary this is literally how vaccines are supposed to work.

I wrote a thing that has something to do with AI on the company blog: www.shadowcat.co.uk/2026/05/01/a...

Maybe I’m weird, but I’m okay if a reader quits one of my books in anger because I killed someone or something. Why? That means I’ve done my job. For a few minutes I managed to convince them that character was real enough to care about. How could I ever be upset about that?

Father & son

Generational tweet that might even spawn a school of architecture.

a woman got v shirty with me when I pointed out dogs aren’t allowed in the play park — I might not have actually said anything if the dog hadn’t been off the lead and bothering picnickers — and I’m not thrilled about a summer ahead of me of insisting that yes, children are more important than dogs

Tom Baker during "The Masque of Mandragora". #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

My first loaf of bread, it's so pretty .c.

lol the shooter has a BLUE SKY ACCOUNT, well here’s one excuse that won’t work:

It is common to rush things in a novel. It is common to add in too much exposition and bore the reader to snores too. Your writing style can unfortunately include both of these at the same time creatine writing lurch. Pacing is learned. You will have a natural to you pace. #writingcommunity #books

Tom Baker, Louise Jameson and K9. #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

I am an author. I have two books and short stories in three anthologies so far. I craft sentences and themes and words with intention and careful consideration. I also had to look up how many days there are in a year because I forgot.

If I were a German airline, busy asking people to remember my long history in a special anniversary year, then there is probably one company I would very definitely avoid getting to design my new cabin uniforms. That would be Hugo Boss. I probably wouldn't go for black either.

Please do not ask bookworm if they are going to finish the books they have before buying more. It is very offensive in our culture.

“Hush now, be still. Soon you shall be one of us.”

I may as well reshare it myself 😇

Yes, we've launched! We're introducing qualitative-first surveys to the world, and it feels good. Take a look for yourself, engage better, and become a change-maker. This milestone has been hard fought, as a purpose-led and independent innovation project with no funding. Help us improve 👇

I'm proud of all of you. I don't think enough people here hear that enough. Whether you're an artist or an author, a reader, theorizer, fan, gawker, lurker, whatever. I'm proud of you for being here today. I'm proud of you for reading these words. I know it's not easy for any of us these days.

Tom Baker during "The Androids of Tara". #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

I was releasing new Star Wars cartoons (or indeed any new cartoons), I'd release them on Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings should be a thing for kids to look forward to again.

A photo from 8 years ago on this day when I was drawing a cave map for my nephews’ LEGO figures to explore and taking suggestions like “A giant pickle”.

good, productive feminism explains that gender isn't innate and the patriarchy can be deconstructed; essentially telling young women that all men are creeps and predators and will never change is actually just weirdly reactionary and purposeless

I worried about my Grandma being alone after Grandpa died and got her a rescue dog. She named him Buddy, which was my Grandfather’s nickname when he was a kid. They seem to be getting along pretty well… Original post

Decided to switch energy suppliers and my current supplier British Gas called and when I didn't fit into their reasons for moving they hung up on me! So now I have a new reason, the customer service is apalling. Probably going to move my home care from them @britishgas-support.bsky.social

This is simply not true. Labour didn’t have to go right. They *chose* to go right. The big majority was a chance to reset everything back to sanity. Starmer chose the mad, bigoted, ignorant and dishonest route instead.

It’s not that these people still exist. That’s just biology. It’s that they are still being paid to shit in their own hands & start clapping.

For the love of Christ and all that is holy, bring more underwear

Tom Baker for The Book Tower. #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

Hey. :) Trans rights.

Tom Baker during "The Pirate Planet". #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

Amazon pryme sayinge thinges lyke "thys movye ys broughte to you wythout ads after these ads" ys maybe the invencioun of an entirelye newe logical fallacy

Oooh excellent, the wonderful @danmcdaid.bsky.social is the artist for the opening story in this month's Judge Dredd Megazine (Fear City) - that is something to make me smile :) (Note the panel order does make it read Stock Art due to Karl Stock providing the script :) ).

Microsoft raises UK Surface prices as RAM crisis reaches the checkout

Tom Baker during "Terror of the Zygons". #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

Really impressed/terrified/mortified that so many companies cannot see the snake oil, sunk cost fallacy, being pedalled by so many "business leaders/Gurus" in the IT industry at the moment. There is this 'lie' that we have opened Pandora's Box and now are stuck with the result, read the story again

Saw an article discussing Anthropic's new service where autonomous agents/processes would be run on its servers and therefore agnostic to developers/time/location and all I could think of was that this was clearly the new business plan, environment lock in, AI as a dongle, Apple would be so proud.

Just watched a video of Andy Weir describing neutrinos and he says they quantum tunnel through pretty much everything and I don’t feel this is an appropriate use of ”quantum tunneling” Anyway why ask a woman physicist when you can ask a dude novelist

Tom Baker with fans in 1982. #TomBaker #DoctorWho #FourthDoctor

To whoever thought it was fun to smash beer bottles on the path to the beach, fuck you.

Proud to be the 1,514th backer 😎 on @BackerKit Crowdfunding for Jewel in the Sky: A Megadungeon with a Twist from Monte Cook! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/m...

Oh boy this is a blast from my past ;)