Always like how the words evoke a more awesome beast than the meek and cuddly one in the illustration, a subdued Tigger

Now comes a winter of ghosts and those beasts that live at the edges of fever when it has turned to shiver. In this season's shortened light, rain grows sharp teeth and wind becomes a spearpoint against bones. Even dawn seems reluctant to hoist hope high. – #DAKilroy, 1982 #Dawn

"Last night I heard my mama singing a song, Ooh-wee, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep".

Photos from Jimbocho ‘Booktown’ in Tokyo where I’ve been staying #booksky

Oh no, the weird author scammers have found me. They love my indie release apparently. It is, indeed, a book with mass appeal

Someone has already taken advantage of the Black Friday sale! A hardcover sold! Technically the sale doesn’t begin until tomorrow, but I’ll honor it. 😉 (If you see this, new reader, I’ll send the invoice tomorrow morning).

THE BRITISH PUBLIC IS NOT BEING TOLD THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THEIR LAND Across the UK, vast swathes of countryside, farmland, national parks, green spaces, digital infrastructure, and even local democratic powers are being reorganised into free zones. open.substack.com/pub/european...

This is the budget where Labour's leaders consciously dumped green policies that they wrongly think are holding up growth. We don't need new drilling for oil if we cut bills by putting a battery in every home to use cheap plentiful overnight power. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Today we’ll get latest net immigration figures - They’ll show immigration for work is plummeting. Why is this not part of the discussion on Rachel Reeves balancing her books & stalled growth? For every 100,000 drop in net immigration, the OBR adds £7bn to the deficit. #r4today

Yes! The V & A would be perfect. I spent ages trying to decipher those clues

One of the most beautiful bits of english eccentricity and glorious design is coming back to Sotheby’s and should be bought by a musuem (or me) for THE NATION. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Since the invention of eBay and such, some weird phrases have become fashionable in online book listings. There are agreed terms (see Carter's "ABC for Book Collectors") that most professional booksellers use. One popular term right now is... problematic. Let's talk about "tight" binding. (🧵 1/4)

Special pre-order price this weekend! books2read.com/u/3Lq6P7

Whoops! 😂

A mathematical ceiling limits generative AI to amateur-level creativity via @psypost www.psypost.org/a-mathematic...

Planning and Infrastructure Bill going through is extremely bad news for wildlife and nature and I for one will never forgive Labour for forcing this through. You don’t have to decimate the environment to build housing, this was a straw man #ecocide

The chalk stream amendment 38 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill just got voted down in the HoL, and 40 ( protected species) was withdrawn. I can’t tell you how truly devastating this is for nature in our country, on land and in our waterways There isn’t a word to describe how disgusted I am.

Last night the Government steamrollered its Planning Bill through, slamming the door on vital protections for nature. They said it would be a ‘win-win’ for the economy and nature. But in reality, they’ve pushed nature into last place.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill - sadly about to clear its final hurdle. With disastrous implications for our already nature-depleted land #Biodiversity #Planning

Fires are still burning in the Arctic in the winter. The climate catastrophe is here. Spending political energy to massively increase pipeline production in Canada is not nation-building. It is planet burning. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Ex-Reform leader Nathan Gill has just been jailed for 10.5 years for taking money to push Moscow’s line in the European parliament. So when Nigel Farage echoes Kremlin narratives… is it sponsorship or sincerity, and which is worse?

A shogun’s monument to his favourite falcon

Dragon from Tokyo

Turning this into a quote to say because Heathcliff is an anti-hero, does not mean you should not read the book! It’s a fantastic book! A book about perfect people who behave morally at all times would be a) short b) boring.

Nathan Gill; A traitor who was at the very top of Reform UK, aiding and abetting Russian adversaries, has been sentenced today. Reform UK should be ashamed. Britain deserves better.

I’m not in the least bit surprised to hear #boxing is being recommended for mental health reasons. I’ve been boxing and kickboxing for a decade and it’s helped me immeasurably 🥊🥊

Carole’s work has done so much to expose Russian involvement in UK politics - specifically Reform in this case. I bet we’ll hear a lot more about this #corruption

One week left to enter the Goodreads Giveaway for a signed copy of THE MONSTERS AMONG US! Will you be one of three lucky winners? www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

NEW: We traced out a devastating outbreak of bird flu to its source: an egg farm in Ohio. Where the wind blew, the virus followed. Within weeks, the farms downwind were about 20 times as likely to see outbreaks as those that weren’t.

Solange Knowles’ Saint Heron has launched a free digital archival library of literature by Black and brown authors, poets, and artists. Readers can borrow rare and out-of-print books for up to 45 days

To be clear: the updated statements are *complete shameless lies, no exceptions.* Vaccines *do not cause autism.* This is backed up by *overwhelming* evidence. The CDC is actively lying directly to the American people. Any journalist who doesn't lead with a demand for adv explanation needs to quit.

The Beast In Me seems really gripping so far although I had to go to ‘Does the Dog Die’ after I clapped eyes on fluffy little Steve. I am transfixed by Matthew Rhys’ glittering white teeth and air of menace. Claire Dane’s mysterious angry writer is brilliant

Five corporations control 90% of the US media market. Airlines merged from 12 major carriers in 1980 to 4 today. Four giants control 80% of meat processing. A handful of companies control the pharmaceutical industry. The evidence of corporate concentration is everywhere.

The Corpse Flower — Laura Footes, 2022

sorry to report that if you want to get up early to write for an hour & exercise outside, you have to get out of bed when the alarm goes off in the morning

This is one of the coolest freakin' science stories I've ever heard of! Members of the Haíɫzaqv First Nation of BC noticed some animal had been damaging their *underwater* crab traps, so they set up a camera. This is what they found! www.science.org/content/arti...

From Lori Marino, founder of the Whale Sanctuary Project; also of @safinacenter.bsky.social (gift link). www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/1760cd5...

Sometimes, a front page can sum up quite a lot that’s wrong with the world. Including the paper itself which has been so complicit in getting us to a place where children born to refugees could be deported, Trump celebrates despotic wealth and Boris Johnson’s sister moans about not being rich. Ugh.

The problem with the climate regime in one article: With fewer people attending COP30 "one in every 25 participants at this year’s UN climate summit is a fossil fuel lobbyist." It is "the largest concentration of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP" and up 12% from COP29 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

It turns out that the folks at Anthropic used two of my books to train their Large Language Models. I've gone and submitted my claim via the class action settlement. If you're an author whose work has been stolen, you should too

If you think Heathcliff is the epitome of a romantic hero, you need to reread the book. That man violently abuses his wife, locks up a teenager away from her dying father and forces her into a bad marriage so he get her money, hangs a dog, abuses his own son, delierately degrades Hareton...

Has Starmer welcomed a monstrous cuckoo into the UK nest? One that we can’t afford to fail, but can’t possibly afford to bail?

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight www.cityam.com/the-british-...

Something I mention in today’s piece is the wider pressure and undervaluing of libraries and archives. Even less well known than the issues facing the British Library are the worrying proposals for the BBC Written Archives Centre. More here observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

40 years ago today, right about now i.e. after school, I was listening to Psychocandy for the first time, as was anyone within fifty feet of my bedroom. Still one of the most exciting things ever to have happened to me.

President Trump walks past the flag at the White House, which has fallen to the ground 🇺🇸😣

This is disgusting in all regards. The crime, the time and the silence. As soon as these crimes have been committed and announcing info won’t risk an investigation, then this should be communicated nationally as fast as possible.

Alan Garner's Collected Folk Tales: "Do not use near overhead power lines." That's one volatile book... must be due to all the esoteric wisdom within! #weirdamazonfinds #alangarner #folktales #powerfulbook #foundonamazon

But they’re actually the most replaceable, right now. That’s the irony.