I am a grownup, please just let me see the smut. I do not need my delicate eyes averted from it.

You might think it was a mistake for me to launch the paperback of my space exploration series on the same day as a new Star Trek series, but I put it to you that it's their mistake for launching on 15/01 when 17/01 is RIGHT THERE (yes I know how American dates work, but still!)

So much of the text in the original Cranks is just *deeply* horrifying? “An exotic blend of ingredients gives the bean sprouts an exciting sweet and sour flavour.” Nope. Nope nope nope.

Stay brave, stay queer, stay kinky, stay strange, and for God’s sake, stay alive.

Chapter Five continues, in which your humble author finally allows you to visit the eponymous Forthenby (and remembers about the A Plot). forthenby.com/2026/01/14/2...

I’ve been cataloguing a small private library lately - and part of the job is making sure all the data/citation of the books listed is correct. So when I saw the foreword to a book of Vedanta mysticism was by a guy called Christopher Isherwood, I thought, “Surely not *that* Christopher Isherwood?”

Thread. [the shorthand about her that is often uplifted on social media always does her a disservice and also does Rosa Parks one too. Glad for this thread]

I learned a song about this in school - with bits in Latin and Old French as well as English. American culture had infiltrated sufficiently that we used “donkey”’ instead.

“the culture war zealots who consider every new thing strange and every kindness wicked…” I missed this when it first came out, but this is the best thing I’ve read on this subject. Absolutely spot on.

The Home Office’s new TikTok account wants you to see migration through a negative lens. We refuse this toxic narrative. Migration is a positive force in this country.

Full disclosure, my Seal Friend slightly larger than this Seal Friend.

I was given an Identical version of this Seal Friend for Christmas, and it has brought me so much joy? Now this handsome chap has turned up on my reccs, so… If you also wish a Seal Friend to bring you joy, it can! For the low price of £20: www.vinted.co.uk/items/793816...

✂️ Yesterday I finally responded to @agakowalska.bsky.social’s challenge to make a collage from a single piece of packaging. I present to you a green (tea) woodpecker, made from a big Yorkshire Tea box. It was fun and I’ll be rooting through our recycling bin for more materials later on ♻️

I tend to have deep romances with rivers. It’s why they turn up so much in my poetry. But in my life, I’ve lived on the Medway, the Yare, the Waveney, the Wensum, and the Tweed. (With honourable mention to the Water of Leith.)

Patch and keychain sketch ideas based on Japanese "Beware of Crow" signs.

I really wish sellers on Vinted could be made to understand that, under no circumstances, is a 38” chest an “men’s medium”. I had a 36” chest when I was an underfed and pre-T *size 10*. I’m not even sure I can call it an XS. It is a *child’s* size.

Morning sun reflecting off the snow on Cadair Idris

Just got touched for a fag which has not happened in ages, and will also read very differently to my American followers.

Someone I love dearly has asked for a specific poem that I used to perform back in the day for a thing they’re putting together and… I either need subtly to rewrite it, or explain to them that it’s ~*very bad*~ because I was ~*sixteen*~ when I wrote it.

I love a really big chunky coat, but the eternal problem is that they’re gonna make me look like Paddington Bear.

Bluesky is alive with the sound of Carnyx this morning, and this is a splendid thing

it would probably also implode UK journalism this is also a positive

Chapter Five part one is now online, and brings some high society swanning about. In which Miss Tooting meets her fiancé socially and talks beaux with Miss Dunning. forthenby.com/2026/01/07/2...

And again, if you’re a British person on here going “oh that ICE stuff would never happen in our country!” that just shows how little you care about how further anti-immigrant the UK has become in the last decade or so. We have raids happen all the time! Why aren’t you paying attention?

As the other Otherside poetry editor, I can't stress this enough. "Please fuck us up. Please make it gayer and more trans and stranger and more unabashedly you than you think would usually be accepted. WE want that kind of shit. We want the othered queer pieces that take forever to find a home 💜

🎉🍾Hello 2026! It’s a new year, but we’re just taking a moment to look at the great books we’ve published in 2025… here’s the best of the year, one(ish) a month, all half price. If you missed it first time round… here’s your chance! (Link in bio) #beautifulbooks #bookstagram #bookig

“i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds...” A poem by Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by ICE earlier today. lithub.com/renee-nicole...

An orange zester - not for zesting like grating, for removing a long strip of orange peel. Utterly unusable for someone as clumsy as me. Elegant little object, though.

Our local sushi and ramen place was closed on Sprog1’s birthday, so instead we discovered a really good new pasta recipe. Caveat - it assumed you are not using homemade stock, so salt accordingly. apple.news/KC7AywerHOee...

Anyone know a good lemon drizzle cake recipe that *isn’t* the Cranks Luscious Lemon Cake?

Well, you all know I love a carnyx…but an Iceni carnyx? Oh my giddy aunt… www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

… the crushing realisation as I get older that at my age, both my parents listened to, and enjoyed, challenging, cutting-edge, and contemporary music. Meanwhile, I mostly listen to classic rock.

I think one of my problems with a fandom-centric response to media is the bit where the audience members get so hung up on the story they *want* told that they fail to engage meaningfully with the story that is *actually being* told.

Well, Stranger Things has happened.

Damn.

This year is the 10th anniversary of me properly starting to transition, it’s also 10 years since I first had therapy, 10 years since Time’s Fool was accepted for publication, 10 years since I’ve had chronic fatigue. Maryle will be 10 years old.

Saw a nice jumper on Vinted and said to myself, “Fred, you can’t wear that. You’d look like someone’s gay dad.” And… Fred. LITERALLY. That is LITERALLY how everyone in this town sees you. You are someone’s gay dad. You are married to another man and have two teenagers at the secondary school.

One day, there will be a Frankenstein adaption where the creature is *not* stitched together from body parts.

👇

🚨 Thread collecting actionable steps to help civilians in Venezuela, Venezuelan refugees fleeing to neighboring countries, and Venezuelan immigrants in the US. 🚨 ✅️ Please post ideas / links, especially to local frontline groups. ❌️ Please avoid non-actions, and be cautious regarding sanctions. 👇

It really is astonishing out there. Snow right up to the edge of the sea. Everything a thin and silvery blue.

Mattie: We’ve got two episodes of Stranger Things left. Me: … huh? But we’ve still got the midseason left, and then the new stuff. Mattie: There’s only one new episode. Me: …. Mattie: But it is two hours long. NO LADS THAT’S A FILM. (Please no spoilers, I’d like to watch this fresh.)

I’ve just been in the sea.

Write with us. We're weird. OK, a few of us aren't, but most of us are weird. WEeeirrd. www.smokelong.com/the-march-mi...

I’m reading The Thirteenth Tale, and I’m enjoying it, but I can’t tell when it’s *set*, and after my little Murder Mystery binge, it is really unsettling me?

Saying “lawyer” after this one feels a bit of a let down. What about Murderer-Artist?

The reason so many are surprised to find that Bardot was a POS is that the French took a novel approach. Instead of giving a racist old has-been's views the oxygen of outrage, they largely shunned her. We could all learn something here.

Occasionally my media criticism feels like, “History will vindicate me!” but I accept that more often it’s a, “Jaws was never really my scene and I don’t like Star Wars.”