Live in Glasgow (Kaelan Mikla, 2025) #NowListening

Far less an adaptation than an at points fairly clumsy rewrite. Del Toro understands the imagery but he’s too sentimental to really understand how brutal the narrative really is. Some very bizarre changes here, not least the Creature’s Yorkshire accent. Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro, 2025)

Also have to say, as an Edinburgh resident, that there was no need for the Edinburgh bits.

A character literally says “Victor, you are the monster” out loud. I am shooketh.

Scavengers’ Reign totally rips off Moebius to a crazy degree but that doesn’t make it any less worth watching.

Far less an adaptation than an at points fairly clumsy rewrite. Del Toro understands the imagery but he’s too sentimental to really understand how brutal the narrative really is. Some very bizarre changes here, not least the Creature’s Yorkshire accent. Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro, 2025)

Me, a music fan: One of my favourite bands playing in the town I live in! Me, a 48 year old man: And finished by half 9!

Live in Edinburgh (Amenra, 2025) #NowListening

Did you miss our talk this week at Romancing the Gothic? Catch it here! youtu.be/LmX8CWpAFNE

It's just occurred to me that bonfires are the perfect place for people who are still intermittently letting off single fireworks at 9.45pm.

Firework nonces out already

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my fucks. (Hamlet illustration by John Austen, c1922)

Now on my third train operator of the day.

Taaleg Uksur (Common Eider King Eider, 2013) #NowPlaying commoneiderkingeider.bandcamp.com/album/taaleg...

Consider submitting a proposal to our ACCUTE 2026 panel on Indigenous Horror: Generic Disruptions @nsborwein.bsky.social @accute.bsky.social accute.ca/wp-content/u...

My west coast main line train down to Birmingham was cancelled due to a derailment. My east coast main line train back home from Birmingham is massively delayed due to a points failure. Moral of the story: Never go to Birmingham.

Somehow, Dick Cheney returned

Although, famously, #Dante was inspired by his love for Beatrice, it is likely that she was only vaguely aware of him. This beautiful piece of glasswork by Florence Camm depicts the pair at Beatrice’s wedding, the bride unaware of the poet’s longing gaze. Beatrice and Dante (Florence Camm, 1910)

First album I bought with my own money, on CD from Mike Lloyd Megastore in Hanley. Absolute bangers from start to finish. And what a shop MLM was! Spent a fortune in there over the years. Doubt (Jesus Jones, 1991)

Winter’s setting in now so Coco would like to show you her new jacket

This is how I’m gonna look every time someone dislikes one of my posts

I’ve been wearing the same black clothes for 40 years and that makes me *checks notes* ostracised from the village

Those children, whether intact or not, who make it to at least the curtain wall of Castle Pieterstein are offered the finest of prizes; a place in our battlement militia. It warms my heart to see them literally pull the ladder up behind themselves.

Fake news. I know what the FBI look like

While plethora now effectively means a lot of something, and the Greek root plēthōrē means ‘fullness’, there was a period in the 16thC where it meant ‘an excess of blood’. People are recorded as having “died of a plethora”.

Your Halloween: Begging door to door for sweets My Halloween: At the opera

If you’re having a quiet Halloween then this mix I made a few years ago - a collection of spooky tunes and samples from my favourite 70s/80s horror films - might be a good soundtrack for you. www.mixcloud.com/odangutan/em...

🎶 On the last day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 Here’s the entire playlist of talks I’ve done for Romancing the Gothic, which stretches from the bleak horror of Skinamarink to the gothic world of Madonna (where New York is a haunted house…) m.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

🎶 On the last day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 Here’s the entire playlist of talks I’ve done for Romancing the Gothic, which stretches from the bleak horror of Skinamarink to the gothic world of Madonna (where New York is a haunted house…) m.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

We hold to the old ways / we speak to the old gods

Spooky seasonal greetings to you all

This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with Jack White playing Seven Nation Army.

We hold to the old ways / we speak to the old gods

We all know that tomatoes are fruits. Some of us know that peppers are fruits. But how many know that strawberries aren’t berries?

🎶 On the fourth day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 It’s time (oho!) for Time! Even I think my reading of Back To The Future as a terrifyingly Sisyphean loop of despair is pretty wild… youtu.be/LDRBetlbf34

🎶 On the fourth day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 It’s time (oho!) for Time! Even I think my reading of Back To The Future as a terrifyingly Sisyphean loop of despair is pretty wild… youtu.be/LDRBetlbf34

🎶 On the third day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 HAAAUNTINGS AT SEEEAAA! From Jaws all the way down the abyssal horror of Underwater, we explore the depths of pelagic peril. And some fish. youtu.be/dekXtlyW5i8

🎶 On the third day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 HAAAUNTINGS AT SEEEAAA! From Jaws all the way down the abyssal horror of Underwater, we explore the depths of pelagic peril. And some fish. youtu.be/dekXtlyW5i8

🎶 On the second day of Spook Week / Pietetsender brought to me 🎶 The second ‘Haunted Houses In’ talk and this time around it’s IN SPAAAAYCE! Here I discuss sci fi horror including Alien, Solaris and Event Horizon. youtu.be/uOen2QO9gu4

🎶 On the second day of Spook Week / Pietetsender brought to me 🎶 The second ‘Haunted Houses In’ talk and this time around it’s IN SPAAAAYCE! Here I discuss sci fi horror including Alien, Solaris and Event Horizon. youtu.be/uOen2QO9gu4

I absolutely couldn’t eat a cottage

🎶 On the first day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 Some of you may know (cos I bang on about it) that I do an intermittent series on Haunted Houses for the Romancing The Gothic project - run by @romgothsam.bsky.social - but if you don’t then here’s the first one! youtu.be/pjHw-ViG0XA

🎶 On the first day of Spook Week / Pietersender brought to me 🎶 Some of you may know (cos I bang on about it) that I do an intermittent series on Haunted Houses for the Romancing The Gothic project - run by @romgothsam.bsky.social - but if you don’t then here’s the first one! youtu.be/pjHw-ViG0XA

🎶 ‘Ware ye, child, of the Turnip-Man / With turnip head and turnip hands / His turnip heart’s as cold as ice / And at his belt gleams a turnip knife 🎶

I was up in town today, walking along Princes St. A bagpiper starts up. A very German voice, very close. ACH MEIN GOTT EIN DŨDELSACKE!

Moron: AI, for some inexplicable reason, loves threes An actual writer: AND HOW CAN THIS BE? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of...

We mark the changing of the seasons by adding a new expansion to Carcassonne

Being in such a remote location the denizens of Castle Pieterstein,armed with screwdriver and blade, are ever-vigilant against the incursions of the vile Turnip-Men. Any we find roaming beyond their fields are subdued and beheaded. It’s the only language they understand.

Leith Parish Churchyard always has a Jamesian vibe but especially so in Autumn.