Shock news: not only did Duffy come out of his room yesterday, he also watched Lawrence of Arabia. I know this because he provided me with a full plot summary. I've never met ANYONE who knows what happens in Lawrence of Arabia. It's just sand, screams and blond hair in a drift of Bank Holidaze.

Back. On the journey through the flat dark fields of the coast, I briefly forgot where I lived. I think for a moment I really thought I lived nowhere. When memory hit I felt like throwing myself from the car, but threw myself from my mind instead. Of course now I'm back in that too. It never lasts.

Spending more time on these jobs than planned, but the clients have been pleasant to deal with so far, and in-between stints there's the sea. I've also found a bar that sells very nice loose "havanes", small unbranded cigarillos that are a perfect smoke for hanging around on the seafront

After such a vibrant and fulfilling year, how could I be anything other than hopeful for 2026? Release the crows.

Blog update: As The Mission rebounded to the NME indie number one spot in July 1986, we look at who featured lower down, such as: - Bogshed with "Morning Sir" - Age of Chance - The Creepers covering Brian Eno - Play Dead - That Petrol Emotion indienumber1s.blogspot.com/2025/12/80b-...

Today I enjoyed this odd stone post by the road near the Chemin des Loups. Like many people brought up on The Owl Service, I enjoy peering through holes in stones. On my way home that evening, the post and pole appeared to be watching the sunset together.

Been up to the book box where I swapped DH Lawrence's "Women In Love" for this effort by Dundee College of Art graduate Brian Callison, and I feel very positive about it. THAT's how you kick off a novel ladies and gentlemen.

A piece of advice for anyone having a tough winter: listen to your body. God, just listen to that bitch, screaming at you to get up at five in the morning every morning to enjoy three coal-black hours squinting through clouds of breath condensation at old cowboy series and funeral insurance ads

Oh good.

I could not love this transport poster more.

Let us gather hallucinations From our private minds Let us witness the reincarnation of the sun #FieldsOfTheNephilim

Blog update: The Weather Prophets reached number one in July 1986 with the "Almost Prayed", and in doing so set themselves up as Alan McGee's big new hopes. The song remains a fantastic listen for introspective, dock wandering tobacco puffers everywhere. indienumber1s.blogspot.com/2025/12/81-w...

Sign up for my content on wild new site OnlyFens to see me get: - hunted down over hectares of marsh by a flapping cerement - sucked into a graveyard wall by MILFs (Mould-Infested Lychgate Figures) - led into a quagmire by a Lantern Man I've raised with my SLUTTY WHISTLING - Black Shucked etc.

A real Swiss Roll chocolate Yule log of a #Tree #Stump from a walk in the #woods yesterday!

Brouains looking nice tonight. Their decorations are sparing but very pretty.

Bernie Wrightson

My grandmother had a copy of this poster. She had quite a collection of lefty posters. In retrospect they were valuable and they're another thing I'm sorry was sent to the dump when everyone "helped" her clean before moving to the home

CARNATION / Berlin Variations / Twelve Cubist Miniatures Cover art & collages Alexander Booth / WORDKUNST Designed, printed & bound by Jan Blessing in Kassel Limited print run of 150 copies

Attention, not only is #TheOmegaFactor on Talking Pictures TV tonight at 21.05 UK time, it is the GANZFELD EPISODE 'After-Image', and if you don't watch it the remainder of your life will ring hollow and faint as a poorly-made bell

Thank goodness Sourdeval are serving some proper wholesome Christmas, and they've done an amazing job. Look at that Scott Expedition made of gingerbread men! And the window sniper in pic 4!

Wishing you all a municipal least-effort Christmas. This is the town centre tree from Cherence le Roussel 1) It's beginning to look a lot like #MRJames 2) Sad not to see any fag-ends in the bottom of this 3) La Cabina, but make it navidad 4) Every crimbo Crime scene needs plenty of tape

Watching Dad's Army At The BBC and god John Le Mesurier was a babe wasn't he. Like, please oblige me with your Bren gun at the earliest possible opportunity baby

Didn't watch the BBC Ghost Story, but I can confidently state that Mark Gattiss has once again failed to address the most burning issue in today's haunted society, namely what Father Christmas would be like if he was a gigantic angler fish.

JFC I've actually been asked to a Christmas open house at short notice by someone I did some interpreting for, got to dust off the old Acting Normal Face after 10 partyless years. Thank God my wine matches my jumper and make-up, imagine how embarrassing it would be if they didn't

"Let me in I'm cold All messed up but nowhere to go" Is it the Owd 'Oss or is it Greg Dulli? Yes, it's Christmas Eve and I'm giving the album its usual festive listen (thanks again @newishpuritan.bsky.social for recommending this a few winters ago! A lifesaver tbh) www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ER...

Some shots from Beauficel graveyard. I'm fascinated by the game-show look of the arrangement in pic 4. At the sight of it my mind's ear resounds with the UK's Deal or No Deal announcer booming "22 HIDDEN BOXES!"

December 2025

All the intros to "dry", "factual" comms documents these days are flamboyant with panic. The world is seething, churning, bubbling over with ever-increasing profusions of data, booming, rising, exceeding all available channels help help help what is to be done with all this DATA? I've got an idea

Dawlish

#owlishmonday Wise old owl teaching hares how to sleigh by printer & publisher, Louis Prang (1824-1909) who not only featured a good many owls in his designs but is also considered to be the 'Father of the U.S Christmas card.'

This is not just book box. This is handcrafted, AOC, rain-matured Saint-Hilaire psychiatric facility book box. On being allowed home I took "The Citadel" by AJ Cronin with me. Not only was it the only English book in here, it was the only one still intact. It has a great slagheap description

So I'm not really well enough to reactivate my account yet but on the other hand, I'm legally obliged to show you this merry solstice wonderland 1) My fun-packed programme for Xmas day 2) Darkness at the edge of town 3) New gods for old 4) You don't like it but Hell's home

I like the way this drinking trough looks like the surface of the water is tilting, like a hinged mirror on its frame. Those peripheral slivers of darkness seem so real you have to touch them, and you don't feel quite convinced even when your fingers come away wet.

Woke up with the kind of outer earache that feels like being tugged around by all your worst teachers at once, to the type of day where you get up and immediately start chain-smoking so the world will have enough dog-ends to make you eat later Guess what my Bank Holiday morning viewing has been lol

The candy-cane-topped praline winter muffin I brought back from Caen has just been found to contain a core of something rustling that tastes noticeably of meat on the turn, like a chicken carcass KitKat And so Folk Horror Advent grinds on, two weeks early but who's counting anymore

Words you say Never seem to live up to the ones inside your head The lives we make Never seem to ever get us anywhere but dead - Soundgarden, "The Day I Tried To Live" from the album "Superunknown" https://open.spotify.com/track/78YJJJH55MSyk7547100sW

Had a few nice evenings lately; I like the way the mist and woodsmoke comes up from the valley. So do the deer, and they're loving the great taste of Orange Composite Type R1. That length of wire you can see trailing in pic 2 is the fibre internet btw. It's ground-based for several miles along here

Now that's what I call news.

November 2025

Owls on a wall, glaring at a peacock. Theo Von Hoytema, 1895.

I regularly enjoy the company of this marooned sylvan caravan with its charming leaf curtains. Perhaps this is where the narrator of Richard Marx's 'Hazard' went to live after the song ended

‘Mopsa The Fairy’ by Jean Ingelow https://www.wikiart.org/en/dorothy-lathrop/mopsa-the-fairy-by-jean-ingelow-1920-6

Illustration for Down-Adown-Derry https://www.wikiart.org/en/dorothy-lathrop/illustration-for-down-adown-derry-2

Some of the local rock hamgouts

Hulme sweet Hulme #IncaBabies www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfgo...

Full disclosure: I actively enjoy this song and it becomes more relevant to my interests with every dragging hour, but as a patent translator it is highly possible that I, too, am as dull as reading dense legislation so feel free to ignore my endorsement of it

#estuary #weather #art #atmosphere #stunday #watercolour #painting

Nice charity shop find earlier, this atmospheric, elegant little charcoal and watercolour work, a shade of the uneasy & uncanny about it that I find quite compelling, a pall of gloom, something brooding

The sumacs and apples are jollying things along a bit