Crazy how much money the arts is worth to the British economy, how much we excel in the field on a global level, and how it is treated with total contempt by every government of my adult life.

Burge rotates between Justison, Masters, a doomed victim or two, and Tisiphone herself, and he uses those swaps to control precisely how much rope you are given. https://gnofhorror.com/enter-vengeance-by-weldon-burge-review/

Miranda Smith’s Scary Movie Night is a Hitchcockian locked-room thriller where a costume party turns deadly and the real terror is intimate. We discussed final girls, domestic suspense, and why the scariest masks are human. https://gnofhorror.com/scary-movie-night-miranda-smith/

I'd say "thin end of the wedge", except I think that started 40 years ago when we began allowing the tabloids to run our political system. The wedge is thoroughly in now, and we need to push it back out again.

"This is fairy-tale horror with real teeth, a cursed bookshop story rooted in old Grimm folklore and dressed in contemporary Scottish Gothic." Thanks @gnofhorror.com! gnofhorror.com/steal-me-by-...

Reducing funding to the UK's science base simply means that a future government will need to spend large sums repairing the damage. These cuts, on top of the massive reductions at the British Council & BBC World Service, are suggestive of a State that has stopped believing in the future.

"Dundering and blundering through the corridors, Adam was left with the impression someone else might be there. He didn't attempt to find them, that would be work." Drunk and in Charge of Machinery (1989).

Why has the UK government been setting fire to the universities? I don't understand.

perhaps we should view nazi tattoos as disqualifying from here on out. i kind of assumed we'd already view them as disqualifying but was unpleasantly surprised so maybe from here we could all agree not to downplay nazi tattoos since they seem pretty indicative of broad disregard for human dignity

"Every positive was coming up at once. Each one appearing with a 'pop'. Lydia wanted it to stop, she was already sick of the popping." The Land of Getting it All (1978).

The classical picture of mermaids is beautiful and desirable, reflected in the current craze for wearing monofins and shimmery makeup to go ‘mermaiding’. https://gnofhorror.com/the-dark-side-of-mermaids-folklore-disney-forgot/

C.N. Vair on Appalachian horror, unglamorous witchcraft, and why The Devil Knows Her Name reclaims pride for the disobedient. "I want them to come away with their pride and their anger—and the knowledge that these things are worth having."

Maybe this hasn’t sunk in for anyone who should care but the NHS was birthed when the UK *literally had negative money*. The USA had razed us of every penny to pay for weapons to defend ourselves against Germany, Germany had bombed all our industrial sites. We still did it in 6 months. 6.

Learning that Spectrum games were WTF-style hard for other people is nice to know.

"Keeping masses of them the way Edvard did was quite the talking point for those in the vicinity. He would rarely bring it up, but wouldn't refuse to talk about it." Laughing in Range (1863).

I haven't read either books so I won't weigh in on the credibility of whether or not the whole Tillie Walden situation is legally speaking, plagiarism, but I will say that I've never seen someone accuse plagiarism against a prominent artist and NOT provide specific examples

"It was tantamount to saying the exact opposite and now she kept talking. She couldn't believe they were still listening." Vanguard Point (1974).

“We’re not nostalgic because the technology was better. We’re nostalgic because life had boundaries.”

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Confiscatory taxation & expropriation of billionaires would benefit them personally because extreme wealth is the cognitive equivalent of about sixteen strikes to the head with a ball peen hammer

Fun Times at the Bloodbath by Jeff Strand https://gnofhorror.com/fun-times-at-the-bloodbath-by-jeff-strand-review/

Return the Goat: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iDA...

Anything with that prick Clarkson... SEND IN THE LIONS!

Don't Tell the Bride...Send in the Lions!

"They had lovingly created the entire edifice, without breaks and without thought. Here it was and the crowd reacted with a massive shrug." A Few Provocations (2020).

Hmm. Not sure I was slam dunk for the top job until I proved myself utterly unsuitable for it is the gotcha KF thinks...

Just me, here, doing this same thing, hoping for a different outcome.

Just a quick reminder to submitters: if you send work to ergot. that uses AI in any way - text generation, editing, formatting, translation, anything - the piece will be rejected and you will be permanently banned from submitting.

"If you have ever worked somewhere that called itself a family right up until the moment it cut you loose, you will feel the cold logic of it in your gut." Thanks so much to Jim Mcleod at @gnofhorror.com for this wonderful review:

John Carpenter's 'Big Trouble in Little China' was released 40 years ago today. They sure shook the pillars of heaven, didn't they. youtu.be/01UpEkb1NII

*Opens trench coat* Short stories, get chore short stories heeya! British Fantasy Award winning story, Godzilla as a Young Man Named Mike in it, innit! Direct from the publisher: www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.as... Or Amazon / Kindle ebook if that's easier: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0GYJJRSPV

"So that's Theft, Fraud, Financial Misconduct, Political Misconduct and Misconduct in a public office. That's just the EU. In the UK, all of the above plus Treason, Money Laundering and Tax Evasion. The list probably goes on but that's enough of a start. Criminal Filth." via Timothy O'sullivan

I’m not sure how I feel about SLOWFANCYANGRY being the code. It is not helping me beat the fancy boy allegations.

When oligarchs talk of “personal liberties and free markets” they mean their own liberties to become even richer and more powerful. When oligarchs speak of “freedom,” what they actually seek is freedom from accountability. Know the truth.

Boffins peg narcissistic leadership as the real driver behind 'return to office' demands

The internet is a chaotic Dunning-Kruger soup. How many thoughtful threads have been derailed by some dunce (who would very much like to have sex with the sound of their own voice) who thinks he's a genius?

To a lot of men on the internet: YOUR READING COMPREHENSION IS SHIT!

If you're in software, your business is your people. Knowing how to keep it running is the knowledge embedded in your workers. The CapEx etc in terms of buildings, network infrastructure etc is just a life support system for facilitating the workers to do what they know how to do.

See also more widely:"we're a massive software company. We've been a software company for 40 years. That's why we're firing all our developers. We're going to be so stinking rich"

Seems I was right to blame the AI data centres etc for the shitty weather.

You don't like Sony's plans to stop selling physical media? Don't buy GTA VI. It's as simple as that.

It has been a long, exhausting day.

"Reductions were made in situ. They had to be for the sake of Mister Poul's sanity." Rocking on the Rocks (1983).

idc about his ‘personal warmth’ when he’s saying nigel farage is right about immigrants, disabled ppl should be tossed on a bonfire to fund more missiles, or that trans ppl should be excluded from public life to keep jk rowling happy. 🙄 idc how he or @lucympowell.bsky.social say this stuff

Denial is a perennial fuckin universal of the human psyche though. It's fuckin ubiquitous. It's not a wild leap of fanciful speculation, an implausible rarity such that to project it upon the unfathomable mind of an Ezra Klein would be a ludicrously tenuous hypothetical. It's the no-brainer answer.

the american right wing are the party of pedophilic rapists who now have free reign to sexually violate young girls for wanting to play sports. woodchippers.

The problem with money in politics is not the location of party donors, but the influence they have on our elections. We need a cap on all political donations.

Please just for the love of fuck hire enough human beings to perform work that your company requires getting done. Stop being so fucking cheap. You assholes made half a billion profit in '25; you can afford to have human beings doing this work instead of constantly enshittifying the world for a buck

The thing about social media age restrictions is that it treats today’s internet as an inevitability we all just have to deal with. The internet (and the WORLD) wasn’t like this until like four dudes were allowed to own & monetize as much tech real estate as they wanted. Fix THAT problem.

Reminder: it is still *illegal* in the UK to rip a legally bought and owned CD to MP3 on your computer. But Google will likely convince the UK govt that every creative endeavour should be available for it to remix and regurgitate, entirely for free. One rule for the public; another for megacorps…

But I also note that “aside from their good incomes” is doing a tremendous amount of work.