I still love the theory a Year 6 child proposed to me that David Attenborough is actually God and he got fed up with people not noticing the amazing things he'd created, so he made documentaries to show off.

Fired up iTunes on shuffle (yes, that's still how I mostly listen to music, shut up), and the first song is Radiohead's "Electioneering". Cheers, guys, I'm really doing my best to ignore that subject.

My voting routine is to pop to the polling station early when it's nice and empty, after walking Mel to her bus stop. That's been disrupted as she's off work today with a torn calf muscle. We'll go together later so I can help her on the crutches, but I face the grisly prospect of actually queueing.

I keep meaning to post that we watched Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes the other night. It's a quietly solid little film. I wrote a story about a webcam seeing into the future about 20 years ago, but it was pretty basic. I like to think this was closer to what I'd have done with the idea now.

I somehow took almost a minute off my Parkrun PB. Thanks to the pacers, I managed 34:35! My goal for 2026 was to get somewhere around 35 minutes. I never thought I'd get significantly under it. By running, I've learned that I'm definitely not a runner. But I never thought I'd get this far!

Britain's Most Versatile Actor Ross Kemp HAS to be a Traitor: "Get down them stairs, you Faithful slag!"

This just in: reading the comments, John Scalzi stumbles upon the Unified Field Joke.

This theatre thing about not taking pictures/videos during curtain calls. Now: I think it's awful, I hate it, I never do it. Mel does, and I cringe every time. And yet. It only became a thing because right after lockdown, shows were explicitly encouraging people to share footage on social media.

Actual good news! Celebrate it heartily, we don't get much.

One of my finest early works. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish but somehow I managed to pull it off

Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, and Liam Neeson on the set of Excalibur by John Boorman (1981)

I don't really know what I did right, but I weighed myself after Parkrun this morning and I'm the lightest I've been in at least six years.

Regardless, for me it's one of the top opening lines, along with "Aujourd'hui, maman est morte...", "It is a truth universally acknowledged...", "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...", "It was a bright cold day in April..." and "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

Sisu: Road to Revenge

My translation of Le Mystère du Train Bleu is a free kindle download this weekend! The first in a series of nine adventures: "The Further Exploits of Chantecoq" (all also at 99p). 1920s French detective action ahoy! Passion! Intrigue! Mysterious masked men! Did I mention free? mybook.to/BlueTrain

Watched a documentary last night on how ships are put together. Riveting.

My favourite playwriting competition is up and running again. I've entered twice, was a finalist once, and long-listed once. The one that was long-listed then won a wonderfully cool competition and got a week's run. With that strike rate, there's no way I'm not going for a third try.

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

This is so Wes Anderson, I can almost hear the affectless Jason Schwartzmann voiceover saying "My mother used to design undercover disguises for the Stasi"

The secret to my marriage is that I make sure I'm the only one who loads or unloads the dishwasher because I *know* it would piss Mel off if she saw my "system". I mean, she doesn't like the way I fold socks, so the way I stack plates would blow her mind.

In my experience, most babies are no good at wrestling.

Maybe we'll keep some InfoWars content up.

Heard there's a scene in the Michael Jackson movie where a kid tries to seduce him after a concert and Michael says "No. No thank you!" and just moonwalks away.

We have a box of supermarket sultana bran that's been on the sideboard for a full year since we got it for Mel's mum. Sometimes I look at it and say, "No one likes you. Even my mother-in-law refused to eat you and she told us she once ate a moorhen."

One night I saw a high speed police chase end with a stolen vehicle driving the wrong way over Hammersmith Bridge, crashing into a brick wall, and the occupants fleeing on foot. I saw police take down one of them with a flying tackle. I left my details and made it to the pub for last orders.

I enjoy the way that in this photo our cats look like a hip-hop duo quite a lot of people quite liked in 1996 who have made a comeback record, done an interview with a broadsheet newspaper and are attempting to prove they are still serious and relevant.

I think Meg White is a good drummer just by the standards of being a good drummer but I think she’s an exceptional drummer by the standards of having her extremely strange husband come home one day and say that they were starting a band and had to dress alike and also she’s his sister now

We do have a "shit fork", Mel brought it home by mistake from a family she nannied for (presumably leaving one of our legendary forks behind). I use it almost exclusively to whisk eggs. All those families were fucking minted to have such shit cutlery. At least one of them has one classy fork now.

In the UK we call them lifts but in the US they call them elevators, because we’re raised differently.

#HorrorWritersChat So… aside from being VERY excited about Backrooms from Kane Pixels, I’ll also recommend: The Last Band on Earth by @elainemwill.bsky.social Meat by Dane Cobain Apocalypse Barnes by @andrewlawston.bsky.social Municipal Gothic by @raynewman.bsky.social

Life doesn't often take me to the Arts Richmond website. Every time it does, I'm bemused but tickled that 2018 me is still central in their main image. Mel and Naomi are there too, fresh from the first performance of my first play, Matrexit, as part of the New Plays Festival. artsrichmond.org.uk

Trump vs Pope

Post your favourite film from the year you turned 18.

Wonderful vintage children’s books in stock at @pandasbooksrecords.bsky.social

That’s Smee in the corner

Niche gripe. There's a FB page devoted to William Hartnell. I never followed it but it keeps showing me the posts anyway. Fair to say it's probably a bit higher profile right now. They refer to everyone by diminutive versions of their names, like the writer's mates with them, and it drives me NUTS.

In the last few minutes, philanthropic billionaire Bruce Wayne who always looks weirdly tired, has held an unscheduled press conference to declare emphatically that he is not the masked nocturnal vigilante Batman. It is unclear what prompted this announcement.

My new book comes out tomorrow in paperback and kindle editions, a translation of a Paul d'Ivoi novel from 1895. Time is running out to pre-order it before it becomes cool! Sergeant Simples & the French Colonies is a rollicking globe-trotting adventure. I hope you love it! mybook.to/Simples

Wow. I did Parkrun in 35:23. That beats my previous PB by a little over 3 minutes. I've lost a bit of weight, I've been walking more during the week, and drinking less, but we're both in a bit of shock. (Mel did it in 35:03, I did fade in the last 500 metres.)

I'm fairly sure I did a new PB at Parkrun this morning, so sods' law dictates it would have to be the week the results emails are late going out! The weeks I end up virtually walking the last mile, I get the bad news almost before I'm back home...

You wrote a novel using AI? Cool. It's like that time I ran a marathon using a Ford Focus.

Well, it's Good Friday, but judging from my feed, all Doctor Who fans have five-years-old-on-Christmas-Day morning energy. I pity the Not-We, today. Incidentally, a happy Good Friday to all of you at home.

Suppertime already and the table has been set for thirteen Everybody's tucking in but Judas doesn't seem very keen "One of you'll betray me," says Jesus, bringing down the partying mood "Thirty chunks of silver," he says, putting the lads right off their food It's just another manic Maunday

Toshiro Mifune driving his MG TD on the set of Yojimbo with his sword on the dash

Oh, it’s Christmas For Unfunny People. Good luck, everyone.

We're enjoying The Other Bennett Sister, but wondering why they went with that title, when "Specs & The City" was right there.

TWO RONNIES FEEDLINE KLAXON

“Business is just other people’s money. Pretend you’re making restitution.” The sentence that made up my mind to press on with my next translation.