There as a man singing and toasting to reggae blasting from a speaker outside Brixton station this evening. The only lyrics I made out as I passed by were: "Me lovin' in the mornin'... me loving in the evenin'... BLUDCLAAAT!!!" It stayed in my head all the way home.

There as a man singing and toasting to reggae blasting from a speaker outside Brixton station this evening. The only lyrics I made out as I passed by were: "Me lovin' in the mornin'... me loving in the evenin'... BLUDCLAAAT!!!" It stayed in my head all the way home.

I have to remind myself that responding to a post from the Spectator on Bluesky is like responding to a turd someone posted through your letterbox in the middle of the night. They've already legged it.

Find someone who'll fight for you like the Oxbridge mafia at the broadsheets and BBC fight for someone that was accused of writing racist descriptions of schoolchildren. [[notes - 2025]] https://niall.garden/oxbridge_mafia

If my tinkering was successful, this post will appear on my digital garden (https://niall.garden) but also my Mastodon (https://sunny.garden/@rustyniall) and Bluesky (bsky.app/profile/rustyniall.bsky.social), meaning that I am a very clever boy (they probably won't https://niall.garden/a_little_test

Sometimes I think "Am I really qualified to write about this, have I done enough research?"Later, I read 800 inane, witless and uninformed words from a columnist in a national newspaper and realise that I'm fretting about the integrity of something that's going to be read by about 50 people.

Every now and again I get recommended a video on YouTube, watch it for about a minute and slowly come to suspect that it's 100% AI generated, the script, the voice, the music, the visuals. Then I click on the channel page and it becomes obvious by merit of how many videos they're able to churn out.

Just had my first experience of someone else's phone call on the Victoria line. Didn't realise what I had until it was gone.

Last night I got a bit ditsy using terminal commands. After finding nothing on forums, I just posted my error logs on Chat-GPT and two minutes later everything was sorted. This saved me a good few hours. But those were hours where I would have learned stuff. I fixed the issue but learned nothing.

This is the only way anyone has ever gotten good.

If you are thinking of gifts for Xmas this year, my book about tabletop games, The Game Changers (UK, other territories) / Across the Board (US, Canada), is out in paperback, audiobook & ebook. I think it is good for anyone who loves boardgames old or new, or who likes stuff on culture & history.

Overheard at the supermarket "It feels later than normal, I got up too early" And it's the first time I thought about people not knowing that the clocks have gone back because they didn't have to set the time themselves.

Will probably stump up for a new laptop in a year or so (I mainly get by a with a headless M1 Mac Mini paired up with an iPad Pro) and my thoughts have drifted from getting a Macbook Air to buying a Framework laptop running Linux. Get out before the AI bloatware sinks everything.

I just said “thank you” out loud to one of the campus photocopiers.

"He'll have to endure the rest of his life bereft of his state roles and recognitions and will have to make do with his wealth and stately home" isn't just a shit take, it's also a signifier of how obsequious the press is towards the royals and the institution of monarchy.

My current annoying habit is giggling to myself while saying " toblerone" in the style of WB Yeats exclaiming "Inisfree".

Just waiting for the red arrows. Any moment now...

Geoff Hattersley’s Collected Poems brings together over three decades of work, mapping a singular voice grounded in working-class experience, dark wit, and sharply observed detail.

I'm sure all the bad Tron: Ares reviews are a massive shock for anybody that doesn't see "starring Jared Leto" as a three-word review within itself.

Zelda Williams - "You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings..." That final image at the end of the quote is repulsively brilliant too.

The Waltham Forest Poetry Competition, judged by the fabulous Lorraine Mariner, invites you to send poems on the theme of WEATHER/WHETHER. Over £1,000 in prizes. Entry fee for adults is from £3, FREE for young poets under the age of 18. Closing date is MONDAY 20 OCTOBER. www.bit.ly/wfpoetrycomp

Spoke to my students about my own AI detection abilities yesterday and unironically referred to myself as the Clankerfinder General.

Big tech CEOs have spent more than a decade puffing their chests and saying that they are more like heads of state running global companies with bigger revenues than many countries … but now they’re all folding to actual government pressure faster than any tinpot dictator has ever folded

Just a general shoutout: if anyone is after a creative writing workshop, writing on tabletop games, or you need an experienced SFF author on a project, hit me up. Also MS critique slots are available on my website. Funds v tight while I finish my book & some extra work would be lovely!

Brian Patten was one of the big poets that I met when I was in my early twenties and I remember him being really nice to me while I acted like a massive fucking twat. The memory helps me to be nice and pay it forward whenever I find myself dealing with twenty something twat-boy poets now. RIP.

That's what happens when you offer an olive branch to a bigot

ICE attempted and failed to disappear a food delivery guy. It needed to be scored.

I find that the runback from the bench to the boss that keeps killing you in Hollow Knight Silksong becomes more bearable if you make Joe Pesci Home Alone "Schaken fracken.." grumble noises along the way.

I like setting alternate versions of Frank O'Hara's POEM (Lana Turner had Collapsed) as a writing exercise for my students but keep writing them myself because they're the perfect way of ingesting pop culture and spitting it out again. Read more stuff here: niall.garden

reflecting on day 1 of game garden & it feels like the most common greeting was "omg i didnt know you were making a game" so i guess i gotta get a bit LOUDER about it!!!! aaa

As for many poets uneasy in their class consciousness, Tony Harrison’s brilliant controversial long poem V. (1985) blew me away when I first read it. But his short lyrics were sharp, wise, and deeply moving, too, cut from lived life. Saddened to hear the great man has passed. RIP.

RIP Tony Harrison, who remains the only poet I can think of who caused a moral panic to the degree that a Tory MP tried to initiate a parliamentary debate to cancel a TV broadcast of his poem, V.

Plot holes matter in political thrillers because plot is basically the main feature. I don't care about plot holes in fantasy, sci-fi or horror. I particularly don't care about whether people do stupid things before they die in horror films. That's due to a strange, obscure factor known as fun.

Massive interview/write up on a writer I haven't heard of in a newspaper. I search reddit and the only post I find is a record of when their wikipedia page was up for deletion for lack of notability a few years ago. I then keep reading the article, which says their spouse is an investment banker.

Noticed Limmy can’t stand Withnail and I and I‘ve never been a fan either. Often wondered if it’s a class thing. If you’ve been exposed to alcoholics and addicts saying random shit for a fair part of your life then it’s not really a revelation watching someone doing the same with a posher accent.

Someone must have lost the directions to Leather Lane cause there's a lot of gammon in Waterloo right now.

The old classic of scanning the content of a mass email for ages and then noticing the big bad mutha of a typo in the title in the moment you hit send.

My autocorrect just changed Aslan to Alan so that's his real name from now on.

Just managed to buy Silksong via the Humble Store instead as I saw that the Steam keys had been replenished.

I'll be Silksonging the first chance I get today, even if it means playing it on my Mac Mini cos my eldest seems to have taken ownership of my Steam Deck. Time to dust down and charge up my 8bitdDo.

French crowd shouting, "One ... Two ...sacre bleu!" at a near fall is possibly the best wrestling chant of the decade so far.

The problem with only using Bluesky and Mastodon these days is that I get wind of a poetry beef a week after it happened and have no idea where it happened.

Middle age is the moment when your ideal future self collapses into a cloud of ashes and standing in its place is the parent you swore you would never become.

Finally got to see the RSC My Neighbo(u)r Totoro today. It really was something special. I also really appreciated how, despite running on and off for so many years, it’s still full of lovely surprises.

Poetry in general does not exist, but variable conceptions of poetry exist and will continue to exist, not only from one period or country to another but also from one text to another. –⁠ Tzvetan Todorov, Genres in Discourse

I've always read the concept of "great poets" to be really about eminence. A lot of it goes back to a cultural background of fewer publishers, closer links to Russell Group unis and absolutely no internet. I don't really miss it and it ain't coming back anyway.

Finally got round to watching K-Pop demon hunters. Really enjoyed it but didn't feel the ending. I don't want to spoil it but felt the film was setting up an ethos that the ending completely contradicted.

Whenever I see someone's ultimate productivity desk setup, I think of Eric "Concernedape" Barone's setup from when he made Stardew Valley. They should rebuild it in a museum somewhere but health and safety probably wouldn't allow it. Glorious.

*Runs around the corner* *Looks left and right* *Double checks* *Looks into the camera* “Well, looks like that phase where everyone had a one person show is finally over and done with…” *runs away*