Waxbanks, good here on SFF systems, details, Charlie Stross's Atrocity Archives and, er, me: waxbanks.wordpress.com/2026/03/30/l...

I appreciate this is supposed to be funny, but I find it almost unspeakably painful.

‘World's largest Mini Egg’ is a bit like ‘World's Tallest Dwarf’. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

To infinity ... and beyond!

Some of the small spot illustrations by Eric Fraser that accompanied the Radio Times magazine’s weekly listings for the BBC’s 1981 radio adaptation of Tolkein’s “The Lord Of The Rings”.

If Offa's father had named his son after himself, we would have had Thingfrith 1 and Thingfrith 2.

Basically the Batsignal for Dads.

LAURENCE STERNE: "... but perhaps if I take my Tristram Lager and mix in a fifth of Tristram Lemonade ..."

Kylo Pen

Daa daaaaah da-da-da-da-dah. latestartrek.substack.com/p/the-star-t...

Absolutely glorious thread.

I love that mode of Victorian photograph where the subject looks just hugely pissed off at being photographed at all. Here's Silvester Horne, Liberal MP (father of Round the Horne's Kenneth)

All did not go well.

I bought this book years back bc I though LIVING, LOVING, PARTY GOING was a superb title for a novel. It turned out it's three separate novels which, I'll be honest, remains a disappointment.

Can't believe they've signed up Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

From my stuffed folder of notes-towards-a-history-of-fantasy that didn't, in this form, make it into the final history-of-fantasy. profadamroberts.substack.com/p/samantha-s...

He's had his Ready Brek.

Stunning photo: James Bradford in 1961, arrested for reading in the Jackson, Mississippi public library.

TERMINATE THE FILI, KILI, BALIN, DWALIN, OIN, GLOIN, DORI, NORI, ORI, BIFUR, BOFUR, AND BOMBUR!

Good to see @unamccormack.bsky.social, the world's premier Cardassian expert, join the debate over at Critical Star Trek: latestartrek.substack.com/p/how-cardas...

"As Tiddles awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect." Kafka's "Catamorphosis"

Why is Ringo dressed as Neo from The Matrix?

Always worth checking over what you've written before you press send on your email. I nearly dispatched a message that included "when I'm in town and poop into the National Gallery ..."

Latest Washington Review of Books: open.substack.com/pub/thewashi...

Fully expect this to win. Great book.

Well, that's hail.

Adrian's "35,000 spider servants" T-shirt is generating a lot of questions already answered by the T-shirt.

I hear James Bond a-calling Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs Oh my... quite stylish.

*sings in Leonard Cohen* Now Google has a secret search That helps your internet recherche When you don't really care for A.I., do ya? cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has...

Just read THE THIS by Adam Roberts. It’s a deep, twisting novel about social media & tech companies, isolation & individuality, human evolution, & also about a plump man who unwillingly goes to war. It’s thought-provoking, wildly inventive & often very funny. Superb stuff! @adamroberts.bsky.social

Death by Locomotive in 19th-Century Fiction profadamroberts.substack.com/p/death-by-l...

My span? Steel-eyed.

I ended up expanding this post into a whole book-length type-work. I ought to see about getting it published, I suppose. medium.com/adams-notebo...

Stravinsky And Nijinski Shared a little drinkski Said N: "that'll put a Spring in your step." Said S: "Rite you are."

William Empson (in "Structure of Complex Words") calling "Nineteen Eighty-four" 'dreadful'. But does he mean 'bad, meretricious', or does he mean it more literally, 'full of dread'?

Is the Pet Shop Boys song "West End Girls" about the West End of London? If so why does it refer to "a West End *town*, a dead end world"? Is the implication that, eg Mayfair is like a town inside the boundaries of the city? Or is the song actually about, say, Truro?

AMY WINEHOUSE: they tried to make me go to classic Japanese theatre and I said ... Nōh, Nōh, Nōh?

Sun setting

shelfie ("shelfy"?) shelfies.beehiiv.com/p/shelfies-4...

On Byron's ‘So We’ll Go No More A-Roving’ (1817) profadamroberts.substack.com/p/byrons-so-...

I mean ...

Same.

Show somebody who absolutely rocks a hat and isn't Indiana Jones.

Blondie's "Hanging on the Telephone" was on the radio earlier, and I thought to check the lyrics online. The line, which I had always assumed (since I was a teenager!) was "Hang up there unrelievéd" turn out to be "Hang up and run to me." This puts a completely different complexion on the song!

I knew about her guitar-playing, but tend to forget about her storming voice. Amazing stuff.

On Byron's ‘So We’ll Go No More A-Roving’ (1817) profadamroberts.substack.com/p/byrons-so-...

Show someone who absolutely rocks a hat (that isn't Indiana Jones).