This is right. The download market is tiny these days. If you're listening digitally, you're streaming. If you're buying, you're doing it physically. Being number 1 on a genre download chart is meaningless.

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

17 years ago THIS VERY DAY, @ifdestroyed.bsky.social & I released the first episode of House to Astonish, a podcast of comic book news & reviews with a bit of mucking about at the end. To mark the occasion, I thought you might want to hear that first mildly wonky episode! archive.org/details/Hous...

On House to Astonish, this week's X-Axis.

BBC really burying the lede there

On House to Astonish, annotations for Laura Kinney: Sabretooth #2.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Binary #2.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Amazing X-Men #2.

Um… I think for that point to work the city has to have defeated him before at some point. Did I miss the bit where that happened?

Wow. In another huge upset, Mesmero, the Master of Mentalism, has been elected mayor of Chicago. Political pundits are shocked - he’s a first-time candidate who barely spent anything on advertising, and there wasn’t even an election scheduled for today

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

My bet is that she and her family will cope by using the conventional oven which is clearly visible to the right of the photo.

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

The Radio 1 chart show isn't a well produced show at the best of times, but playing the entire instrumental version of "WGFT" by Gunna & Burna Boy without noticing is quite something. It has a looped background vocal (now clearly audible) of "We getting fucked tonight."

Good news, though with two important caveats: 1. "Winning" in the current Dutch context means "being the tallest Hobbit in Hobbiton" - D66 won 17% of the vote and has 26 seats in Parliament - with 76 needed to govern. 2. Far right vote didn't fall overall, it just split between three parties

Big shed, funky bond. as.ft.com/r/43444409-b...

On the blog, this week's X-Axis.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Expatriate X-Men #1.

I think what we have to admire here is that the Dutch political system has not run out of colours.

On House to Astonish, Daredevil Villains #62: The Congregation of Righteousness.

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

One way of reading this would be that party members are not, in fact, that bothered about the direction of the party and keen to send a message to the leadership about it. That is probably how the leadership will interpret it.

On House to Astonish, this week's X-Axis.

Well, that's the lesson for Labour in tonight's Caerphilly by-election: keep obsessing about losing votes on the right, placating Reform voters...and lose votes on to the left. Here, Plaid Cymru benefitted. I wrote about Labour's strategic dilemma here: www.opendemocracy.net/en/labour-st...

On House to Astonish, annotations for X-Men: Book of Revelation #1.

Quite an unfortunate place to drift off into an ellipsis.

A policy *supported by a smaller % of the population* than it would seek to deport!

On House to Astonish, annotations for The Last Wolverine #1.

Despite my ambitions to be literate and well-read, I have steadfastly refused to learn what "sanguine" or "phlegmatic" mean. You can try to tell me below but I will forget, same as I always do. The four humours are a stain on human history and we should erase its influence on our vocabulary

House to Astonish Episode 215 is now live, as @ifdestroyed.bsky.social and I chat through the news out of NYCC and review the first issues of Endeavour and DC K.O.! Fill yer boots! bit.ly/astonish215

Edinburgh castle failing to render, likely thanks to the AWS outage

I should watch more AEW. Where the WWE long since defaulted to generic entrance graphics, AEW still thinks this is a perfectly reasonable entrance video for a stable of wrestlers.

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

On House to Astonish, this week's X-Axis.

On the contrary, this is pattern recognition at its finest.

Props to Mercury Communications still getting their sponsorship money's worth 28 years after they expired. In these days of boom and bust that's quite an inspiring business model.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Rogue Storm #1.

From the cross tabs - these figures are equally newsworthy but I think a much better reflection of vote intention Don't know 34% Conservative 10% Labour 9% Liberal Democrats 7% Reform UK 22% Green Party 9% Scottish National Party (SNP) 2% Plaid Cymru 1% Other 5%

On House to Astonish, annotations for Unbreakable X-Men #1.

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

Blog update: on w/e 2nd November 1985 The Cult reached number one in the NME Indie Charts with "Rain", a National Top 20 hit which has lived in the shadow of "She Sells Sanctuary" since. It's, er... really nothing like as memorable in general. indienumber1s.blogspot.com/2025/10/69-c...

Also, every time I see that name, it takes me a fraction of a second to remind myself that the film is not, in fact, called TRON: ARSE. I accept that this may be more of a British issue.

On House to Astonish, this week's X-Axis.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Laura Kinney: Sabretooth #1.

But don't worry, Lecornu's relaunch is starting with four variant covers and a tie-in to the current crossover, he'll sell THIS time

Not surprising. Music channels just don't make any sense in a world where YouTube exists. In theory they could serve a curator function but in practice radio does that better.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Binary #1.

On House to Astonish, annotations for Amazing X-Men #1.

On House to Astonish, Daredevil Villains #61: Willow.

I maintain there is absolutely a book to be published in collecting Paul's columns on this