I have a few codes for promo copies of this, so the first five people who respond and express a desire to hear it are welcome. Shout and I'll follow you back and provide code via 'chat'.

So, after a labourious couple of months of self-recording and mastering, my first novel, BOOK THIRTEEN, is now available in an audio edition via Audible and Apple Books etc. If anyone wants to invest a monthly credit and give it a star or two, I'd be grateful. Recommended for insomniacs.

Re the fuckwit Farage: of course, in my experience, the 60s and 70s were rife with both casual and vindictive racism, in the playground and beyond; later those unenlightened took it underground. Farage and his ilk, unreformed throughout, dug it up and waved its rotten corpse in our faces.

Overdiagnosis blah blah. I reckon those not stressed to the point of derangement and beyond by being forced to survive the sick society we have created are the aberrant cohort.

Tedious day spent setting up a new Mac. Hopefully this one will be future proof sufficient to see me out. Also, if you haven't already saved a note of your app licences and subscriptions I suggest you do it now; failure results in tedious complications and expense.

'Smorgasbord' is a word I never want to hear again post this fucking budget.

Good folk, fine folk #FF @londonhorrorcomic.bsky.social @jamiedelano.bsky.social @dirkmaggs.bsky.social @folkhorrorrevival.bsky.social @mariastrutz.bsky.social @marthawells.com @jonsavage.bsky.social @julianneregan.bsky.social @regretteruane.bsky.social @andy-paciorek.bsky.social

Private Eye...

A pleasant weekend in Glastonbury visiting grandson. Charity shop bonus. And now heavy diesel convoy grunting past our motel bringing the fair to town for next week's carnival. Good food too. Pretty chilled to be honest.

Bad day at sea...

That's nice; forty minutes into recording and hour-long chapter of an audiobook, and some prick with money to burn decides our village is the ideal location over which to hurl his stunt plane loudly about the sky. Wonder how deep he'd bury himself if he failed to pull out of one of those dives...

The top of the shit pile feeling a bit wobbly if they're throwing royals to the wolves...?

Word of advice: maybe think twice about recording your novel as an audiobook if you're prone to strangled coughs and splutterings. Twenty-odd minutes per chapter to record, another couple of hours each to edit out the wheezy breaths and retakes...

Le Guin, as ever, worth listening to here.

RIP Ron Tiner From HELLBLAZER, "Larger than Life," writ by @jamiedelano.bsky.social

We are very sorry to announce the death of artist, writer and educator Ron Tiner, an occasional contributor to downthethetubes and a much-appreciated advisor to the site. Jim O’Brien pays tribute… https://downthetubes.net/in-memoriam-artist-and-writer-ron-tiner/

'Ambagious Tactics': a nicely presented limited-editon set of inspirational cards. They can be purchased via fruishon.co.uk or by contacting @fruishfruish.bsky.social

All fired up (after fucking years of idleness) to start work on writing a new novel... so what do I do but decide I need to record audiobook editions of the three already written first. Jesus, someone shoot me.

I wonder which corporate entity gets the contract for the operation of UK digital ID...

Compulsory digital ID now, is it? Labour remorseless in shooting its feet off.

Lurid east of England sundown. #photography

Fortification. #photography (phone snap)

@cultauthor.bsky.social Rust never peeps (sorry) #photography (phone snap)

Walked too far for our age today; had to catch the bus back. Ignomious.

Vanlife.

Having my first go at an Ian McEwan book since First Love, Last Rites (1975). What We Can Know attracted me with its premise of an inundated world surviving 100 years into the future... Disappointingly, the viewpoint, so far, is (I suppose predictably) that of tedious literary academics.

A few enjoyable days in North Norfolk marred only slightly by the frequency of flags and flag graffiti and the near constant reverberating roar of jet fighters hosing my taxes from their exhausts over the North Sea.

The British state is an embarrassment to its people. Well, to this one, at least...

Nice late-summer red admiral in central English woodland. #butterflies

Media reporting Google's proposed 'massive new data centre' in Hertfordshire as if it is unequivocally a good thing...

Wishful thinking maybe, but if I were Reform, I'd be worried that inoculating my system with Tory 'expertise' might backfire and introduce fatal political sepsis...

Who's selling all these bloody flags? Bet it's Tice or Farage.

Fucking dream-brain decided last night that the quickest way to get to an airport for a vital flight was by narrowboat river ferry (captained by a sly cockney chancer) through a chaotic urban hellscape of fire and disaster... nagged by awareness that my passport was forgotten. I awake serene.

It becomes apparent that my own level of awareness of the global significance of Kirk was deficient when compared to that of my grandsons (16 & 12) revealed in conversation last evening.

Cyclamen antidote.

As I hinted a couple of days ago, it seems likely that Mandelson's relationship with Epstein is actually the reason for his appointment as ambassador to the Court of Trump.

A cynic might suggest that, considering their common 'interest', deploying Mandelson to represent UK in the sick court of the US king was politically pragmatic...

What the fuck is Newskies, and why does it keep posting gay porn to my feed?

Unlikely juxtaposition at the nature reserve this morning...

Angle Iron #photography

Good. Streeting wants NHS trusts to feel the "sunlight of disinfectant."

Quite a thing —> Banksy painted a mural on the Royal Courts of Justice in London in opposition of recent protest crackdowns. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Increasingly feel that this image may come to define Starmer's premiership. Charitably, it is just an Englishman's courteous instinct to assist, but the man is a politician; why the fuck did he not just click his fingers in the direction of an (American) aide and let them grovel...?

Whoever is running live sound for channel4news these last few nights is having a bit of a nightmare... unless it's my old ears that are fucked.

John's art on those early Hellblazer stories perfectly set the tone. Sometimes, a writer is not sure what they want until see it. I recall being overjoyed when I received the first Xeroxes...

It's almost as if all these 'centrists' were always just looking for cover to shift to full fascist... It becomes increasingly tedious to wake up each morning on a dying planet to the hateful babble of racist arseholes.

Spawn of evil. www.facebook.com/share/r/1CR4...

a message to the british media

Those foaming self-righteously about 'abuse' of the EHRC and Human Rights Act might want to ask themselves which of the following rights they would be content to deny themselves in order to deny them to others... Article 2: Right to life

Green bottles making art with fox shit in my old mum's garden. #insects