I have this book! ‘J'en ai marre’ means ‘I’m fed up’ in French and one of Johnny Marr’s victims is called Morrissey.

Now reading: ‘Rendezvous in Black’, Cornell Woolrich, 1948. This description is not helpful,because now I'm picturing, uh, Johnny Marr.

I have stickers.

Big cheese delivery for the mouses

Ah, that's better. You know how sometimes you just have to exorcise a collage?

What are some noteworthy sign-offs? I have seen "weeping gorgeously."

It's a minor ongoing quibble but I contend that a "Super Group" can only consist of members of already successful groups.

Alt text: me holding up a copy of Thin Places in Hard Concrete.

First review! Sorry, other reviewers. You snooze, you lose.

This will be brilliant. Ray's other two collections are like nothing else out there. Every story is entirely believable and stays with you a long time after you finish reading. One of the very best in this space.

April 2026

A year ago today we travelled by train from Bucharest to Ruse, just over the border into Bulgaria. Roman ruins on the Danube. Grand brutalist buildings. General confusion over the presence of British people.

I read this on my very long train journey, among many other things. Utterly dystopian, like something from the world of ‘Robocop’. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I got in after midnight last night after my train was delayed, making the journey just shy of 6 hours. I'm very tired and grumpy. But you know what would really cheer me up? Seeing that pre-order number go up. (Paperback orders open tomorrow.)

Now, I think this actually is folk horror: the Beef and Dairy Network looks into the history of the Darleigh Spring Fayre at which, every year, a Frenchman is torn apart by pigs. maximumfun.org/episodes/bee...

Reading a book about Pink Floyd and baffled by the part Richard Wright manages to move from his architecture course to the Royal College of Music despite only having had some piano lessons and not being able to play his scales properly.

Excuse my rant.

Watching the Led Zeppelin documentary (for a thing) and it’s almost comic how dull they are, telling oft-told stories embroidered with such trite phrases as “we were paid the princely sum of” and “from whence we knew not where” (well done, Planty).

If someone posts a photo and doesn't specify the location where it was taken, they probably have a good reason; it's not an invitation to guess. Good morning!

IT’S HERE! Nature sprites, magical blooms, holy and unholy trees, wild men of the woods, numinous forests, dying-and-reviving deities. Shipping starts now. 👉🏼 helleborezine.com/products/the-green-issue

How old is this family of jokes? "Waiter, do you serve shrimps here?" "Sure. We don’t care how tall you are. Sit down." "Do you serve crabs?" "Yes, we treat all customers alike.” "Do you serve lobsters here?” “Yes, we serve anyone." quoteinvestigator.com/2026/04/21/s...

I've just learned that the Americans named the helicopter evacuation from Saigon in 1975 ‘Operation Frequent Wind’.

My solo writing day in Bucharest was a year ago today, in fact.

Listening to Neu! and Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan so that my 5+ hour train journey will feel like a relentless flight into a wide open, more optimistic future, rather than a tedious arseache.

“Of the twenty-one characters in The Big Sleep, seven were drawn directly from ‘The Curtain’, six were taken from ‘Killer in the Rain’, four were composites from the two stories, and four were new creations.”

The very senior guy at work who said months ago that adding alt text was a “chore” and a tech problem (“fix it with AI”) has still not fixed it with AI or started to add alt text.

A message arrives via my website. ‘Dear Mark Girouard.’ Oh dear. Got our architectural writing Gs muddled, have we? Also, he passed away four years ago aged 90, so might not be all that into market positioning.

Existential crises #Photography

Pro tip.

I'm going to find this week challenging: two away days with different teams, at different ends of the country, with nights away in hotels, and networking. The older I get, the more I understand that I'm a routines, habits and habitats guy. I like my own bed, my own desk, controlling my own space.

“We booked our flights and bought blue one-piece flight suits on Amazon that were almost certainly intended as Halloween costumes. We spent hours discussing the logistics of ordering customized mission patches.” harpers.org/archive/2026...

Double banana! First time ever!

Now watching: ‘The Final Problem’, dir. George Ridgwell, 1923, with Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes. It relocates the fatal battle with Moriarty from Switzerland to... Cheddar Gorge.

oh pretty cool that you’ve got lana del rey to do your James Bond videogame theme. it’s not gameboy James Bond’s theme though, is it? youtu.be/VvVXebu1xMc?...

I had fun making this although I realise for ultimate book promo potential it should be in portrait format and feature MY BIG FACE.

Taking back control!

Grandstand

[Grain. Distortion. Doorway in a half-demolished building. Interference. Church. Pedestrian icon on asphalt. Mouth? The pedestrian's skull face. Black monumental cross. Hands? Missing poster. Staircase. Telecoms tower. Horse. Eye? Doorway again – and a laughing puppet? Thin Places in Hard Concrete.]

Portal number 997.

A small realistic story. Not much more than 500 words.

Working on a hare. Trying to force me to make it simple by keeping it small. I like it. #hare #felt #needlefelt

“Analog horror is a type of short amateur cinema made and circulated on social media for free... Its name derives from the digital fabrication of analog-video aesthetics, including defects like grain, noise, snow, and shudder...” online.ucpress.edu/fq/article/7...

Love it when you buy an ebay microcassette recorder and it comes preloaded with haunted media. Sound on 💀

Also, I now really love this song.

I believe this translates as something like ‘Don’t be so Beatles’ or ‘Don’t be such a Beatle’. youtu.be/e5okSBwqkCM?...

Czerwone Gitary - Rytm Ziemi [Poland, Rock] (1974) https://redd.it/1jv8cmy https://youtu.be/fF0ygLUtuFY

Do you reckon Tina Weymouth has ever been to Weymouth?

Crikey on a flaming bikey... Akira was definitely worth seeing in the cinema. Holy shit.