Occasional reminder that if you want to listen to some dark, funny, ridiculous and hopefully moving songs about a zombie (near) apocalypse, you can! You can also buy the download or the fancy transparent blood-red vinyl. Please do! Also on all streaming services. thewoodlousemusic.bandcamp.com

Ways to resist fascism

Well, Film Club on BBC is blooming marvellous. Aimee Lou Wood, Suranne Jones, Nabhaan Rizwan all being brilliant. It’s lovely and sad and funny and touching and relatable. I want to binge it all, but then I’ll be sad it’s over so I’m rationing it.

A friend is helping me with website subdomain DNS settings requiring him to login to my account. Messaged me saying “cool, I’m in!” so of course I instantly have Mission Impossible theme playing in my head, regardless of inappropriate it actually is the mundanity of domain settings.

Currently in a bit of a cycle of either go to bed really late, sleep reasonably well but for insufficient time; or go to bed early, sleep badly with lots of weird dreams, and be awake for chunks of the night. Neither are brilliant.

“We apologise for the inconvenience”.

I love Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She’s a great ally. www.nme.com/news/music/s...

Once there, the bus back is 2hrs after college finishes and takes THIRTEEN HOURS AND FORTY NINE MINUTES.

This really makes it sound like a Border Patrol agent tried to kill an anti-ICE activist in Chicago and DHS lied to cover for him

Every time the egg house comes up as a prize on @richardosman1.bsky.social’s House of Games I shout at the tele for no one calling it ‘Richard Osman’s House of Eggs’. Seriously, people, what’s wrong with you all?!

Sometimes the lyrics of songs written like this must - in the cold light of day - be completely and swiftly erased from existence before the cringe factor can be inflicted on anyone but me. [shudder] Thankfully though, they can lead to a song about the same ideas but just a much better one 😀

that's not a very nice way to refer to London museums

Just realised that sometimes I write song to help figure out what it is I’m feeling, when I’m aware that I’m feeling things but so don’t know what. Which is essentially a pretty darned autistic approach (which figures). Alexithymic songwriting

The downside of enjoying recording ALL THE LOVELY HARMONIES is that now It’s later than I meant to stop and eat, and I’m too hungry to decide what to cook.

I’ve just been re-recording a song I’ve been avoiding as it has so many harmonies and requires me to sing both higher and lower than I really can, but it’s worth because I actually think it’s pretty bloody lovely. More than any other song I’ve written it stays playing in my mind and soothes me.

The thing about AI is that it ultimately doesn't matter how realistic it gets, or looks, or sounds, or seems - those are all red herrings. The problem at its heart is that nothing it produces comes from a real person, and it therefore has no aesthetic value. That's it. No more needs to be said.

I’m very much flailing around attempting to do this, so this workshop sounds ideal!

I’ve only just been introduced to this. It’s brilliant! How did I not know? youtu.be/wHMzt9QXJXU?...

Perhaps impressively, no brassicas were actually burnt

I‘m so glad I made the house smell of burnt brassica earlier, it’s just the nicest of smells. 🤦‍♂️

PM of Albania having a good laugh with President of Azerbaijan and Macron about Trump repeatedly claiming that he ended the war between their two countries which were not at war with each other.

First bike ride since July. Pleasingly, my endless-walking-around-Edinburgh hill strength hasn’t wained in the weeks since the Fringe. Less pleasingly, my bum has definitely become unused to the saddle… So here’s an ‘oldie’ on that topic (with somewhat rough production) youtu.be/oEK4UFa3PFM?...

“ABC7 spoke to Pertissue Fisher, a woman who lives in the building. She said ICE agents took everyone in the building, including her, and asked questions later….’They was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other.’” It can’t happen here, you say. But it is happening.

If you have *anything* else to say about this monstrous act, anything at all, you're an awful person. Those people did not deserve to be murdered.

Armed and fully militarized raids using blackhawks to drop troops into neighborhoods around Chicago should probably be bigger news. Even in an unfolding fascist police state that should be registering with people of good conscience as something they cannot allow to continue.

Top tip: try not to drop your electric* toothbrush into the toilet. * probably applies equally to non-electric ones, really.

I’m watching Buffy for the first time: Tara’s dead, Willow’s on a murderous dark magic vengeance mission, Buffy and Anya have sped off to stop her, and _still_ Xander manages to make it about him! I just involuntarily shouted “even now you’re being a dick!” at him via the TV but he carried on moping

The beastie has been staying for a few days. Here she is in key warmth-stealing mode.

The government won't tell you that they are fascists, but they will tell you that anti-fascists are their enemies.

Olive branch

yeah, this is hegseth straightforwardly announcing that it is free play time for bigots in the ranks. and together with his comments on standards, he clearly wants to purge as many women, black and brown people as he can from the armed services. a white man's military.

Black people actually did call all of this, so did Indigenous people. White people just thought we were exaggerating because you were fine with the violence toward communities that you thought wouldn't include you. But the thru line from eugenics, bleach, and Ivermectin to here was incredibly clear

I’m often disappointed that there isn’t actually a song for *everything*. My brain is generally very good at finding the appropriate song for any moment (some might say annoyingly) and certainly when alone I sing my way through a lot of life. But somethings need songs and don’t have one.

Yet again, this should be uncontroversial for a politician - taken as read, even. And yet Zack feels like the exception right now.

Trigger warning: boring admin post… I’m beginning to hate Xero (online accounting software) almost as much as I hate MS Teams. I mostly manage to simply not use Teams, but am currently stuck with Xero while questioning its usefulness.

Anyway, here’s a snippet from the beging of Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep? This song (before being rewritten to a single verse for the show) was originally about the Swansea earthquake of a few years ago - I was lying on a sofa in Bridport and everything suddenly felt wobbly.

I feel a bit wired. I think maybe this is the next stage of post-Fringe recovery. Recovered enough to have energy that needs an outlet, but still working out where to put that energy, self-employed work still slow after winding down for the Fringe, and lots of shit is happening in the world.

Underlying everything at the moment is a growing sense of “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRHGGGGHHH!” that I don’t know how to exorcise.

After managing a burst of creativity (recording new vocal parts and bass lines to a bunch of songs) at the weekend, today is Admin Day. I’m using one of my sisters’ recent comments as a mantra “It’s only admin; it can’t hurt me” (though I’m yet to be entirely convinced that it can’t).

The @thedailytism.com ‘s articles, podcast and general dark-humoured approach to tackling to world make me laugh/guffaw/geek-snort on a daily basis (frequently multiple times a day), and provide much-needed light amongst the darkness.

This is terrifying (latest terrifying step in a string of terrifying steps). “Feds march into downtown Chicago; top border agent says people are arrested based on ‘how they look’“ chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Please note that when I post a bunch of things about daily life, or musicing, or baked beans, I am aware of their unimportance but it helps me cope with all the much more important and genuinely horrific things happening in the world right now.

Baked beans are best when cooked down so the sauce thickens up. Added bonus of this is they stay where they’re put on the plate and don’t flow into food items where they’re not wanted. I may combine items with beans on the fork, but this by choice and in a strictly controlled manner.

I did a bold thing and asked someone whose two solo shows I’ve seen and loved if they might be interested in directing me/my show to develop it further, flesh it out, make the messaging clearer (and what their fees are). So of course now I’m really anxious about having asked them & what they’ll say

Ok, I lied about final… I am actually doing a bunch of the admin and planning and thinking necessary to take the show to other places and develop it further. After surviving the Fringe with reasonable success, I need to use the momentum (whilst also only just recovered, a month later!).

Final ramblings on the creativity, wanting people to see my show and listen to my music thing: I am also painfully aware that this is all fiddling while Rome (the world) burns (too often literally).

I’m rubbish at promoting my album. Here’s a flimsy attempt.

I kind of have a fantasy where somehow lots of people discover my music and really like it, and listen to it a lot and buy it - but without me having to work really hard on all the non-fun things that are necessary for that to happen. Similar with getting venues and audiences for the show.

I have an album of "normal" (non-zombie) songs, recorded in between working on zombies and the rest of life. The minor reality that I haven't sold much of the zombie show soundtrack album yet apparently isn't stopping me obsessively rerecording a bassline that's been bothering me, and all the vocals