Just a quick note to say that an anthology with one of my stories, Green and Grey, is out now! You can find it here: Weird Ales , and I'm the lead story, so I'm very proud of that.
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Day 30 Recently I saw an article on Facebook, which was all about the trouble with torties , the attitude that Tortoiseshells often have that leads them to present a challenge to their humans. They have a reputation for being 'difficult', and are seen as being temperamental, or having 'catitude'. As I've known two Torties quite well, both of the explosion in a paint factory variety, I thought I'd throw my tuppence into the ring. The first Tortie I knew was Catkins, my parents' third cat, who we got when I was twelve. Kins was a little bundle of fluff, with fast paws and a keen sense of adventure. She was no bigger than your hand when we got her, only nine weeks and full of vim. From the very start, she was my Dad's cat, devoted to him, no matter how much she liked the rest of us. She would lie on his legs every evening, a long furry sporran that reached below his knees when she stretched out. Over time, we would learn she was what they called a...
Day 29 I love, love, love animated films and TV, more than I like live action stuff actually. There's something about animation that lets me suspend my disbelief that much easier, and just enjoy what's on the screen. It's as if part of my mind cuts out and I can just watch without anything getting in the way, whereas the only way I can watch live action stuff these days, except in the cinema, is if I go into 'highly observant mode', looking for the choices the creators have made to support their creations through the sets, colours, and so on. That's one reason I'm obsessed with the shoes are meant to signify in Pacific Rim , there's so much about them that they must be significant. It's also why I like Jaws and the original Wicker Man ; nothing in either of those films is wasted. I've put together a little list of my favourite Anime, most of it films. Next week, to keep the blog going, I'll do a similar thing with western animation. ...
Day 28 I have a theory, a piece of whimsy really, that all cats are decorated before they're born. There are great production lines where angels, or spirits, or whatever, paint designs onto pure white cats. They check ear and tail sizes, put big paws on little legs and so on. Sometimes they get mixed up, adding ears far too large to a kitten head, or a tail that's too long or short. Too many mistakes and Quality Control will get involved but 'God works in mysterious ways' covers most contingencies; certainly enough maintain good P.R. on Earth. Their real work, however, is in decorating and here we find the great production lines coming into play as cats are sent down the various conveyor belts to be painted. Some remain as they are, pure white. Others are simply painted all one colour, black, or grey, or any number of other kitty shades. They are simple paint jobs, the kind awarded to the newest members of the team. There's no real art to it, just a quick ...
Day 27 My current work in progress is a project rather nebulously labelled as 'Forest Brides', and I began working on it in 2009. That's not to say that I'm exactly dragging my feet, but I wrote the first story back then and had no intention of going any further with it. Sacrifices was meant to stand alone, a short story with nothing else attached (though it's more of a novelette, to be honest). It concerns a woman who's sacrificed to appease a god and the discovery that everything her culture believes about the deity is wrong. The story grew out of a few ideas, including a sexual fantasy and the idea that if the world thinks you're dead then you know true freedom and can shape yourself as you choose. Slowly everything grew together, though, for a long time, it was too explicit and ended up needing a lot of editing to make it fit for purpose. Once I got the story fixed and believing at the time that it was a novella I sent it to Sam Stone to see if Te...
Day 25 It's 2012, and I'm sitting at a gaming table with friends. We aren't playing, just talking about media that's coming out. We talk about Prometheus , and I say I don't want to see it, that the trailer hasn't sold me on the film. One of my peers tells me I have to go and see it. Mentally I backtrack to something I'd heard China Mieville say at a signing only a couple of weeks before; that geeks are frightened that failing to support something will mean that nothing geeky will ever be made again, SF, Horror, and Fantasy will just sheer off into the outer darkness and we'll see nothing but rom coms and detective films for the rest of our lives. This is the moment that I realise he's right, that geekdom can be small and petty as well as open and expansive, that for some reason I'm meant to suspend my ability to reason because 'ooh pretty'. I feel as if I might as well burn my (nonexistent) geek card and move onto something else. T...
Day 24 Today I'm going to talk about Peter Abelard, a monk of all things and a man who lived in the Early Middle Ages. Perhaps not the most obvious choice of person for me to get excited about, especially as I'm not a Christian. What interests me in the case of Abelard is that he was a rebel and was described as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century" by The Chambers Biographical Dictionary and that his rebellion took a particular form. Educated at the great Notre Dame cathedral school in Paris, Abelard was bright, and would often provoke fights with his tutor, William of Champeaux. Eventually, Abelard would go on to set up a rival school, first at Melun, and later closer to Paris at Corbeil. He knew Anselm, the famous Archbishop of Canterbury, who today is probably most famous for using logic to prove the existence of God, and rose in 1115 to become the master of the Notre Dame school, though this did not last long. So far, so succes...
Or if you prefer, the Misappropriation of Geek. Day 23 - yes this is yesterday's post, honest really guv'nor. In the past couple of decades, something has happened to the status of geek culture. It's been shuffled out of the shadows and onto centre stage. While not held up as great literature, comic book characters are far more accepted and to an extent the idea that 'they're for children' has vanished as TV shows and movies based on these characters become ever more common. On TV it feels as if Fantasy and SF shows are more hotly pursued, with showrunners and executives all looking for the next Game of Thrones or Agents of SHIELD (or whatever). Not being a TV watcher it's hard for me to judge the content of these and there's always an element of 'more power to your elbow' if the current crop of shows are what you're after. I'm sure they're no worse than the likes of Firefly or Farscape, etc, from the later part of the last cen...
Day 22 I love comedy, especially radio comedy (I don't watch television). I've grabbed some of my favourites for today's blog. I should warn you that some of these are quite political (I like that sort of comedy, along with some of the more surreal material out there). Because I'm trying for brevity, a lot of these are clips from The Now Show , I don't feel it's fair to post too many long things, though there is a half hour programme second from bottom. Susan Calman One of my favourites, Susan Calman is funny, pithy, and weird. She talks about giving her cats middle names and playing dress up with them, along with the Prime Suspect Day joke she played on the Tesco Man. This is actually her discussing Scottish politics for BBC Radio 4's The Now Show , John Finnemore Another radio comic I love, John Finnemore is one of the most talented people I know of, doing sketches, a sitcom based on an airline (now sadly no longer with us), an...
Day 21 Just to blow my own trumpet for a second, here are links to the places I've guest blogged in the last couple of months. First off I've cribbed a couple of pieces for Jed Phoenix, one on Gothic fashion in the mainstream, and the other on the book I want to write, looking at Goths and their stories as I travel a circuitous route about the UK, Europe, and America. My Book Goth in the Mainstream I've also written a couple of introductions to two subcultures for Theresa Derwin, over at Terror Tree. The first, Brassed Off , is an introduction to Steampunk, and I throw some of the things I'm concerned about into it. The second, Welcome to the Dark Side does the same with Goth. Hope you enjoy them, and I feel I should say that I'm always happy to guest blog on appropriate sites... Rather good at being opinionated, truth be told.
Day 20 Today I'm going to tell you how we got Dita, our brindle tortoiseshell cat. She's lived with us about eight years and is a cute beast, who seems to have comic timing and a tendency towards burlesque. The story actually begins with Hobbes, we were worried that he was lonely when we went out, in part because he's one of those cats who likes to go about with you. He used to trot up to the bus stop with us, dogging (sorry catting) our heels. The problem was that once we were on the bus, he would stay there all day. We came home to answer phone messages from concerned people, worried that he was just waiting, and waiting for us. You'd think that as a former stray he would have more sense, but no. Bless his little white paws. We didn't know at the time that he had lots of friends about the place and were worried. In addition, Eve wanted a cat of her own, having been fooled by Hobbes' pretence at a sedate nature when we first met him; cat flu with do that...
An approachable book, When Someone You Love is Kinky is a basic primer to alternative sexuality (specifically kink) by Dossie Easton and Catherine A Liszt and serves not to introduce the people involved in this sort of erotic experience but their friends and families. As such it is very gentle, easing the reader into the subject matter, taking the time to debunk myths and to offer reassurance that engaging in kink activities is not a one way ticket to the morgue. Beginning with a basic introduction, which not only talks about the community, but also how we got here, and how the idea that sex is one thing and one thing only (penetrative, foreplay light, man on top etc, etc) came to pass. They discuss language, and how BDSM has its own specific terms, which may seem baffling to the beginner, or to people outside the community. There's a chapter dedicated to safety, to discussion and negotiation, which while it touches on things like safewords (a concept I fear is so esoter...