Shores of Night

Okay, so this is the week that I got my last mark for my MA - I only did two modules this year, next year I'll do three, probably Screenwriting as my final option and then I'm into the compulsory modules of Reading Into Writing and the Dissertation, which I'm planning to do about fear and it's power. For my Fiction mark I got a 62. It's dependent on the exam board but it means that I've got two marks in the 60s - so two commendations. As a result I'm starting to put very tentative feelers out about doing a PhD in English - I know what I'd want to do it on and I'm starting to think that I'd be quite good at it. I should be able to get fee waivers, so as long as I can line up work to pay the bills I think it's possible. I'm hoping to hear good news on that front soon. Today I've sent three stories off to see if I can get them published. Crows has gone to Corvus magazine (who published the Letter last year). I've sent Six Circl...

Sorry for the quietness on the blog front, I've been feeling low and frankly I've either been too tired or too pissed off to do any blogging. Fuck it though, its Friday, I have perry, pizza and I'm listening to Youtube (is that the right term, I'm never sure). Also I've just read Phonogram volume 2, the Single's Club which is set at an Indie Night that only plays music by bands that have female singers. Let's talk about female singers and bands, particularly on the Goth scene (because, you know, Gothical). 1) Siouxsie and the Banshees: Spellbound The first Banshees song I can remember really paying attention to, probably because of Eve, Spellbound makes me so happy. Siouxsie Sioux's voice is like a wall of sound, it's everywhere, dominating the song. The lyrics bring back those terrible nights when anything could happen; when the dark wasn't your friend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9otg_Cm50RE 2) All About Eve: Outshine the Sun ...

I grabbed this game yesterday on the recommendation of Mavis Cruet of Stormy Port Games and played a couple of games of it last night with Eve and Emma. We set the game up and started to play, only pausing to watch a Youtube video when we were stumped by the commerce section of the game. Other than that it seemed quite an easy play with only a few areas where the things weren't clear. That said the rules weren't very well translated in places, that's why we went looking for the Youtube video in the first place. The goal of the game is to build an ancient civilisation. You select a, or draw, a wonder to build, which varies in difficulty. The pyramids of Giza are more difficult to construct than the Lighthouse at Alexandria for instance, but you're rewarded with more points when you complete the wonder if it's harder to build. The game can function without trying to build a wonder though - in the second game we played Emma didn't even try to build her'...

We all have these, songs that mean something to us, that bring back memories of good times or bad times, or that we use in certain ways. I don't know if I'm odd in that I listen to darker music when I feel low to the stuff I'll put on when I'm happy. The alternative just doesn't work for me at all. I'll chuck these songs into two camps, emotional and chronological. The two are linked of course... Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Lime Tree Arbour This is the song we had played at our wedding and I think it really encapsulates a sort of grown up love, which is something Nick Cave's very good at. One of the reason's I like his work is that it's very far away from the juvenile posturing you used to see on Top of the Pops (yes that dates me, so what?). This song is very simple, but it really defines how I feel about my beloved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd2OYpzF_8A The Mission: Wasteland When we first started going out Eve gave me a mix tape...

Shameless stolen from Jonathan Green's blog, I thought I'd post this:   http://steampunkworkshop.com/nine-novels-defined-steampunk?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SteampunkWorkshop+%28The+Steampunk+Workshop%29 It's a list of nine novels that define steampunk as a literary genre and it's interesting to see what makes the list. I feel it very much underscores the differences between the genre and the subculture.

I love the city I live in, over the past decade it's become my home. I love the buildings, the strange mixture of old and new; the way the Digbeth Dalek dominates the view as you approach the city centre. The old Victorian brick of end of Corporation Street with the law courts fills me heart with joy as I walk down it every morning, it's so beautiful. I love the old buildings, though criminally I hadn't realised how much of the city's architectural heritage remained until I visited Leeds (where you're hemmed in by old buildings). I even have a soft spot for the old library, which is a big slab of Brutalist architecture, an industrial ziggurat reaching up into the sky. In addition to that the location feels so much better than where I lived before, for someone who's Chinese horoscope suggests a need for water in my surroundings I really don't miss the sea (but then I lived in Southport, I never saw the blessed thing!) and I like the feeling of being central...

Tonight's gaming was board gaming, as our Shadowrun GM wanted a week off to take stop after the first part of Harlequin, which we completed last week. So we played Great Fire of London and Pandemic, and it was the first time I'd played either of them. My initial thoughts on Great Fire of London are that it's a good game but a little difficult, with hard choices for the players. It felt very easy to lose your pieces to the blaze because it was very hard to be everywhere at once. I think you have to take the view you'll lose some buildings and hope for the best, though it was a little galling to lose one of the special buildings I had to protect in the first round, though I did feel a bit better when I used my last move in the game to destroy the last of the six point buildings. Pandemic was a different kettle of fish, I'm not really sure I enjoyed it and can't put my finger on why. The game seemed a little pointless, and whilst I liked the co-op style of pl...