Lines of mountain bike tyres in the thin black towpath mud. Out along the Barnes bank, back by Chiswick. Where previously she scuttled, S now dawdles over the bridges at either end, her gephyrophobia in tentative remission. The river grinds along. Meanwhile, massively still, Christmas distorts everything around it. There are parrots in the trees [...]
Entries from December 2008
December 20, 2008
long-postponed horrors etc
My review of Necromicon, Gollancz’s bumper commemorative HP Lovecraft selection, in the Guardian today.
December 20, 2008
note made 18 years ago
11am St Pancras/Sheffield. A man sleeping across the aisle from me. He has taken off his black leather shoes & put his stockinged feet on the seat opposite. The Daily Telegraph has fallen off the table at his side. Bedford station wakes him up & he opens his briefcase & begins to eat from a [...]
December 15, 2008
various, innit
My review of Sean O’Brien’s first collection of short stories The Silence Room–which I thoroughly enjoyed–will be in the Xmas (print) issue of the TLS, 19th December.
Monsters of Landscape: It turns out that Vivienne Westwood & Hilary Mantel were born & brought up a stone’s throw from one another, in Tintwhistle & Hadfield, 1941 & [...]
December 10, 2008
kira & the pig
Kira O’Reilly will soon be on the road again with her pig, as part of INTERSPECIES. (Thanks, Tim.)
photo: C. Phillips
December 9, 2008
cellular decisions
Why does a junkie quit of his own free will ? You never know the answer to that question. No conscious tabulation of the disadvantages and horrors of junk gives you the emotional drive to kick. The decision to quit junk is a cellular decision, and once you have decided to quit you cannot go [...]
December 6, 2008
this is so weird
I don’t remember setting up a Facebook. Here at the Ambiente Hotel, of course, it’s hard to tell one day from another as they pass in the featureless gloom of senility etc etc; but I’m sure I would remember doing that. I woke up sweating in the night. I thought: what if you have to [...]
December 4, 2008
lovecraft-proof
Earlier this year C, who is 100% a literalist subeditor, managed to get through several HPL stories, including “The Haunter of the Dark” & “The Colour Out of Space”, as bedtime reading, without having a moment’s insomnia or a single nightmare.
“So, this ‘Goat with a Thousand Young’ business,” she says: “What’s scary about that ?”
I [...]
December 3, 2008
dr miserabilis
To tell the truth I have felt a lot chirpier since this recession began. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve got as much to lose as anyone. I expect my living to become more precarious. As the middle-aged establishment tighten their grip on the resources to which they feel especially entitled, I expect [...]
