Phoenix From Hacked Ashes: My New Author's Website
Yesterday, I hit my various social media accounts (Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and Facebook) with the news that I had a new author’s website, which can be...
What Is A Barbecue?
“Words have meanings” is a hackneyed phrase oft deployed by those who would like the world to be simple and neat, and while they’re correct in believing that...
Why Atheists And Theists Are Doomed To Talk Past Each Other
I recently came across a post on Threads that stated the following: Someone said today, "Atheism is also a religion. It is the belief that God does not...
Bluesky vs Threads: A Tale of Two Posts
A while ago, I came across an interesting distinction between the two types of social media network, that being connection-based and interest-based. Put...
On Social Anxiety (SF Convention Version)
A couple of weeks ago, having a made a somewhat fleeting one-day visit to Levitation, the 2024 Eastercon at Telford, I made the following observation: A...
Why My Tesla Is The Best, And Worse, Car I Have Ever Owned
I love my Tesla Model 3. It's a dream to drive, has a bigger battery than our previous car (a Nissan Leaf), and the Supercharger network makes longer...
He Ain't A Third-Level Fighter/Rogue, He's My Brother
My roleplaying group have just started a new Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) 5th Edition campaign with Tom(1) doing the GMing(2). Notes:If you're looking for...
What Everyone Misunderstands About The UK Citizenship Test
It's possibly a failing in me, but hypocrisy angers me more than malevolence. If you're going to be evil, at least have the decency to be honest. Don't try...
The Day I Won A Free Trip On Concorde... The Day Before I Took A Free Trip On Concorde
We never win anything. That's always been the mantra in my family, and while mostly true it does ignore two things: we're in possession of most of the forms...
Why Wanting-To-Be-A-Writer Is A More Popular Hobby Than Playing Dungeons and Dragons
Back in the largely pre-Internet 1980s and 1990s, the British roleplaying community had one big dream: a professional, monthly roleplaying magazine available...
Who Killed Humour SF/F? Why The Genre of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett is Now Dead
A decade or so ago, I attended an Eastercon event where a panel of writers, agents, and publishers advised would-be-writers on the subject of how to get...
Why Writers (But Also Everyone) Should Avoid Stereotyping
According to many Northerners, this man doesn't exist Last week I was back home in London, and one morning I accompanied my mother to the chemist (pharmacy)...
Why A Failed Camouflage Pattern Is Going To Get This Build-A-Bear Killed
A bear (rabbit?) who won't survive five minutes once he hits an active war zone Marx once said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as...
The Saddest Story I Ever Heard
I need to start by saying that this isn't my story; hell it wasn't even the story of the bloke who told it to me. I can't even credit the teller of the...
Vision: The Stuff I Didn't Say In My Previous Post
When I was a teenager, I played a lot of RPGs with my friends*, although calling them "friends" is perhaps stretching it a bit, given that of the four of...
What A Huge Indoor Waterpark Can Teach Us About Vision
My view sitting in a cafe at Tropical Islands resort, imagining I'm in a domed Martian or Lunar city When I was younger, my teachers taught me something I...
Apologies
About half an hour ago, I sent off a post on this newsletter (the first proper once in its new Nazi-free, Buttondown incarnation). And then immediately after...
I Don't Get Lunar Starship (SpaceX's Starship HLS)
For those who don't know, nearly three years ago NASA selected a lunar-landing variant of SpaceX's Starship as the craft to land humans on the Moon as part...
Testing, Testing, One Two Three...
<tap> <tap> Can everyone hear me at the back? Okay, so this is basically a test email to try and figure out how Buttondown works. From my initial experience...
The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back
I will be moving...
