gateways to horror: the watch house by robert westall

  What was the first thing that scared you? The answer to that question is no doubt buried deep in your subconscious and could be almost anything. What was the first thing you sought out because you wanted to be scared? That should be easier…

time for a change; the death of a decade

  Between the ages of 14 and 16 or thereabouts, the things I probably loved the most – or at least the most consistently – were horror (books and movies) and heavy metal. These loves changed (and ended, for a long time) at around the…

chosen ones and dark lords and everything in between

To start with, this was mostly about books, and I think it will end that way too. But it begins with a not terribly controversial statement; hero worship is not good. And the greatest figures in the fight for human rights or human progress of…

music in quarantine: march 2020

  This is another roundup of new music that seemed interesting enough to me to check out. Not, you might think, an ideal time to be releasing a new album; and yet, with the majority of music sales, despite the resurgence of vinyl, still being digital…

The Third Monthly Report: March 2016

By this point, 2016 has started to develop its true character, mainly based on famous people dying and political and religious extremism: halcyon days! Ah well, never mind, I’ve listened to, looked at and read lots of things which passed the time pleasantly and helped…

The First Monthly Report: January 2016

  Along with some tragic deaths, abysmal weather and so forth, 2016 began with lots of good stuff, some of it inevitably acquired at christmas, like for instance… FREZNO by Tony Stamolis (Process Books, 2008) Frezno is great partly because photographer Tony Stamolis’ hometown Fresno is, or appears…

Woman Power! Ms Marvel & 1970s ‘Farrah Fawcett Feminism’

Problem: It’s the 70s, you are editor-in-chief for Marvel Comics, the biggest (or joint-biggest) comicbook publisher in the USA. Your readers are mostly fairly young; you want to move with the times. Your top titles regularly receive mail from female readers who want to feel represented,…