Lessons learned in Portugal ( Read more... )

Around this time last year, sharplittlteeth and I came up with NaMoWriMo - National Moustache Writing Month. Somehow 12 months has managed to fly in the space of three, maybe four, and here we are again. I've taken way too long to write this and it's a lot longer than I expected it to be. Go read David's effortlessly cool contributions, then come back here and ( Read more... )

If they ever do a biopic of George Carlin, I think Our Russ is a shoe in for the title role.


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There's a Twitter short story competition happening at the moment and I've been throwing in a few entries. Thought I'd post here what I've submitted thus far. Some are better than others, but it's an interesting exercise ( Read more... )

It seems to me that the 80s and 90s were a time so similar to ours that if a film is set in these times, several things need to happen in order to convince viewers that what they're watching isn't current ( Read more... )

The TV ads for games on the Wii here end with the words "only on Wii". Except the way they're run together makes it sound like "only ennui".


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I think it's a shame that the rumours about Lady Gaga being a hermaphrodite are proving false. Considering that pop stars have been striving for androgyny since, well, since there were pop stars this would have made Gaga a real 21st Century pop icon. No race. No gender. Only sound. Intersex superstar ( Read more... )

I've been thinking about brevity a lot lately. Brevity in writing, writing for impact. I've always been fairly sparse with my writing, something I've constantly struggled with ("more descriptions, please"), but lately I've been paying this a lot more attention. Partly because I'm working on a project with a friend who leans in the opposite ( Read more... )

I'm reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard BookAt the start of it the main character, a small boy, is given some food by his carer. The food is unfamiliar to him and he has trouble eating. The first offering is "beetroot-barley-stew-soup" accompanied by "large lumps of raw onion, beetroot and tomato, all in a thick vinegary dressing ( Read more... )

I've had an iPod for a few years now, certainly fewer than most people. I listen to music and quite a lot of podcasts. Recently I've been worried that this constant stimulation is interfering with my creativity. I only find myself drifting on rare occasions and most of what used to be daydreaming time is now listening time. What used to be time ( Read more... )