Fresh Eggs from the Mirth Hen...

January, Get Thee Behind Me...

So. Here you are, January, you bloated Monday of a month.

Not wishing to open 2012 on too dour a note, but  this drear January business should be addressed front and centre. January blows. It blows at an Olympic standard (a fitting standard, give all that pish happening in London this coming summer). January is dark mornings, near-perpetual cloud-piss and a full twelve-monther before the too-recently departed midwinter jollity is renewed.

The best we can expect is that it slips by us quickly, or that it snows. Snow is the great absolver of the dull months. A welcome imposition of pure beauty on the flat bleak English winter. Something about the turn of the year leeches the romance from the season. From here it's slog, possibly slush, until Spring shows up.

I, for my part, have some projects - both new and much delayed ones - which may raise a chuckle. Top of the increasingly guilt-inducing List of The Unfinished is the second series of A Disappointment. I've been extended a genuinely humbling degree of goodwill for that first series, and I would love to repay that goodwill by besting those first episodes. Work began last summer on this, in the form of decreasingly legible / comprehensible notes. There are a few new characters on the way. Many things people have liked are in the bin. Much still remains to be pulled out of my arse at the last minute, in the time-honoured fashion. What is certain is that this series will be the last. And that it will contain Evil Bullseye.


I owe some good friends across The Pond a fairytale, too. And I have been quietly chipping away. That's their's to tell you about, though.

Something that is actually, actively, an actual active thing, however, is Series 2 of the award-dodging Soldiers of Tangent with the inimitable, and weapons-grade-awesome, Mr Marty Perrett. It's a dream show, for a lazy bugger like what I am. We do no prep. There's not a great deal of editing. We just turn up on Skype, and talk in spiralling nonsenses until I have to help put Leela to bed. Episode One of this second run is out now, with the second appearing when we feel the urge, which may well be soon. It's a lot of fun. Listen below:

There are a few other bits and pieces looking likely for the next year. I may also find time to eat cakes.

Oh and some bears did a Xmas podcast as well. Using my gear... cheeky...

Anyway, January-miff aside, a Happy New Year to everyone. 2011 contained one highlight of life changing magnitude - the birth of my impossibly wonderful daughter Leela Rose. 2012 will, frankly, have to shit diamonds to beat that.

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ShadowCast Episode 40 'Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams'

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Gug-Shabeth as depicted by Zachary Hunt

The most excellent Jason Warden over at ShadowCast did me the huge honour of asking me to not only read this fantastic story, but host the episode too. David Tallerman's Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams is a delightfully icky helping of surreal dark fantasy. While my horror hosting skills, frankly, have some way to go, I was chuffed beyond measure to hear that Mr Tallerman himself "hadn't entirely realized what a deeply horrible story "Caretaker" is until (he'd) heard it read like that". If you'll permit the momentary self-congratulation, I'll call that job done :)

Actually it's quite a bittersweet time. Jason recently posted that ShadowCast's future imay be in doubt. I, for one, would be greatly saddened to see it go, if it comes to that. Had I the time, I would be honoured to take it on full time, but I have fingers in a whole van load of pies right now, and I just wouldn't be able to do it justice. Here's hoping someone can keep this fantastic venture going.

 

New Narration: Dark Fiction Magazine - 'Xenos Beach' by Graham Joyce

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Furthering my quest to reduce myself to a disembodied voice, whispering disquieting fictions into strangers' ears, the splendid folk over at Dark Fiction Magazine bid me contribute a narration to their latest issue. Graham Joyce's fantastic Xenos Beach recounts one man's attempts to escape from recent heartbreak on a secluded Greek beach, where he encounters something both alluring and unsettling. 

Issue 7 - Sacred Fire - also features such aural wonders as Mark Chadbourn's Who Slays The Gyant, Wounds The Beast, read by that awesome Marty Perrett chap, Liz Williams' The Winter King narrated by Kim Lakin-Smith, and Emma Newman reading Jaine Fenn's Paying for Rain.

And it's all free. So go and lend this fantastic venture your support.


 

 

 

Life in a Tin City

According to Wikipedia, that sparkling island of veracity set in a raging ocean of falsehood / bullplop, 3.4 million Londoners, visitors and assorted moths use the London Underground each day.

I will freely admit I may appear a bit biased in loving James Harper's awesome series of animated shorts Life in a Tin City. I'm in one of them. You may also recognise the voice over the Tannoy in the opening. And James is an old friend, was Best Man at my wedding, and is a long-time co-conspirator. But these are fantastic little vignettes with a brilliant premise - weird stories from random Tube passengers. All high-quality nonsense, written and animated by James.

See all five episodes at the website or the YouTube channel, and follow @lifeinatincity using your preferred Twitter equipment.

A '90's Musical Interlude - Hoffman - 'Dom's Radio Plagiarism'

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Two years ago, I blogged a song by my first band Hoffman (in which I played the bass). High time, perhaps, to post another one - 'Dom's Radio Plagiarism'. This is from the album 'When Badgers Attack', and is from either 1993 or 1994 (I forget which). Odd to hear I used to actually play the bass like a bass a lot more then, as opposed to the Lemmy / Lou Barlow strumming thing I did with The Raudive...

More soon...

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