After five episodes of this new Doctor that were often heavily freighted with political overtones, moral messages and Social Justice Warrior battles, it was extremely refreshing to get episode 6, Kerblam, that had almost nothing political about it at all. Except it did. The political bit got snuck in during the last maybe 5 minutes, and provided a glorious reversal that I hadn’t seen coming. Also – despite it being set in the future – it echoed the historical appeal of Luddism beautifully. Plus it mocked/tore up/tipped its hat at Amazon. I enjoyed it very much. Image from BBC The …
Dinner with mom @ Pierre Victoire
Since coming back to the UK 4 years back we’ve had one go-to French restaurant – Savoire Faire, on the edge of Soho near the British Museum. This past Friday I figured we should try a new place, and found Pierre Victoire, which is ranked 522 of London restaurants but #2 in Northern London for French restaurants. Which is #1? Of course, it is Savoire Faire! We were getting together to celebrate Karen’s birthday, so mom, Karen, me and Su. We gave Karen some cosmetics stuff from Neal’s Yard. We had a good chat about mom’s adventures in the day …
Red Dead Redemption 2 Review – I feel guilty when I don’t play…
Red Dead Redemption 2 has sucked me in. I’m a recent re-convert to console gaming. In my 20s I had an X-box and played Halo and Rock Band (see this post here for rocking-out awesomeness and me with hair) with friends round at my house with pizza and beers. Then I entered my 30s, coupled up, and the gaming largely stopped. A year ago I bought an X-Box wanting to play The Last of Us, the zombie epic. I played a little, but struggled with the 1st person controls and couldn’t kill the zombies. I also bought The Witcher, but …
Office lunch chit-chat
Today I felt a bit giddy and chatted to my co-workers at lunch instead of buzzing off to the library to do some writing. Topics covered included: K (redacted) the opera singer talking about not liking any musicals except maybe Meet Me At St. Louis (which I don’t like) A who’s studying for a PhD decrying the Harry Potter phenomenon as only for kids (and me pushing back HARD with reference to Alice in Wonderland being for kids but beloved by adults) D telling me about the lemon drizzle cake he made for his kid, because I’m interested in baking …
Cat queue
We lock the boys (our cats) in a little after it gets dark, and they’re still adjusting to this as darkfall has gotten earlier. Especially as it’s colder, they tend to lounge around all day in the house, then want to go out at night. This is what that looks like. Very patient.
Writing Update 2018 week 46
For the past 2 weeks I’ve been a little jammed up around the 50,000 word mark on my thriller book 2. I’d write a chapter or two forward, then go back and wonder if it was the right move or not. Go back 3 or 4 chapters and reconsider. A major character dies. It’s a big blow, and takes some real thinking to know if I’m set on it. Now that jam is cleared. We just spent 10,000 words on a plane. I find in writing these thrillers that there’s a lot of time spent in transit. The transit time …
Lincoln cat follows
Lincoln cat always follows us into the park. It’s the cutest thing – he wants to see where we’re going, he just wants to be with us – but it’s also a big worry because dogs roam with their leashes off in the park. He’s been chased and almost bitten before. This time dogs were approachng and he was just sitting there looking the other way. I picked him up and walked hm out, but he jumped free when a little dog came running, and hid under a van. Cute, but a worry.
Doctor Who series 11 episode 5 – Demons in the Punjab review
I’ve seen some reviewers charging that Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who is too fluffy and doesn’t engage with weighty issues. When I read that, I can’t help but scoff. What on Earth are they talking about? Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who is absolutely a Social Justice Warrior of the very best, foremost class. Thus far she has taken on the very real issues of: Racism and Jim Crow in the Rosa Parks era – as well as in the far future The evils and stupidity of guns The terrible cost of fascist dictatorships (destroying whole worlds) The very fact that she is …
Indie Guides: How to get a great book cover artist
As a self-publisher for 5 years now, with fourteen novels, two short story collections and a non-fiction book of my Japan ruin adventures, you can bet I’ve commissioned a lot of book covers, and thus have a lot of experience (even wisdom?) I can pass along. Added all together that’s 17 covers commissioned, right? Well, not exactly. I think I’ve taken just about every route to a cover that is possible, including making one of them from scratch myself. So then that’s 16 covers commissioned? No again, because my three cyberpunk I’ve had re-made FOUR times (count ’em, for five …
Hanging with thriller authors + doing research
On Monday night I went to the First Monday Crime group, which meets at City University, and is sponsored by the MA course they run in only writing thriller novels. I checked out the course website. It says something like- The only MA course which allows you to complete a full novel! That’s an odd boast. I don’t need someone to allow me to write a novel. I can write a novel whenever I want. I don’t need your permission! Anyway, there were some speakers. Fiona Cummins who wrote Rattle. I read the first few pages in advance and thought …