Laura Hamill

Spark, a dark tortoiseshell cat has hidden under a bookcase in the spare room. Her pupils are wide as she stares out from her hiding place

Close up on the face of Spark, a tortoiseshell cat hiding under a bookcase. Her eyes are wide with concern.

Spark didn’t like having #Carturday visitors #catsofblusky #tortoiseshellcat

Close up of Spark, a tortoiseshell cat, in a pool of sunlight. The right side of her face is mostly ginger, the left mostly black.

Spark, my tortoiseshell girl rules our home

@extraordinarybooks.bsky.social www.thebookseller.com/news/extraor...

My Stepdad’s 81. He’s not on social media after a career’s worth of death threats, conspiracy theories and anger often due to his evidence in support of gun control. But his message about how to stop feeding this cycle of resentful violence is worth hearing. extraordinarybooks.co.uk/book/running...

‘They’re not wolves – they’re sheep’: the psychiatrist who spent decades meeting and studying lone-actor mass killers Paul E Mullen has had a front-row seat to the men behind some of the worst public massacres. He says it’s possible to ‘disrupt the script’ for future violence

The Guardian interviewed my Stepdad about his new book on lone-mass killers www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

Audrey, Too: FFC Interviews Ellen Greene - FILM FREAK CENTRAL by Walter Chaw I was a full-grown man before I understood completely the grace of Audrey. Audrey, as interpreted by the legendary Ellen Greene in Frank Oz’s big-screen adaptation of the Off-Broadway m...

FFC interviews Ellen Greene, star of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and the new short film BEATRIX IS INVISIBLE, by Walter Chaw (@mangiotto.bsky.social). filmfreakcentral.net/2025/11/audr...

At the end of a hallway corridor, Sensei Sergio turns to the camera and raises his fist in a revolutionary salute. He has half descended a staircase set directly in the floor and is about to close the trapdoor. Benicio Del Toro, in a still from ‘One Battle After Another’.

Keep thinking about how Sensei Sergio’s ‘little Latino Harriet Tubman situation’ is ‘All legit. From the heart. No cash’

My home town #nokings

We shouldn’t name mass killers www.crikey.com.au/2019/10/15/c...

We have to deny them celebrity and refuse to name them. We have to deny them their blaze of glory. The men who committed the Australian massacres were locked away. In prison stripes they lose their “evil celebrity” status, and can be as the fearful and confused young men they really are.

Here in Australia, gun control has stopped the copycat shootings but not all mass killings with knives or vehicles. Paul has long argued that gun control is vital but by itself can’t end the cycle of copycat violence which sad, pathetic, isolated young men obsessed with guns follow.

My Stepdad, Paul Mullen, is a psychiatrist, he profiled the lone gunmen behind the Monash Uni, Hoddle Street and Port Arthur mass killings. His book ‘Running Amok: Inside the mind of a lone mass killer’ comes out in a week of almost daily US mass killings. extraordinarybooks.co.uk/book/running...

Spark, a large cat sits on a table bathed in blue light, on a large TV screen the 3 members of Huntrix are floating in the sky.

Spark watched it too

Hours of Ice Cube on Teams, what’s not to like

Bright Star (2009) Abbie Cornish in Bright Star (2009)

I have this overwhelming desire to watch Jane Campions’ ‘Bright Star’ right now and just leave 2025 behind for a couple of hours. #janecampion #BrightStar #athingofbeauty #moviesky m.imdb.com/title/tt0810...

A black and ginger cat stands atop a tall scratching post. Her eyes are wide, her ears are pricked and her tail is out behind her for balance.

Spark her hind legs balanced on top of a tall scratching post leans forward using her paws to catch some small toys on a string hanging from the top of the post.

Spark is agile #caturday #catsofbluesky #tortie

Bob Peck and Joe Don Baker in ‘Edge of Darkness’ 1985.

Vale Joe Don Baker! Loved his work since I first saw him in ‘Edge
Of Darkness’ when I was a teenager.

A grey tabby car crouches low looking intently into a pool hoping to catch the carp that are swimming there. A fuzzy mirror version of the cat looks up from below.

View of part of the main tower of the Alhambra palace symmetrically reflected in the pool of the Patio de los Arrayanes. On the pathway of the right side of the pool a cat is crouching by the pool hoping to catch a carp.

It’s #caturday and I’m on holiday in Spain so here’s a cat I saw today fishing in the reflecting pool at the Alhambra palace #caturday #cat #tabbycat

A woodpecker with green wings, a red crest and a long beak.

Saw a European Green Woodpecker at the Parque del Retiro #woodpecker #bird

A red squirrel prepares to land after leaping across a path. So speedy it’s almost a blur, its ears and tail stream behind it. Its shadow mirrors it from below.

Squirrel #squirrel #redsquirrel

Close up of a tortoiseshell cat her green eyes looking up to the camera. Half her face is ginger, half is black, but both eyebrows are ginger. Her left front paw is forward, it looks like she’s dipped it in a jar of peanut butter.

Spark is a sweetie #caturday #catsofbluesky #tortie

Close up of Spark, a tortoiseshell cat, laying on a blue and white rug in a patch of sunshine

Spark is ready #caturday #catsofbluesky #tortie

Poster for the 1971 Australian film ‘wake in fright’. Tagline reads ‘Outback Have drink, mate? Have a fight, mate? Have a taste of dust and sweat, mate? There’s nothing else out here.’

Australian film recommendation

A tortoiseshell cat glares intently her ears sharply pointed, her eyes cast down with disdain

Spark is unimpressed

That was Winston Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth in 1984

Spark, a tortoiseshell cat is sitting on the edge of a dining table in bright sunshine half of her face is in shadow

Spark is determined #tortoishellcat #cat

A tortoiseshell cat is lying on the top of a striped armchair her gaze slightly downcast.

Spark is moody #caturday #tortitude

Australia’s Increased Risk of Severe Bushfires and their Impact on First Responders’ Health A Monash University-led study of emergency responders’ workers compensation claims from exposure to extreme bushfires (Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 and the Black Summer fires of 2019 and 2020) fou...

The evidence from similar devastating Australian fires in 2009 and 2020 is that there are significant long term effects for first responders www.google.com/url?q=https:...

Cults and mind viruses run rampant. Powerful algorithms hijack our minds. No wonder we all feel so deranged. They say my novels are surreal. But when I watch Elon Musk playing the jester in Donald Trump’s court, I’m not so sure. His latest novel is “Absolution.”

Written before the election. I have found that immersive reading is saving my mind right now. That means without my phone nearby to doom scroll, btw. Immersive reading does not work with constant distraction.

www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

A tortoiseshell cat is asleep lying on her back with her legs in the air showing her black and ginger belly. Her paws are bent like she is doing the dance sequence from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

Spark is not dignified