Hugh Macabre

This is why I mostly avoid reading groups.

Last night I watched the excellent Swedish film Crossing about a Georgian woman searching for her trans niece in Istanbul and it occurred to me that if the Warners/Netflix deal does put the final nail in the coffin of Hollywood then, sad as that is, there is a whole world of other cinema out there.

If I didn’t already have a job I’d be all over this. Fantastic opportunity for someone.

No bother. See you soon some other time hopefully!

“Between four revelatory albums, Maus wrote a book-length dissertation on communication technologies as mechanisms of societal control”. I didn’t realise! We should have organised a joint seminar for after the gig(s).

3 bands and 1030 curfew so we’ll have to start early. I’d say Lacer will kick things off at 8 (at the latest).

M Stevens and the Ghasts gig poster for Curveball Dec 5th

Dublin Music fans: my band are playing Curveball tonight. Passed my PhD viva yesterday so I’ll be celebrating. Probably drunk but I’m on bass tonight so that should be fine. God knows, I’ve done that enough times before.

Kenny’s in particular is great. They tend to have everything, deliver quickly, and are most often cheaper than the Bezos shitshow.

Well I’m glad it’s sold out. Their loss is our gain. See you on Saturday!

I was at a political hustings thing last year where my friend who was moderating opened the Q&A by saying: “I’d like to remind everyone that questions are sentences that begin with words like when, who, why, and what”. Should be standard practice for these events and film fest q&a’s, conferences etc

Thanks Alice!

What’s going on with RTE drive time? It’s bad enough they chopped off a chunk and replaced it with sport but now I turn it on at 5:30 (before the stupid sport starts) and I find they’re just wittering on about Brussel sprouts.

Thanks for the spin Dudley!

To be fair .. they probably couldn’t hear me.

At the “secret” MBV show in Dublin last week Kevin Shields took out an acoustic guitar halfway through and I quipped “oh look, this is like when Dylan went electric” which I thought was hilarious but … they didn’t.

Dinosaur Jr (as well as some of the above).

Fair play. I’m fully Ubuntu’ed and completely dewindowed and deiosed (except for my phone). Required a bit of effort but it feels liberating now.

CURVEBALL: M Stevens & The Ghasts — Button Factory M Stevens & The Ghasts play in Curveball on December 6 th . Having released their second album Sycamore Helicopters in November 2024, The Ghasts spent 2025 playing gigs around Ireland as well a...

Dublin folks … my band have a rare gig coming up …. and I’m playing the bass now, which is my real musical comfort zone buttonfactory.ie/shows/2025/1...

Affinity for Linux? Canva's next big move could reshape the desktop software market Canva is seriously considering porting Affinity to Linux - a move that could transform desktop Linux and challenge Adobe.

If Affinity does this design work immediately becomes viable on Linux. Huge deal.

techcentral.co.za/affinity-for...

via @conignis.bsky.social‬

That’s very cool. I’d pay extra for that.

The queue was shit all right but it added to the nostalgic character of the evening.

Perhaps the greatest ever two line review of a book.

When it was great it was really really great. When it wasn’t, it was kind of a shambles. I loved it.

They didn’t even check our tickets on the way in!

Just been announced … it’s the National Stadium.

Given that tonight I’m going to see the greatest Irish band of the last 30 years do a warm-up gig at an as-yet-undisclosed location in preparation for their first shows in over a decade it’s understandable that I won’t get any work done this afternoon, right?

I read a history of the Spanish Civil War recently and while I thought I had an appreciation of how awful and brutal Franco’s forces were - I really had no idea. Unbelievable stuff.

More seriously though: if Thumped is down where do I get access to the latest rumours about the MBV thing tomorrow night?

At least I now have a proper excuse for why that website I’m supposed to be “fixing” went offline last week.

Is Cloudfare bollixed?