George Daniel Lea/ExaggeratedElegy

a man with a beard wearing a suit and tie ALT: a man with a beard wearing a suit and tie

Andy Serkis as Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Renoir may be the most brilliant performance in the history of the medium. When the writing's this brilliant, it deserves nothing less.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Haven't cried so much owing to a video game for a long, long time.

YouTube video by Arbitor Ian EVERY 40k FACTION IS BAD and HERE'S WHY! Warhammer 40,000 Lore

Arbitor Ian just gets this setting down to its marrow. He's certainly one of the most considered and erudite voices out there in 40K spaces.

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YouTube video by Sandfall Interactive Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Alicia [Official Music Video]

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Blog Posts My time amongst the Engines, my years sweating amongst the stinking, steam and shit dreams of others... Barely remembered, now, save in the vaguest sense; as images, as impressions: moments of...

If you want a taste of the kinds of stories I write, please check out the Strange Playgrounds blog. Lots of stories and scraps of poetry available over there. Looking at bringing it back more consistently in the new year.

www.strangeplaygrounds.com/blog/previou...

YouTube video by The Fluffenhammer Podcast The Fluffenhammer Ep 174 - Big Hats, Small Gods

An episode of The Fluffenhammer in which Adam Nicol and myself discuss metaphysics in the Warhammer 40K universe and Age of Sigmar.

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YouTube video by ExaggeratedElegy Let's Play Silent Hill F, FINALÉ: To Thine Own Self Be True.

Woah. And that's only the standard ending. There are at least three more.

To say I'm shocked they managed to bring it home is an understatement.

Silent Hill is back, and arguably smarter, deeper, more transgressive than it ever was.

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YouTube video by ExaggeratedElegy Strange Playgrounds Halloween Special (2025): Knightmare Series 1

For the Sunday morning crowd, an enthusiastic retrospective on series 1 of the iconic UK series, Knightmare.

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YouTube video by ExaggeratedElegy Strange Playgrounds Halloween Special (2025): Knightmare Series 1

A bit of heady nostalgia for this Halloween evening: A look at the first series of a children's show that enthralled -and traumatised- a generation here in the UK: Knightmare.

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That's one of the many, many commentaries it draws. A very, very difficult watch, but an essential one, in our current political climes.

Its commentaries on imperialism, jingosim and nationalistic narrative in general are stark, pitiless and without ambiguity: Such things destroy us. They lead us to destroy ourselves. They drive us mutually mad and con us into celebrating that madness.

YouTube video by ExaggeratedElegy What The Hell Is Wrong With Us? The Terror

Re-watching the TV adaptaion of Dan Simmons's The Terror for the first time in quite a few years. Not only had I forgotten what an insanely brilliant production it is, but also how harrowingly bleak.

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YouTube video by ExaggeratedElegy Let's Play Silent Hill F, Part 13: Ow.

It was bleak and psychologically troubling before. Now it's going places I sincerely did not anticipate. Hooray for the return of the smart, incisive, transgressive Silent Hill game.

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George Daniel Lea: books, biography, latest update Follow George Daniel Lea and explore their bibliography from Amazon's George Daniel Lea Author Page.

Both my Mother and my boss have read my work.

Seriously don't know how to feel about that.

www.strangeplaygrounds.com

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This is ours too; we have a concept of Britain that's so much more historically valid, culturally fluid, deviant and progressive than you can conceive, and we do not allow you that imagined territory.

No, it dares to say: We should not cede national narrative and mythology to right-wing forces. We do it too often instead of telling them:

It's an amazingly transgressive piece of work (Stephen's fantasies about the local milk man become quite lurid at points), with a set of core principles that are absolutely essential in today's climate:

A spirit and demon-haunted realm closer to the Britain of Blake and Elgar (and, by the by, far closer to genuine history than the myths contrived by conservative forces).

However, as the plot rolls on, he finds every assumption and delusion of his identity broken down, piece by piece: He's nascently homosexual, adopted and discovers a concept of Britain that's entirely at odds with reactionary narrative:

It features one of the most incisive deconstructions of prescribed nationalism and conservative narrative I have ever seen in fiction. Protagonist Stephen starts as a hyper-conservative reactionary, a shrill and blinkered creature who can't stand for the myths he cleaves to to be challenged.

You need to watch this. I only saw it for the first time last year, and I'm still not over it. This was broadcast into UK homes at prime-time during 1974, as a "Play For Today."

And boy, do they hate that. It reveals something fundamental in their souls that they truly are ashamed of. They get petulant and nasty in the way of a spoiled, entitled child trying to shift blame or divert attention from their behaviour.

They just gift themselves gratis, because they affect the right songs, target the right scapegoats. It's pathetic. I just call them serfs now, because that's what they are; authoritarian little serfs who masochistically love the feeling of Master's boot in their faces.

Sincerely, it's the kind of response that makes me think: These people deserve Farage. They deserve to be fleeced to the fucking marrow by the monsters they don't even sell themselves to, because they're not getting anything back:

But, on a wider note, their logic is that of an infant: "We jumped in this cesspool and didn't like it. We jumped in this cesspool and didn't like it. So, let's try jumping in this other, deeper, more toxic cesspool and see if we like that better."

As though he's some unknown quantity, as though we don't already know what a grifting, traitorous, narcissistic sack of shit Nigel Farage is already.

One of the most moronic arguments I've come across from Reform cultists goes something like: "The Tories screwed us over, Labour are screwing us over. Let's give Nigel Farage a chance!"

Trumpism is fascism but it is post-ideological fascism, fascism as pure form, emptied of content. To the extent it has any content, it is hopeless, despairing, vengeful nihilism. This is fascism as it appears after the neoliberal cultural counter-revolution reduced politics to process & structure.

YouTube video by ExaggeratedElegy What The Hell Is Wrong With Us? The Thief of Always

Hard to beat The Thief of Always as a Halloween read.

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All that matters is how far their faithful cultists are willing to go in order to justify them. And, believe me, in both the US and UK,, I haven't seen the bottom of that particular abyss yet.