Al Robertson

A serious Keaton looks at the camera, as he peeks out between two doors.

Remembering Buster Keaton on his birthday 🎂
📷 George Hurrell, c. 1931

"Keaton’s face ranked almost with Lincoln’s as an early American archetype; it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet it was also irreducibly funny."
- James Agee

National Trust members! You have until 2359pm tonight to cast your vote for NT Council.

It's imperative that you use your vote to keep out the Restore Trust entryists!

Long shot (mainly due to how little engagement I get on here), but I'm looking for freelance writers with an interest, or specialism in, classical music.

If you are one, or know one, please give me a shout.

London Backwater, near St Pancras', Woburn Walk by James Finlay Watson (1898–1981)

(Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens)

The image shows Alison and Donna-Marie standing indoors in Westminster Hall; a large, historic hall with high wooden ceilings, arched windows, and stone walls. Alison is wearing a red patterned jacket, a black dress, and a poppy pin. Donna-Marie has long blonde hair and is wearing a black dress with colorful floral embroidery and an orange “VISITOR” lanyard. In the background, several people are walking around, and a sign points toward a gift shop and café.

The government has decided to withdraw funding that enables state colleges like Varndean to teach the International Baccalaureate.

Today Varndean’s Principal Donna-Marie Janson joined me in Parliament to demand that the government reconsider.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FeD...

A thread about how artists are treated more like a natural resource to be mined by others, rather than as valued workers in the industries based on their work.

A copy of Darkened Hill & Dale is propped up in a churchyard. The cover depicts an ominous rural valley scene.

The handouts folder that's included with Darkened Hill & Dale. An array of handouts fans out inside an A5-ish folder, which has a list of contents printed inside its cover. Please note that the bookmark is not included as standard.

If you'd like a copy of Darkened Hill & Dale AND are attending World Fantasy Con in Brighton later this week, you can avoid shipping costs and collect it from me in person there!

Use code WFC2025 at checkout by Thurs lunchtime, and I'll be in touch to arrange a handover. 😎📦
shop.patchworkfez.games

You know when Terry Pratchett said 'It doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works'? Yeah, he meant this.

'A Lambeth Alley' (1920s) by Douglas Percy Bliss

(Private collection)

I for one would watch the hell out of Slow Muppets. This is an idea of genius!

Dusk in the pouring rain at Bank station in London. Reflections in puddles. A few bedraggled figures make their way to and from the Tube

Home through the rain (1969)
Artist: John Berry

Victorian drawing of a blindfolded man with long black hair and a tight suit with red boots prancing around a stage littered by eggs.

Baron Nathan, the celebrity dance teacher of the 1850s who danced the hornpipe blindfolded, surrounded by eggs. There's something SO malevolent about this image. It's powerfully frightening.

The Haunted Landscape 2025: Ghosts, Magic and Lore
22 November 2025 10 am - 5 pm
@conwayhall.bsky.social and online

Jeremy Harte: The Devil in Church
'a dragon, a fiend, a black pig or dog'

www.conwayhall.org.uk/whats-on/eve...
4/10

@reaktionbooks.bsky.social @strangeattractor.bsky.social

THE WAY THE PAGAN GODS ARE HALF REMEMBERED HERE FIRE POEM, Berlin | Robert Montgomery

www.robertmontgomery.org

Whiz Comics #133, featuring Captain Marvel being turned into a witch on the cover. He is still wearing his usual costume but has on a black witches hat and black robe and is holding a broom.

Cover by Pete Costanza.

Cliffs near Dieppe - 1882
https://botfrens.com/collections/41/contents/9730

'A Window in St John's Wood' (c.1932) by Harold Knight

(Glasgow Museums Resource Centre)

“Make Brexit work” by raising taxes to stem the ongoing losses.
Slavish devotion to failed ideology has a very high price.

beyond sad about the death of D'Angelo. Voodoo completely changed music for me. Ended up writing a thing about it this evening:
www.stevelawson.net/2025/10/dang...

I’ll be speaking at the fantastic Haunted Landscape in London again this year.

Always a wonderful event. Come and join me @conwayhall.bsky.social - details below

We have just joined BlueSky! Since our foundation in 1880, we have reproduced an unrivalled selection of historic maps, plans and views of London. We also publish books and monographs containing original research. See more of what we have to offer at: londontopsoc.org

This photo of Robert Bloch is the most writer photo to have ever writer photo’d. It is Pure Writer Photo.

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins: Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright (Not sure if I spelled that right) What immortal hand or eye Could fashion such a stripy guy? What the hammer that hath hewn it Into such a chonky unit? Did who made the lamb make thee, Or an external franchisee?

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

‘Somerset saved my sanity’: Don McCullin at 90 – in pictures Don McCullin spent decades photographing war and carnage across the globe – then he retrained his lens on the Somerset countryside. As he turns 90, a new book celebrates his gorgeous still lifes and l...

Somerset saved my sanity. Don McCullin at 90 in pictures.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/oct/09/somerset-saved-my-sanity-don-mccullin-at-90-in-pictures

The reason the Right are so invested in the myth that the arts have no value isn’t because the arts don’t generate wealth (they do); it’s that studying the arts teaches people to imagine better ways of judging the value of an idea than by counting how much money it makes…

It's a dream I always have.

Filippo Lippi's wonderfully strange double portrait, 1440. He's not looking at her but into the empty space behind her. Her sleeve spells Faithful - but to whom? Great enigmas on Lippi's day.

Black and white cartoon. A room with several dead cats. A microscope and whiteboard with equations. A detective speaking to a policeman in the doorway. "Notice all the computations, theoretical scribblings, and lab equipment, Norm. ... Yes, curiosity killed these cats."

Curiosity killed the cats.

Gary Larson, FarSide

John Northcote Nash • The Storm •

A bingo card for the ghost stories of M.R. James. Boxes read: "Spiders Terrible hotel stay Narrator makes fun of golf Latin passages Eerie disembodied voices Confirmed bachelor main character Vengeful spirit Evil magician Working-class character as comic relief Bleak East Anglian coast Visit to an archive Narrator in guidebook mode FREE SPACE Unholy doings in a church Frogs or toads Queen Anne style house Cursed artifact Don't buy that rare book! Something hairy and horrible Someone gets too curious Tentacles Story told via old manuscript Research trip gone horribly wrong Beds are scary Tactile horror

I couldn't resist. #pleasingterror