Ray Newman

A poster for the film with lots of red and portraits of lost of the cast.

Now watching: ’A Queen's Ransom’, dir. Ting Shan-hsi, 1976. George Lazenby plays an Irish republican terrorist plotting to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to Hong Kong. 🎥🎬

It's like a normal playtime but wet.

£1.99 in a charity shop.

[Video description: An LP with the BBC tapes and records logo spinning.]

Ms. Harris, my fifth year P.E. teacher, totally got it. She let me sit in the Sports Centre foyer reading Joseph Conrad.

Me holding a copy of The Seen and the Unseen by Rory ffoulkes in my hand.

I've got the new @pgwodelouse.bsky.social – have you?

In my secondary school,
if you forgot PE kit, you got sent to the library as “punishment”.
Closed the loophole eventually…

Honestly the best days of the year.

BlueSky: the social media network for kids who were excited when it was a Wet Playtime.

Fiction. 10 stories, including one about a haunted Mellotron.

It is! Will investigate.

In general? Or is it a specific podcast or something? The first story in Municipal Gothic is about *a* Black Dog.

Hashtag multipronged marketing blitz.

You can *hear* a sneak preview of one of Ray's new stories in series 5 of the Listen with Other podcast. Very excited to read this new collection! listenwithother.co.uk

The new book is brewing up nicely. In the meantime, do buy these. 👇

“‘J-Horror’ at first encompassed anything Japanese and horrific... It was less a genre than a pragmatic shorthand for fans cobbling together watchlists. [It later became pinned] to a narrower original canon of atmospheric, supernatural shinrei-mono-eiga like Ring and Ju-on.”

I have just seen someone post the phrase “forcive habit” so that’s me done for today I think

Tall pale grass against a bright blue sky.

A signpost pointing to Loxton, Weston Super Mare, Rooksbridge and Bristol.

BlueSky. 📷

Eton mess was better but I didn't mind the Babybel at all.

Babybel had more character than I expected. Eton mess was excellent.

Had both a Babybel and Eton mess for the first time today.

Creative writing lectures and received wisdom: If you're going to have supernatural or science fictional elements in the story, signal them early.

Almodovar: Just around the third act Imma add a scene of telekinesis which will be accepted by the characters and never mentioned again in the film.

A hardback book - Murder On Location. The cover photo features a clapperboard on which various murder weapons are arranged - a gun, a knife, a syringe, some bullets. Also sat on the board, a mannequin head wearing a wide-brimmed hat and red scarf.

The flyleaf blurb for the book 'Nobody had to tell George Kennedy that shooting a movie was hard work. But it wasn't the early calls, endless retakes or life on location in Mexico that got to him. it was murder. One bizarre murder after another. First the pretty script girl was sliced up like cold cuts. Then the stunt man missed his air bag at the bottom of the cliff. With corpses coming in faster than film footage, Kennedy and cop-turned-actor Mike Corby had to figure everyone for a suspect - even stars like Dean Martin, Raquel Welch and Yul Brynner. with no clues, no motive, and death the only alibit, Kennedy and corby had some fast actin to do. Veteran actor Kennedy has tackled some tough roles. But never has he been forced to put his life on the line to finish a film.

A photo of George Kennedy from Cool Hand Luke. He's outside in what looks like a forest landscape, wearing a blue jacket.

Today's best second-hand book buy - Murder On Location, the first crime novel by the actor George Kennedy, all about the actor George Kennedy investigating a series of murders on a film set.

I'm very grateful for the thoughtful input. Much of what you say chimes with the conclusions I've been reaching.

The Return of Cornelius, by Harpeaux Edwards from the album The Monkey Walk

Afew years ago, on the eve of lockdown, I rashly bought a shonky Farfisa and tried to teach myself keyboards. After a few short weeks, I recorded an EP of sax/organ tunes; a decision born of hubris and stupidity. However, I feel it has a rough charm...
harpeauxedwards.bandcamp.com/track/the-re...

A country lane curving in an S.

A hand painted sign lying on the ground: Slow Mud on Road.

Slow mud on road. 📷

A tree covered with pale pink-white blossom against a blue sky.

A road sign lying in a ditch: skid risk, 100 yards. There's a sunny haze over the scene.

Home in Somerset. 📷

The full-on blog post is going to be a while coming (I'm too busy, sob) but the list’ll get you going.

Twin Peaks title card reading "Allister Heath articles"

I memed a meme.

I like short, achievable watchlists. Anyone can list 200 films that might fit, or have some tangential relation... but what use is that to anyone?

A small watchlist emerges. If you didn't know anything about J-Horror, and hadn't seen any, this would work as a starting point.

boxd.it/STdoW