I saw Event Horizon in the cinema. Sir Sam Neil has always been a fav even if he was a little naughty in the movie. Forgot how hard the ending kicks. Great use of The Prodigy.

Currently reading The Works Of Vermin by @hironennes.bsky.social and I'm honestly blown away. It's absolutely amazing. Every sentence is poetry. Just a glorious read.

Remember this November and always, Labour , Tories and Reform work for their Lobbyists not the people. Their politics is about the greed of others and profit ,not about public service or protecting our country from corruption and malice. They don't govern in national interest. We must break them.

Genre Grapevine: Book Club Scams Are a Warning of Emerging AI Super-Scams My novella We Who Hunt Alexanders was recently published by Apex Books.

Good article from @jasonsanford.bsky.social here on this kind of thing. jasonsanford.substack.com/p/genre-grap...

If you were ever wondering what we're up against, this is a website book banners created to train people to get books banned in their own communities.

I found my kids' school in here, and the books this website suggests I get banned from their library.

www.takebacktheclassroom.com/school-detai...

🐾 New Steve print available: inotternews.etsy.com/listing/4395...

I feel the same this morning.

Saturation Point by @aptshadow.bsky.social in my local library? Don't threaten me with a good time XD

Just a thought: How about we stop shaming the poor for buying things that may not be essential, and start shaming the rich for making a profit off things that are essential?

Proposition: You become a writer the moment you write, a musician the moment you make music, a painter the moment you paint, etc. You become an artist the moment you find your own voice as a writer/musician/painter/etc.

Yes? No?

25th wedding anniversary off to a good start

I reserved a whole lot of books thinking they would come along on stages. Nope, all in the library today.
A whole lotta reading going on!

Here is an otter snoot to help you through the day.

This is what pivoting right to "win" always accomplishes.

It’s Wolf Awareness Week! 🐺 Once roaming across most of the world, wolves were hunted to near extinction out of fear and myth — not danger. Those fears still linger, and wolves are still killed needlessly today. Speak up for coexistence, respect, and understanding. 🌎💛
#WolfAwarenessWeek #CWWC

They Are Still Here (Maen Nhw Yma O Hyd) An anthology of contemporary fantasy stories featuring creatures and characters from Welsh mythology and folklore

There's a superb anthology here that's very close to funding. www.kickstarter.com/projects/191...

a group of soldiers holding an american flag on top of a hill ALT: a group of soldiers holding an american flag on top of a hill

The official flag of the No Kings Rallies.

Tax the rich
Tax the rich
Tax the rich
Tax the rich

To say I'm a bit bummed by the editing process is an understatement.
#writimg #wroting #writing

Loved to read more about Bees. Great next installment to their story.

This is Antifa. Which, I guess, makes Republicans Profa.

It's my birthday. My eldest said that at this age (53) I lose my 'get up and go'. Welp, I guess I should just stay in bed and get fed by tube.
#birthday

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary. Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from). The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe. Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat? This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight: * Waste of public resources on military theatrics. * Fraud in the name of “public safety.” * Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect. Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here. When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness. Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control. Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard. Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

Urgh, it's going to take me ages to get my book The Ruby Queen up to scratch for publishing. It's like the story works but the line editing is brutal!
Did realise I used 'that' so much.
#writing

Either you're against fascism, or you're foolish enough to believe it won't come for you.

Agree wholeheartedly! That first paragraph got me right in the feels. I can't fathom the hatred either. It's insane.

Ai or just 1970s fashion? XD

Fighting In The Dark Doing things fascists can't do. Not doing things fascists want us to do. Doing things fascists don't want us to do. Refusing the fascist offer.

As much as possible, we should do things fascists cannot do.

As much as possible, we should not do things fascists want us to do and we should do things fascists don't want us to do.

Never accept the fascist offer.

www.the-reframe.com/fighting-in-...

This has just brought me to tears.

Freddie was such a wonderful talent and a public face of the loss of so much humanity through AIDS.

I still mourn him.