Caitriona 🧩🩸🦇

a person wearing glasses and a crown is giving a thumbs up sign . ALT: a person wearing glasses and a crown is giving a thumbs up sign .

so I'm reading this series of books set in my hometown and it's making me fucking insufferable. the characters are talking about the latest murder and I'm over here going "ummmm ackshually there isn't a Caffe Nero on Shirley high street!!!"

fat brown tabby cat lying on her side

rug

Paperback edition of Eeny Meeny by MJ Arlidge

Eeny Meeny: a reread of one of my favourite cheesy thrillers of all time. The extent to which this was written for me is absolutely bonkers: Saw-adjacent plot? Gratuitous violence? Southampton setting? Sign me up. Shame about the transphobia though, please fix this for future books Mister Arlidge

Chubby tabby cat lying on her side

her leggies grew back 💚

Tabby cat lying facedown on the carpet with all her limbs tucked under her, so that she looks like a blob

I can't stop laughing at this picture my partner just sent me of the cat. I promise she does have limbs under all that flab

like I don't even care if you think the ending twist of the first movie is stupid or whatever, that's an opinion. but Rigg is not 'some dude we never see again', damn you, he's in the entire rest of the movie!! he's basically the main character of Saw IV!! ugh

love that cinemasins released a compilation of all their Saw videos and, while they took the time to bleep more of the swears, they couldn't be bothered to fix any of the factual errors they made. the Saw II video is particularly egregious and yet it remains virtually untouched. excellent work

hate that criticising Labour has to come with so many qualifiers now. if I hate Starmer for being racist, and you hate him for not being racist enough, we are not the same

Paperback edition of Of Flesh and Blood by N.L. Lavin and Hunter Burke

Of Flesh and Blood: started strong. Good tension, evocative sense of place, interesting framing. Flagged a bit in the second half; Vincent is not a compelling character. I was hoping for True Detective S1 vibes, but it simply didn't stick the 'maybe supernatural, maybe not' landing nearly as well

the tonal whiplash of ending last night's Grand Designs, about a terminally ill woman scrimping and saving to build the house of her and her wife's dreams before she dies, with a preview of next week's episode, where some rich twats seemingly spend 7mil building a castle just because they can

between Gillian's frantic reminders of how feminist this all is, and some of the contributors feeling the need to self-censor by acknowledging that what they want would be 'super problematic' in real life, this didn't feel as truly groundbreaking as it could have been. LET WOMEN BE PERVERTS

Paperback edition of Want, submitted by anonymous contributors and collected by Gillian Anderson

Want: an intriguing collection of real women's fantasies from around the world, more varied and interesting than I had expected. Would have been more enjoyable without Gillian popping up every few pages to patronisingly remind us all that fantasies are, in fact, different from real life

why does anyone else even TRY to sing while Ariana walks the earth, honestly? every time I hear her voice I ascend to the heavens like that one gif of Winnie the Pooh

a Spotify graphic showing my top 5 Ariana Grande songs, as selected by me. they are positions; God is a woman; Into You; Love Me Harder; and the boy is mine.

well this was a nice surprise. thanks Spotify! and thanks for introducing me to twilight zone while you were at it. was just thinking I was overdue a good sob on the bus

a white cat with dark patches is curled up sleeping in the corner of a sofa

sleepy Bristolian bookshop kittykat 🐱 I think their name is Creams?? no amount of pspsps could wake them up but I respect their commitment to the nap

I'm no legal expert but I would assume that if you are in court, and you repeatedly refer to your alleged victim by a nickname you have specifically invented to mock and belittle them, this does not do a great job of making the case for your innocence

a black cat is wearing a red cape and a rhinestone necklace . ALT: a black cat is wearing a red cape and a rhinestone necklace .

8:30 and it's already dark... autumn looms...

I've got to take eye drops for a few days and I CANNOT FUCKING DO IT. it genuinely has me like this

Paperback edition of Red River Seven by AJ Ryan

Red River Seven: a goofy popcorn thriller, and I mean that in the best way. There's a zombie virus (fungus?) that feeds on your hatred and physically transforms you into the thing you fear most. The only way to stop it is to nuke London. How? Why? It doesn't matter! Hold on tight and enjoy the ride!

as someone who's spent significant amounts of time in shopping malls over the years, the book really nails the particular melancholy of these places; the Marie Celeste eerieness of a once-thriving shopping centre slowly dying before us. reminded me of Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost in that way

Special Abominable Book Club hardback edition of Eat The Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin

Eat The Ones You Love: a powerfully evocative story of love and decay. The mid-sentence shifts from third to first person give a wonderfully creepy effect: jolting you out of narrative security, as though Baby's vines are snaking through the fourth wall and wrapping themselves around you personally

how exactly are the poor underpaid Iceland employees going to "verify" these alleged shoplifting incidents then

Iceland offering £1 reward scheme for customers who report a shoplifter Grocery chain employees will verify the incident and the reward will be added to the shopper’s loyalty card

I saw Goody Proctor stealing beans!!! www.theguardian.com/business/202...

the real weapon in Weapons was the bloke ahead of us in the popcorn queue with his wife and kids, whinging about how the staff behind the counter needed to stop gossiping and serve him quicker

It is an incredibly well-shot, well-acted movie. The main child star was phenomenal and I sincerely hope that the filming process wasn't upsetting for him because this is a SCARY movie. I'm talking "may-give-you-nightmares" scary. The hair-cutting scene has been etched on my brain indelibly. (3/3)

I don't think it's unfair to read some of the stuff that goes on in this movie as misogynistic/queerphobic. But for me this was a 'fork found in kitchen' situation: the horror genre has been at least a little reactionary since time out of mind, and you could certainly do worse than Weapons (2/3)

a shadow of a person running down a dark street ALT: a shadow of a person running down a dark street

Weapons was excellent. I know the shifting perspective has been divisive, but it felt pleasingly literary to me. Someone could make a banging novelisation out of this movie. I also totally understand some people being disgusted by it in ways that (hopefully!) go beyond the director's intent (1/3)

Paperback edition of Youthjuice by E.K. Sathue

Youthjuice: come for the gore, which is every bit as nasty as you'd want, but stay for the (ahem!) nail-biting tension and intoxicating prose. At times it even reminded me of Boy Parts, which is high praise. The ending is a tad rushed, but it didn't detract from what is otherwise a great little book

a cartoon rabbit is sitting in front of a television and a ladder . ALT: a cartoon rabbit is sitting in front of a television and a ladder .

this book's message essentially boils down to this meme

Paperback edition of The Last Good Man by Thomas McMullan

The Last Good Man: a crashingly unsubtle metaphor for social media sits at the heart of this creepy little post-apolcalyptic fable. It's undoubtedly well-written and the ending is great, but your enjoyment of this will depend hugely on your general tolerance for rants about cancel culture