Matthew Hurst

Read: [Ardis a life on water](https://micro.blog/books/9781738643325) by Timothy Paleczny 📚: https://matthewhurst.micro.blog/2025/08/06/read-ardis-a-life-on.html

Read: Ardis a life on water by Timothy Paleczny 📚 I’m a sucker for wartime shenanigans and science, so this was great for me, with spy...

Surely ‘sincerity’ means he really believes them. He can still be wrong, and lie in the service of them. But the underlying belief is sincerely held.

See also: Blair and WMDs.

Do those people who post apologising because they haven’t posted for a few days really think anyone has noticed or gives a fuck?

This is one of the most depressing threads I’ve ever read

I think the internet is on the brink of discovering the format invented about 300 years ago, called 'magazines'.

Just finished the vomit draft of quick side-project short story that was only going to be a couple of thousand words then back to the main gig. Quick side project is currently 9500 words. Anyhow, put it away for a week then I’ll come back to do some rewriting. #writingcommunity #amwriting

Just finished the vomit draft of quick side-project short story that was only going to be a couple of thousand words then back to the main gig. Quick side project is currently 9500 words. Anyhow, put it away for a week then I'll come back to do some rewriting. #writingcommunity #amwriting

Stephen Duffy really should have stuck with drumming and big hair.

Also, football playing nuns.

I mean…. Barbara Flynn.

Also, the milkwoman in Open All Hours.

Read: Transcription by Kate Atkinson: https://matthewhurst.micro.blog/2025/08/04/read-transcription-by-kate-atkinson.html

Fictionalised version of actual counter-spy operations in England against the Germans in WW2. I read the nonfiction book it’s abased on ages ago, and this is pretty much the ...

Door I must look like I’m meditating. I’m not. I’m waiting to die.

Latest 100 word idea stub. All I can do is wait for the last thing I want: someone to come through that door.
open.substack.com/pub/stubsack...
#writing #amwriting

Oh. Not ‘id’ in the Freudian sense.

#podcast guest says : ‘That’s a really great question’

Podcast guest *means*: ‘That’s a really obvious question for which I have prepped and helps me sell whatever I’m selling.’

Man has to orove his dead murderous mother wasn’t a mother so he can inherit her house

So this was the other Saturday. Both car and dude are normal size, but my iPhone did weird things.

Song In the bath, his guitar lies smashed, its neck broken, the slack strings echoing in the tub, water drumming on it from the showerhead. I am a rock, he thinks.

Latest 100 word idea stub. Some things are broken, some things are rock.
open.substack.com/pub/stubsack...
#amwriting

Turning over an idea to write a bunch of eco revenge horror short stories. First one already well underway. Think there’d be any interest in this? #amwriting #writingcommunity

Read: A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee 📚
Loved the setting, and the humour. Mysteries can be so po-faced. Made me want to try his non-series thrillers too. #booksky #amreading #bookstodon

If they do that, they should be removed. And to be clear, I’m centrist left. Nazis are appalling human beings.

Yep. The actual Substack part hasn’t changed, and freedom of speech means nothing if it only applies to people you agree with. I think people should be allowed a platform, however offensive I find their views. The line isn’t what I agree with, it’s whether they’re inciting criminal acts.

"The references I cited were fabricated in error during response generation, which is unacceptable... I provided false information by generating plausible-sounding but non-existent URLs and reports."

I've had repeated versions of this response (see next post) from all the main, free LLMs I've ever used, after I've pointed out they're making shit up. Why does anyone take them seriously?

Interesting to see what questions they asked. Non-mainstream people tend to either suck up massively, a la White House briefings, or cut through consensual - and delusional - narratives that pols and hacks have agreed not to challenge.

Way to miss the point

I heard Nazis use phones so I’m giving up those too. Also air, because they breathe.

It would make the most of the clicks you're going to get from the NHS story, at least.

A lot of papers (for instance, the NYT and the Globe and Mail, also providing 'premium product') have free or gift links for one-off stories, which get your work out more widely for bigger stories and don't annoy people who're interested.

Yeah, I know. I'm NCTJ qualified and I've taught journalism courses. I've also got four different subscriptions to news media. I'm sure the Fife Courier is a great paper and clearly holding local bodies to account, but the only people buying subs will be locals.

I'm interested in the story, not Fife per se.