January 31 2026, 20:17
Winter refresh
I’m juggling projects and I’m enjoying myself. Over the Christmas break I decided to give in to my nature and do what I want when I want (creatively speaking). I can only do this when I’m relaxed. In the past, trying to live this way, the snake of anxiety always reared its head.
Not this January. Without wanting to tempt fate, something seems to have changed inside me for the better. I want to make things, and I want them to be good, but I’ve stopped worrying about their impact on the world.
I’m working on the novel. I’m still having guitar lessons, and I’ve been challenged to write a song. I’m going to the cinema to see new films, finding new music to listen to, reading new books. I’m cooking new meals. I’m taking photographs when I’m out and about. It’s a new year, I’m not a new me, but I do have a fresh mindset that’s sticking.
It’s always seemed to me that my creative impulses were part of a cohesive whole—an identity that I couldn’t easily label but felt real. I’m experimenting with that identity. No judgement or expectation.
I’m doing what I can to keep my timeline aligned with my true interests. Not bullshit politics or tragedies thousands of miles away I can do nothing about. If I can do something, I will, but I’m refusing the attention black holes.
I’ve stepped back from reading Bluesky and I’m avoiding the news as much as I can. I post a couple of times a day and read the people on my Bluesky ‘good list’. I have a Bluesky alt that follows some small art, horror and ‘demure erotica’ accounts (yes, I made that term up, but it should exist).
Online can be light and fun. My life is lighter and more fun. I’m far more concerned about having a creative life than being seen to be successful in all the usual ways. I’m excited for February.
January 27 2026, 22:30
The Expansion Project
Author: Ben Pester
First published: 2025
Tom Crowley, first person, then others, ~60,000 words.
There are pleasures in work, but also drudgery, especially in larger organisations where there’s a tremendous amount of bullshit to navigate. Tom Crowley is a workaholic who struggles to connect with his children and feels overwhelmed by guilt at his inadequacy in all areas of his life. He takes his young daughter, Hen, to work (for Take Your Daughter to Work Day) and discovers that nobody else saw that email, so there are no other children for her to play with. Then she goes missing.
Tom works at Capmeadow Business Park as a copywriter. At the start of the story, Capmeadow seems concrete enough, expanding with new buildings and projects, but there is a mysterious mist, and people who work at Capmeadow are often confused and anxious about things they can’t quite put their finger on. Their minds play tricks on them, and the longer they work there, and as Capmeadow grows, the expansion becomes more abstract, surreal and upsetting.
An archivist interjects the narrative with notes about the text, which are recorded as part of interviews with the characters over a long period of time. Capmeadow seems to be an organic, living thing, perhaps alien, or a virtual reality, or something else, and anyone who’s worked there seems to be pulled into its growing madness.
Tom Crowley is the closest to a main character we have, continually showing up in the archivist’s records searching for his lost daughter. For him, work is so entwined in his daily life, he succumbs easily to Capmeadow’s spell and work becomes his life. He wanders Capmeadow’s maze of rooms, corridors, gardens, Kanban boards, online calls and chatrooms as if they were all as real as each other.
It’s a tale of how work identity can become our only identity, working on meaningless tasks for empty projects, until we dissolve into a now-sentient capitalist organism. Disturbing more than amusing, it's an impressive surreal dystopia that feels like a warning shot across my bow.
January 13 2026, 21:01
Wuthering Heights
Author: Emily Brontë
First published: 1850
Mr Lockwood, via Nelly Dean, first/second person, ~200,000 words.
I didn’t finish Wuthering Heights. I got about a third of the way through before I became stuck in the sludgy swamp of the prose and subject matter. I picked it because I saw a trailer for the upcoming Emerald Fennell adaptation in the cinema, and also it was my mother’s favourite book—I have a copy signed by her from childhood—so I gave it as much leeway as I could manage before the relentless misery and suffering snuffed my energy for it out.
The book is not at all the romantic story culture has made it seem like. The various adaptations play on doomed romance and star-crossed lover tropes that are just not in the novel. Heathcliff is violently abused and becomes monstrous. Cathy is a narcissist. As young stepbrother and stepsister, they are terrors around the house, rude to everyone and unpleasantly mischievous.
In the opening scenes, the hapless Lockwood goes to Wuthering Heights out of curiosity and is met with a dilapidated house where he is denied entry, mocked by owner Heathcliff, attacked by his dogs, refused a place to sleep when a snowstorm hits, and eventually given a chair in a haunted room. It's a relentless exercise in discomfort. Undetered, the nosey Lockwood encourages his landlady, Nelly Dean, who used to work at Wuthering heights, to tell the story of how Heathcliff came to be as he was. We learn Heathcliff was a rescued orphan, bullied by his jealous stepbrother, Hindley, and besotted with his kindred-spirited stepsister, Cathy.
The story turns on an incident where both children play a prank on a neighbouring house, home of children Edgar and Isabella Linton. Cathy is hurt and taken in for several weeks to the Linton household where she is taught the manners and fashions of a lady. Heathcliff is blamed disproportionately for the prank and is punished harshly, so when Cathy returns Heathcliff has become almost feral, and this schism in their relationship eventually becomes permanent.
Throughout his childhood, Heathcliff is brutalised and blamed for much that is not his fault, so it makes sense that he would want revenge. As the book went on, I began to realise that his behaviour was so abhorrent and sustained that there was going to be no redemption. Cathy’s behaviour was repellent in different ways. I kept getting confused with people’s names, jumps in time, genealogy, property law—it was a hard book to follow, and the events told were consistently unpleasant. It was beginning to make me feel miserable (and not in a good way!), and I began to avoid reading it.
So, I read the synopsis on Wikipedia, and seeing where it was going, decided to call it a day. I'm not sorry I missed out on the vengeful sadistic marital abuse. I’m glad I gave it a go. I certainly have a decent knowledge of the story and characters, so I’m marking it as read and moving on.
December 31 2025, 19:10
2025: Best films, books and music
I have never pretended to be cool, or to try and keep up with the latest this or that. But, astonishingly, I saw sixty-one films in the cinema in 2025, by far the most ever in my life. The Abertoir Horror Festival in November was a film highlight, and the habit of posting on Patreon notes on each novel I read helped me get more out of my reading experiences. I tried to watch TV (I really did), but nothing stuck (except one).
Favourite film: Black Bag
Favourite book: Fever Dream, by Samanta Schweblin
Favourite album: Moisturiser, Wet Leg
Favourite TV show: Murderbot (the only one I finished)
Favourite video game: PGA Tour Pro Golf (the only one I played, but I played it A LOT).
My TOP 9 cultural things of 2025, in order of preference:
Films of 2025
- Black Bag
- The Ballad of Wallis Island
- Complete Unknown
- The Phoenician Scheme
- The Shrouds
- My Old Ass
- A House of Dynamite
- One Battle After Another
- Jay Kelly
Film discoveries
- Phenomena
- The Old Dark House
- Caché
- Irma Vep
- Matt and Mara
- In the Mood for Love
- Velvet Buzzsaw
- Acidman
- Playtime
Books
- Fever Dream
- Picnic at Hanging Rock
- Moderation
- Businessmen as Lovers
- Fatale
- A Visit From the Goon Squad
- Gabriel’s Moon
- Lost in the Garden
- Success
Most listened-to albums
- Wet Leg, Moisturizer
- Kylie Minogue, Tension II
- HAIM, I quit
- Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood
- Charli xcx, Brat
- Stereophonics, Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait
- Shanti Celeste, Romance
- Angus & Julia Stone, Cape Forester
- Dua Lipa, Radical Optimism
December 30 2025, 16:54
Books of Blood, Vol IV
Author: Clive Barker
First published: 1988
I’ve owned these stories in compendium form since I was a teenager in the late eighties, but only read a handful then, and I haven’t read any of them since. My memory is that, compared with Stephen King, and even James Herbert, the stories were too gritty and lacked heart. I can’t remember why I pulled the second volume (Books IV-VI) off the shelf now. Perhaps it was a podcast recently where someone read Rawhead Rex? I’m not sure.
It’s a dense edition, with 44 lines per page, and the stories are long, 30-40 pages on average, which makes them comfortably over 15,000 words each, bordering on novellas. That’s not something I’ve seen before. I wonder how he hoped to get them published, or if that was even a consideration. Books of Blood IV has five stories, but Down, Satan! is only a few pages and more like a modern short story in length, if not in content.
The opening story, The Body Politic, was unexpectedly dull, even if the concept of human hands having minds of their own was clever. It felt like an exercise, or an attempt at comedy, but I struggled with it and almost put the collection down. Luckily the next two stories were excellent, with better drawn characters and some decent stakes for them. (It’s good to understand why I don’t like something.) The Inhuman Condition follows a young man in with the wrong crowd who steals from a homeless man an enchanted string of knots. My favourite was Revelations, set in a Texas motel where a wife murdered her philandering husband thirty years before, now visited by a famous preacher and his put-upon wife. It showed a different side to Barker’s writing, more empathic, with female characters, and it was inspiring to see him find a radically different voice. The Age of Desire returns to the multi-character many-points-of-view style of the opening story, and a similar clever concept.
These stories have some DNA from The Twilight Zone, Quatermass/Nigel Kneale, mixed with black magic. I struggle with the concept-driven ones that don’t have an emotional heart. It’s just not my sort of story.
December 30 2025, 11:03
Velvet Buzzsaw
Director: Dan Gilroy
Release year: 2019
Ambitious art gallery receptionist Josephina has her hoped-for promotion taken away by hard-nosed gallery owner Rhodora Haze. One evening, she discovers the dead body of an artist living in the apartment above her, along with rooms full of brilliant paintings, which she learns the man wanted destroyed. She asks her ex-boyfriend, influential art critic Morf Vandewalt, to confirm her assessment of its quality, and this sets off a battle in the Los Angeles art world over who will profit from the dead artist’s legacy. But the paintings are cursed, and those who profit from them begin to die in gruesome art-related ways.
This is a story of greedy art world snobs getting their comeuppance. Abused as a child, disturbed artist Vetril Dease used his own blood in his paintings, and this seems to be part of the supernatural curse he’s put on them. His art poured out of him onto canvases, cardboard, scraps of paper, anything to hand, and analysis shows there is no discernible pattern to his technique, and no sketches to show ideas being developed. He is a true outsider artist making art to process trauma.
Josephina, played by a wonderful Zawe Ashton, is terrified of being stuck as a receptionist and desperate to rise through the ranks of the art world. Her ambition sets the story in motion, and at first it’s understandable why she would try and save the art works from destruction. The commercial galleries are soon battling to make as much money as possible from Dease’s work, which other artists recognise as both genius and ‘alive’ in some way.
Artists in the film are represented by the cynical, newly sober (and artist-blocked) Piers, played by John Malkovich, and Damrish, part of a collective representing a younger generation. Both men recognise the power of the work and are stimulated to step away from the allure of money and fame to concentrate on their art. They are spared from the curse. Those who make a living from amplifying the work for profit, including selfish art critic Morf, are killed one-by-one by art pieces.
Dease, in death, has the power to punish the greedy and selfish through all art, not just his own. People die via other artist’s work, graffiti, and even tattoos. Everyone making this film seems to be having fun. It’s so good.
December 29 2025, 15:07
2025: Life projects review
I can’t believe it’s been a year since my 2024 life projects review. There’s been less family drama, more culture, and some not-unexpected symbolic shifts. My focus in the first half of the year was physiotherapy and gradually strengthening the muscles around my hips. Then in the summer, things became more varied and interesting.
I’ve been less hung up on writing, and instead done a mix of other creative things—guitar lessons, learning to swim, travelling, reading more fiction, and so on. The Arvon week was challenging, and perhaps it highlighted that I wasn’t ready to go full-on at being a writer in 2025.
Projects in 2025 (chronological order):
- Arvon week-long writing course in Shropshire
- New bathrooms drama
- Mumbles/Gower weekend to see Welsh family
- Family in Vietnam, me at home
- 12 arthouse films in the summer, a.k.a. #ArthouseSummer2025
- Daughter started Sixth Form for A-Levels
- Stephen Hough & Viano Quartet with Guy at Queen Elizabeth Hall
- Lisbon long weekend
- Abertoir Horror Festival of Wales in Aberystwyth
- Swapped knackered old Polo for an electric car
- 12 horror films in December, a.k.a. #12FilmsofBlackXmas
- Logged 28 books on Storygraph
- Logged 132 films on Letterboxd
New skills and habits:
- Strength at the gym and stretching at home
- Swimming lessons
- Guitar lessons
- Posted to Patreon a review for every novel I read
- Meditated most days
December 27 2025, 21:25
Death Walks at Midnight
Director: Luciano Ercoli
Release year: 1972
On the surface, this had everything I love in a film. It’s a mystery set in a European city, in the world of fashion, nightclubs, parties, with artists as lovers, eccentric minor characters galore, murder with a weirdly brutal weapon... it could be perfect. None of this matters if the pacing is off, the dialogue is dull, and there’s no character development.
Valentina is a freelance model making a living from her looks and good reputation. She decides to take part in a scientific experiment with a new hallucinogenic drug, and whilst high has a vision of a woman being brutally killed by a man wearing a spiked metal glove. The experiment is a tabloid stitch-up, and on publication of the story she loses work because of the drug use, and worse, the killer is real and needs to kill her before she identifies him by name.
I loved Valentina. She’s smart, confident, money-focussed, resourceful and beautiful. The men in her life seem to be symptomatic of the times—sexist, entitled and rude—but she holds her own with them. There’s a running theme of women not being believed and powerful men locking them away. There are plenty of cliché characters. It’s so frustrating. And the final ten minutes becomes an extended fight and chase scene on a rooftop that reminded me strongly of Dario Argento’s The Cat o’ Nine Tails from the year before.
It’s derivative and lazy, but I had fun with Nieves Navarro as Valentina, and I’m a sucker for artist’s studio and gallery scenes. There just isn’t much art or artists in modern thrillers. Italian gialli celebrated art and the artist. It adds a layer to the mysteries that I find charming and stimulating.
December 26 2025, 21:43
Anaconda
Director: Tom Gormican
Release year: 2025
I was trying to find a film the whole family would enjoy at the cinema on Boxing Day, and when I saw Anaconda, certificate 12A, with Jack Black and Paul Rudd, I thought I’d hit the family jackpot—but neither child wanted to come, so the jackpot was all mine.
Failing actor Griff turns up at his oldest friend Doug’s birthday party with a VHS copy of film they made together as teenagers. Doug is depressed because he sees his dream of making a film slipping away. Reinvigorated by the memory, Griff convinces Doug, along with actress Claire and cameraman Kenny, to travel on the Amazon river to make a new version of the nineties horror film, Anaconda. However, their boat captain Ana is on the run from a group of armed men, and there is a real monster Anaconda roaming the river.
It’s a goofy comedy, and if you know and accept this going in, it’s a great ninety minutes at the movies. There are a couple of scenes that really made me laugh, and I only laugh out loud like that when I’m emotionally invested. Of course I see myself in the Jack Black character, a middle-aged man chasing an unlikely dream while stuck in a 9-to-5 job with a family to support, and perhaps I just needed to be reminded of the joys of making something with friends. The foursome are incredibly likeable, and there is extra comedy in Selton, the snake handler they hire, with an intense emotional investment in his snakes, and some late cameos. Happy Christmas.
December 21 2025, 18:58
Mermaid Legend
Director: Toshiharu Ikeda
Release year: 1984
On the Japanese coast, a newly married couple bicker on their fishing boat. Migiwa dives for shellfish, and Saeki minds the rope to pull her up. One night, Saeki sees a fellow fisherman killed on the water by a passing speedboat, and when he takes Migiwa to investigate, he is harpooned in the chest. Migiwa survives and goes into hiding, but as she begins to understand what’s going on in the village, she is driven to revenge.
Migiwa can hold her breath for several minutes in her foraging on the sea floor and is like a mermaid. Every day she prays to Buddha for luck and guidance. When Saeki is killed, the police try to pin his death on her, and his oldest friend Kaisuke steps in to help, but the best he can do is try to hide her on an island populated only by women. The details of this world are fascinating. The people living in these villages have simple lives, praying to Buddha and trying to stay out of trouble in the economic aftermath of the Second World War.
Migiwa is a spirited heroine, grieving her husband, wrestling with her limited options, and putting herself in harms way to understand why her husband was killed. When it becomes clear it was to do with a corrupt business deal and a contract for a new nuclear power plant, she asks Buddha for guidance one last time. With seemingly supernatural powers, she goes on a murderous rampage at the nuclear plant’s opening ceremony.
The final twenty minutes are the reason I saw this film on Shudder. It’s a choreographed stabbing spree in a variety of constricted spaces. Nobody can hold her or disarm her as she avenges both Saeki’s death and all the suffering she has been put through. The blood sprays red everywhere. It’s cartoonish in places, and while it is amusing to see her slay the businessmen and Yakuza gangsters, there are disturbing echoes of modern day multiple stabbings in shopping centres and cars driven into busy markets. Revenge is in the eye of the beholder.