Malcolm Dixon

A triptych photo featuring, top-left, the poster saying before the street sign for Denbigh St; top-right, the opening lines of a story mentioning the birth of the narrator in that street in 1900; and in the bottom frame, a shot of the now largely derelict street at night.

First trip north earlier this week to visit the Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool’s docklands. In the wee small hours post-match, I stumbled across the street where my paternal grandmother was born in 1900 (this latter fact itself forming the subject of a short story I published a few years ago).

Much of value to be found in the thread below, not least the two annotations made to the copy of the Odyssey. Gotta love marginalia. 👇

Text of Williams use of a phrase by Twain.

A great short story writer.
The quote below sums up her approach…

BBC Radio 4 - Salt by Catrin Kean, 1. Departure A love story based on the lives of the author's great-grandparents, who married in 1878.

Salt by Catrin Kean- a Wales Book of the Year. In the 1880s, a Cardiff girl falls for a ship’s cook from Barbados - Mon-Fri 22.45 @BBCRadio4 or listen now @BBCSounds Read by Kezrena James abridged @mirandaemmerson.bsky.social & produced by Fay Lomas & @mair.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

You’re welcome. It’s a lovely story, well told.

This is (literally) a fabulous story—a wry, sweet, comic tale of an Arthurian quest where the quarry proves elusive, time passes and life happens elsewhere. Also your socks get wet (spoiler, sorry).
Tone & word perfect. Find it on BBC Sounds. Recommended.

Emblematic of the word.

album cover for the planets by Holst a man and a woman in fantasy sci-fi outfits.

This is exactly what I imagine when I hear Holsts's Planets...

#WutheringHeights Sweepcliff.

Game changer.

Enjoyable discussion of all things
David Lynch (the man, the movies, the meditation) this evening @favlit.org, in which @nicholasroyle.bsky.social paid homage to the great man via the context of the new book (‘Lynchian’) by @johnhiggs.bsky.social. Made me want to rewatch all the films, so job done.

And try not walking from Dumfries to Inverness.

Boom of radioactive pig-boar hybrids in Fukushima finally explained Domestic pig genes got diluted across generations, but their rapid reproductive capacity persisted in hybrid hogs

The Radioactive Pig-boar Hybrids were my favourite band of punk era. Glad to hear they’re enjoying a boom.

www.independent.co.uk/news/science...

Ian McShane, pictured in his role as Al Swearengen in Deadwood, offers a typically expletive assisted excuse for his behaviour.

Saw it in 1988. Well worth the viewing.

Deffo the wrong type of boat.

The strange case of Charles Dickens and a disappearing Edinburgh gravestone In search of the truth about the inspiration behind Ebenezer Scrooge

Charles Dickens took the name “Ebenezer Scrooge” from the Edinburgh gravestone of Ebenezer Scroggie, after misreading Scroggie’s occupation – “meal man”, i.e. grain merchant – as “mean man”.

Or did he? The story may only date back to 2004…
#BookWormSat
www.edinburghinquirer.co.uk/p/the-strang...

Reading Hazlitt's The Spirit of the Age. Genius.

On Bentham:

"Again, his style is unpopular, not to say unintelligible. He writes a language of his own that darkens knowledge. His works have been translated into French - they ought to be translated into English."

I think at this point the UK has accepted Paddington as the Death Bear, collector of souls. So, I think as a nation we should start smearing marmalade on the eyes of the dead and whisper “fare for the crossing”. It’ll feel weird now but, in three of four generations, no one will question it.

Anne Frank wrote these words in 1943 while hiding, while families were being pulled apart. She wasn’t describing chaos. She was describing process. Normalized cruelty. Systems doing what systems do when nobody stops them.

This is history as a warning. #DefundICE

Kermit the Frog will return in Avengers: Doomsday YouTube video by Kermitment - A Muppets Podcast

It seems Reddit found our Kermit Doomsday video

youtu.be/2ZmKPBLN7BM?...

BBC Radio 4 - Short Works, A Whole Giant's Daughter Quest Thing by Jo Lloyd An original short work for radio by Jo Lloyd. Read by Alexander Vlahos.

I have a new story on BBC Radio 4 - Friday 23 Jan - and then on catchup

Elevator pitch - a comedy about love, entropy and a ceremonial badger

I’d love for you to give it a listen www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I remember in the schoolyard at the time we were struck by the fact that ‘Everton’ spelled backwards came out as ‘NOT REVE’. This seemed conclusive to us, though admittedly we were pronouncing the final ‘E’ as if it bore an acute accent. 😌

just got out of an uber. the driver was telling me how he has to work 16 hour days, seven days a week, at two different jobs to afford rent. he doesn't have healthcare and he worries about retirement. "i would feel a lot better if we owned greenland," he told me. then he cried.

Had an intriguing editorial discussion recently: how did people in the past talk about 'minutes' when they didn't have watches or standardised times? How does that affect your thinking?

Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me.

1/

Just wish they'd finished something every now and then; maybe even just ONE thing. But nope, everything always looks like it's half done, or at best three-quarters done. Like they downed tools and walked away. So shoddy.

Cunningly concealed entrance, Ramsgate.

'How much does the aurora borealis weigh?" It's pretty light.

Typical!