Neil Willcox, Looking For The Other 98 Saints

"Simmer a lump of butter as big as two eggs in a saucepan ... add some chopped parsley, a tablespoon of chopped onions and another of chopped mushrooms, a bottle of white wine, and reduce over a quick fire"

According to this 1882 recipe book, a gravy boat of "Italian Sauce" ("one of the fundamental sauces of modern cookery") involves a lump of butter "as big as two eggs", some herbs, a spoonful of choped onion and an entire bottle of white wine.

I was watching a deep dive into a court case the other day and the narrator kept pronouncing it as “HOMO-cide” and I was like that would be a rad drag name

Pop spectacle and political defiance collide at Trans Mission benefit concert Featuring performances from Beth Ditto and Beverley Knight, Trans Mission at OVO Arena Wembley succeeded in its mission to speak up and speak loud: trans rights now, they chanted.

"Trans Voices choir welcomed Imogen Heap for a rendition of “Hide and Seek” that stunned the arena into silence" & "The emotional peak, however, belonged to the Trans Voices choir" - Intensely proud to be part of this www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/pop-spe... & www.attitude.co.uk/culture/tran...

Blogging again. This time about Henry Kuttner’s sword and sorcery hero Elak. Conan he ain’t! open.substack.com/pub/williame...

This is apropos of nothing really, but I once ran a D&D adventure that was an Edwardian country house murder, cludeo style (the NPCs had colour-coded names - the victim was Professor Puce) except it was actually a lucid dream created by a beholder, who was playing the detective.

We are going down the checklist, oiling the submission sorter, giving everyone the safety briefing ("Do not put your hands in the story locker"), ready for what's coming. Perhaps we're even ready for your story?

An inventory of the Navarl Deep Space Ossuary has revealed that many thousands of skeletons are missing. After you receive the report you add it to the crew's watchlist. They return from shore leave with odd bones sold by souvenir vendors to check against the list.

Ustinov! I can only hope you get to his Evil Under The Sun with (bizarrely) Maggie Smith playing a completely different character.

Re-creating the complex cuisine of prehistoric Europeans SEM analysis of pottery residues showed people combined fish with a wide variety of plants when cooking.

This is incredibly interesting — archaeologists have been able to reconstruct the diets of different prehistoric Europeans from 5,000-8,000 years ago by analyzing the charred remains of food in clay pots. Extremely cool!

Apparently they're going to find another one at Christmas?

"One horse fact and then dumping care of horses on a stable lad (any gender) can cover up for immense ignorance of horses. This strategy can be extended to many topics."

Courtesy of @neilwillcox.bsky.social, shared with permission.

Hot take: 95% of y'all should use the same approach when writing about the making and maintenance of swords.

My horse facts strategy of writing about horses: bsky.app/profile/jono...

Liner Notes for A Musical Interlude Liner Notes for A Musical Interlude I’m not a horse person. But I have known horse people; some I was at school with, my lab partner f...

The liner notes for my story A Musical Interlude are live. HORSE FACTS, class, and vanity! nightofthehats.blogspot.com/2026/03/line...

Story rejection Friday!

Like do you want your starter adventure to be poking around a gray dwarf ruin looking at cobwebs and dodging dart traps or do you want to fight THESE fucking guys. COME ON.

Lychee are sweet - though mostly I've had them come in tins in syrup, which seems weird now I come to think about it.

Very big stone/seed/pip in the middle.

"Ants are queer beings—possibly goblins"

⚔️Guys, what if we paid our authors 12c/word and triple base pay per illustration for our artists? What if we gave Canucks $10 USD off shipping and everybody else outside the US $20 off?

If you know anybody who might enjoy a red hot Sword & Sorcery magazine, please let them know before 12pm Sat!🤘

The Conservative Party insists humans should go on banknotes. The British public demands banknotes be festooned with animals.

There is only one possible solution to heal a divided nation: furries on banknotes.

Atomic Blonde 2: Atomic Blonder

Or

Molecular Blonde

Okay I think I forgot to big up this when it came out BUT we have a REALLY GOOD talk and I expound on my "I think every novel should have a giant worm in it" theory which the LITERARY ESTABLISHMENT does not want me to DISCUSS I am being SILENCED

Two gas stations with lit up signs for $3.59 9/10 per gallon prices, though the further one has one of those sneaky signs with different rates for cash and cards and if you use the carwash. shot at night so everything is glowy and grimly unreal

these 2 gas stations across the street from each other always have exactly the same price. I imagine the attendants racing to check each other's numbers in the earliest hours. I imagine them falling in love, and the escalating battle to come forcing a confession under the led kratom ads

*chefs kiss*

the more you know

I Read Games: The Trains Of The Glorious Republics Of The People The Trains Of The Glorious Republic Of The People by Rat In A Suit It’s the 1930s and the revolution has taken control of the country...

I read The Trains Of The Glorious Republics Of The People, a tabletop roleplaying game about driving trains across enormous fictional 1930s countries nightofthehats.blogspot.com/2026/03/i-re...

I Watch Films: Street Fighter (1994) Street Fighter (1994) In south east Asia General M Bison of Shadoloo has seized a large number of aid workers. He demands $20 billion...

I watched Street Fighter (1994) in which surprisingly little of the fighting takes place in the street nightofthehats.blogspot.com/2026/03/i-wa...

More people who were actually Edward de Vere, 17th Earl Of Oxford? @tomscud.bsky.social

A toxic bio-bomb was found aboard Low Troy Station; to remove it in time you took it aboard ship before it went off. Now your mid-cargo hold is highly contaminated and your ship refused permission to dock anywhere. You must navigate back to base, somehow getting supplies without touching port.

I had no idea what the context for this was but found it in J.S. Pillsbury's wikipedia article 😲

Here's the Crooked Man about to go his Crooked Mile (with his Crooked Cat) in an illustration by Sidney Sime (Pall Mall Magazine 1901).
#WyrdWednesday #SidneySime #illustration #nurseryrhyme