patrick
@marginalgloss.bsky.social
There is a very loud amusement park right in front of my present lodgings.
A little surprised that I've only just discovered this since I have two small boys obsessed with steam trains - it's absolutely stunning: youtu.be/l8mScKWj3kQ?...
The Brave Locomotive
YouTube video by Andrew Chesworth
youtu.be
February 1, 2026 at 3:50 PM
A little surprised that I've only just discovered this since I have two small boys obsessed with steam trains - it's absolutely stunning: youtu.be/l8mScKWj3kQ?...
Quite enjoying WH40k Rogue Trader. Even for a CRPG it's arcane - a lot of reading and fiddly combat systems - but for me there's something cosy about that. More importantly it has an unprecedented amount of options for being a total Blackadder-esque bastard in charge of a mile-long spaceship.
January 31, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Quite enjoying WH40k Rogue Trader. Even for a CRPG it's arcane - a lot of reading and fiddly combat systems - but for me there's something cosy about that. More importantly it has an unprecedented amount of options for being a total Blackadder-esque bastard in charge of a mile-long spaceship.
Rediscovered this on my emulator handheld, having not thought about it since I had it on Game Gear as a littlun. An endearing little puzzler with a socialist twist: the protagonist (named after Gorbachev??) is busting into factories, stealing food and handing it out to starving grannies.
January 27, 2026 at 4:25 PM
Rediscovered this on my emulator handheld, having not thought about it since I had it on Game Gear as a littlun. An endearing little puzzler with a socialist twist: the protagonist (named after Gorbachev??) is busting into factories, stealing food and handing it out to starving grannies.
Reposted by patrick
What a strange and beautiful story.
A few days ago, I stood in the graveyard of an 1100 year old church, getting damper and damper in the drizzling rain.
A woman walked into the graveyard, waved, said hello, and, as we had previously arranged, handed me a paper bag full of human bones.
The life of a churchwarden is a strange one...
A woman walked into the graveyard, waved, said hello, and, as we had previously arranged, handed me a paper bag full of human bones.
The life of a churchwarden is a strange one...
January 23, 2026 at 2:10 PM
What a strange and beautiful story.
If you ever wondered what happened to the massive quantum computer prop from Devs (the Alex Garland tv series) apparently it is now hanging over Dr Hannah Fry's dinner table (but how would you dust such a thing?) youtu.be/7_fQIHu8wsY?...
How Hannah ended up with the quantum computer model from Devs as a chandelier in her home
YouTube video by The Rest Is Science
youtu.be
January 20, 2026 at 10:48 PM
If you ever wondered what happened to the massive quantum computer prop from Devs (the Alex Garland tv series) apparently it is now hanging over Dr Hannah Fry's dinner table (but how would you dust such a thing?) youtu.be/7_fQIHu8wsY?...
Went for a run on a new route today and only discovered after getting home that if I'd gone a bit further I would have reached a Costco and been able to get the bus home...potentially dangerous information...
January 20, 2026 at 3:19 PM
Went for a run on a new route today and only discovered after getting home that if I'd gone a bit further I would have reached a Costco and been able to get the bus home...potentially dangerous information...
I don't quite get this. Long screenings are demonstrably popular; many cinemas have enough screens to run staggered evening shows if necessary (my local Picturehouse has 8). "You could take 20 minutes out of that" is funny when the Picturehouse pre-film ad reel is always just a little over 20 mins.
Make films shorter if you want them shown in cinemas, says Picturehouse director
Make films shorter if you want them shown in cinemas, says Picturehouse director
Clare Binns warns three-hour runtimes deter audiences as she is named Bafta recipient for outstanding British contribution to cinema
Directors should make shorter films if they want their work screened in cinemas, the head of one of the UK’s leading cinema and distribution companies has said.
Clare Binns, the creative director of Picturehouse Cinemas, made the comments after being named the recipient of this year’s Bafta award for outstanding British contribution to cinema, amid concern over steadily lengthening film runtimes. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
January 20, 2026 at 10:23 AM
I don't quite get this. Long screenings are demonstrably popular; many cinemas have enough screens to run staggered evening shows if necessary (my local Picturehouse has 8). "You could take 20 minutes out of that" is funny when the Picturehouse pre-film ad reel is always just a little over 20 mins.
I finished Laughter in the Dark, an earlyish Russian novel by Nabokov later translated (& lightly rewritten?) by the author. Bleak and funny, as expected; quite intensely concerned with ways of seeing, cinematic vs literary style. Clanking plot machinations but memorable regardless.
January 18, 2026 at 9:10 AM
I finished Laughter in the Dark, an earlyish Russian novel by Nabokov later translated (& lightly rewritten?) by the author. Bleak and funny, as expected; quite intensely concerned with ways of seeing, cinematic vs literary style. Clanking plot machinations but memorable regardless.
Haunted by this review I glimpsed while browsing online for a small settee. "goes perfectly with my bean bag."
January 17, 2026 at 3:46 PM
Haunted by this review I glimpsed while browsing online for a small settee. "goes perfectly with my bean bag."
Reposted by patrick
“Fear” by Lydia Davis (1997)
January 17, 2026 at 5:03 AM
“Fear” by Lydia Davis (1997)
good morning (open up the sky) open.spotify.com/track/0ZiLHQ...
Big Bird
open.spotify.com
January 14, 2026 at 8:05 AM
good morning (open up the sky) open.spotify.com/track/0ZiLHQ...
I'm really enjoying DUSK so far - a shooter that harks back to Quake & other early 3D FPSs while feeling a lot richer and deeper than a simple nostalgia trip. Smart, funny, creepy level design and some truly striking architecture.
January 12, 2026 at 11:15 PM
I'm really enjoying DUSK so far - a shooter that harks back to Quake & other early 3D FPSs while feeling a lot richer and deeper than a simple nostalgia trip. Smart, funny, creepy level design and some truly striking architecture.
Reposted by patrick
A poem by Diana Wynne Jones, very early in her career. Wilkins Tooth was published in 1973. Richard, Colin and Mickey in the poem are not fictionalized: those are indeed the names of her sons.
one of the issues has some poems and riddles etc sent in by authors instead of children (some of them with notes from their kids) and there’s one by Diana Wayne Jones!
January 11, 2026 at 6:59 AM
A poem by Diana Wynne Jones, very early in her career. Wilkins Tooth was published in 1973. Richard, Colin and Mickey in the poem are not fictionalized: those are indeed the names of her sons.
How does this look exactly like a dream I once had
Look I'm Jim Trinca and I want to play Call of Sarangar so bad, this is Jim Trinca the Video Game, look at this shit, look how unapologetically 90s and also Dog Shit this is, I need it man
January 10, 2026 at 10:29 AM
How does this look exactly like a dream I once had
Marty Supreme: a mixed bag but mostly an enjoyable gossamer-light picaresque about as subtle as the cacophonous Daniel Lopatin score; comes with a delightfully weird ensemble cast, some questionable 80s needle-drops; but the bits with Abel Ferrara are, of course, absolutely perfect.
January 9, 2026 at 11:19 PM
Marty Supreme: a mixed bag but mostly an enjoyable gossamer-light picaresque about as subtle as the cacophonous Daniel Lopatin score; comes with a delightfully weird ensemble cast, some questionable 80s needle-drops; but the bits with Abel Ferrara are, of course, absolutely perfect.
I went here a few times as a kid and for the period of its existence it was basically my number one dream destination of all time (extremely concerning that this film appears to have used unauthorised footage of me here, I will be in touch with my lawyers).
In 1998, the (bad) Italian movie Cucciolo somehow managed to do something important: they shot quite a long sequence in the now-defunct SegaWorld London, located inside the London Trocadero. The park opened in 1996 and closed in 1999.
Here is the entire sequence.
Here is the entire sequence.
January 9, 2026 at 6:22 PM
I went here a few times as a kid and for the period of its existence it was basically my number one dream destination of all time (extremely concerning that this film appears to have used unauthorised footage of me here, I will be in touch with my lawyers).
I am still inching through the Silent Hill 2 remake at the rate of half an hour or so every few nights. I have to keep stopping because after a long day it's an utterly harrowing thing to sit down to. But it's also incredible and it freaks my nut out that this thing came out in any form in 2001.
January 9, 2026 at 11:25 AM
I am still inching through the Silent Hill 2 remake at the rate of half an hour or so every few nights. I have to keep stopping because after a long day it's an utterly harrowing thing to sit down to. But it's also incredible and it freaks my nut out that this thing came out in any form in 2001.
I watched Strangers on a Train for the first time. I think I have the same reaction to all Hitchcock films: a basic visceral enjoyment, in spite of all implausible plotting; admiration at the technical mastery; the constant sense of being lost in a hall of mirrors in someone else's bad dream house.
January 8, 2026 at 2:34 PM
I watched Strangers on a Train for the first time. I think I have the same reaction to all Hitchcock films: a basic visceral enjoyment, in spite of all implausible plotting; admiration at the technical mastery; the constant sense of being lost in a hall of mirrors in someone else's bad dream house.
Reposted by patrick
At the center of it all, and at the end. "Blackstar": bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2026/01/08/b...
Blackstar (★)
But, lo, as you would quaffoff his fraudstuff and sink teeth through that pyth of a flowerwhite bodey behold of him as behemoth for he is noewhemoe. Finiche! Only a fadograph of a yestern scene. Ja…
bowiesongs.wordpress.com
January 8, 2026 at 1:54 PM
At the center of it all, and at the end. "Blackstar": bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2026/01/08/b...
There's something now uncomfortably familiar with Ralph Cifaretto's character in The Sopranos - an over-promoted individualist, geniality barely disguising vicious contempt & misogyny; quoting Gladiator as a shortcut to grandiosity; these guys are *everywhere* now, more so than when the show aired.
January 7, 2026 at 8:51 AM
There's something now uncomfortably familiar with Ralph Cifaretto's character in The Sopranos - an over-promoted individualist, geniality barely disguising vicious contempt & misogyny; quoting Gladiator as a shortcut to grandiosity; these guys are *everywhere* now, more so than when the show aired.
An observation from my Sopranos rewatch: after the first time Tony comments on the painting of the red barn, we never actually see it again, until season 3 when he meets the ill-fated Gloria in Melfi's waiting room. (I'm not 100% sure of this but I really want it to be true.)
January 5, 2026 at 6:23 PM
An observation from my Sopranos rewatch: after the first time Tony comments on the painting of the red barn, we never actually see it again, until season 3 when he meets the ill-fated Gloria in Melfi's waiting room. (I'm not 100% sure of this but I really want it to be true.)
This sounds like a joke but last night I dreamed I was working with Keir Starmer as some kind of civil servant, and for some reason we were all stuck in a nightclub, sitting sullenly in a booth while some kind of party erupted around us.
January 4, 2026 at 7:30 AM
This sounds like a joke but last night I dreamed I was working with Keir Starmer as some kind of civil servant, and for some reason we were all stuck in a nightclub, sitting sullenly in a booth while some kind of party erupted around us.
I got one of those cheapo R36S emulator handhelds for Xmas - I will likely have to sort it with a new SD card at some stage - but so far I'm loving having an actual pocket sized device for quick sessions of Shining Force. (In theory it plays up to Dreamcast but it seems perfect for GBA games.)
December 28, 2025 at 5:35 PM
I got one of those cheapo R36S emulator handhelds for Xmas - I will likely have to sort it with a new SD card at some stage - but so far I'm loving having an actual pocket sized device for quick sessions of Shining Force. (In theory it plays up to Dreamcast but it seems perfect for GBA games.)
it's cute that my local soft play emails me with offers for adults only sessions in the evenings - with cocktails and a DJ and presumably other illicit thrills - but they are *vastly* overestimating how much their regular customers want to be there when they have the chance not to be
December 27, 2025 at 10:03 AM
it's cute that my local soft play emails me with offers for adults only sessions in the evenings - with cocktails and a DJ and presumably other illicit thrills - but they are *vastly* overestimating how much their regular customers want to be there when they have the chance not to be
Boys are watching a YouTube video about steam trains made by an American museum and in the first five minutes the guy starts talking about the 1860s and "a lil thing called Manifest Destiny!" 😬
December 26, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Boys are watching a YouTube video about steam trains made by an American museum and in the first five minutes the guy starts talking about the 1860s and "a lil thing called Manifest Destiny!" 😬