60. Berserk, Kentaro Miura (Vols 1-10)

As grimdark as promised, sometimes to the point of edgelordism early on (I wasn't sure about continuing after the first volume). But once it finds its feet in the Golden Age arc it becomes relentlessly compelling, more thoughtful, and the art is spectacular.

59. Celtic Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs

Gorgeously illustrated and fun little collection of collected fairy tales - some I knew of before, but many very new to me.

I'm a tedious "This reminds of The Wire" bro, but this really does remind me of the Carcetti plotline. Big talk of change before getting elected, but once you're in power, how easy it is to play the games and juke the stats, and so nothing changes.

Yeah, season 1 of Walking Dead runs it very close (I think it's the only time I've cried playing a game), and I remember Wolf Among Us being excellent, too. But TftB was something else.

SO good, the best Telltale game I've played.

For writing, the brainstorming and iterating and drafting and faffing IS the writing - it's the most important (and the best) part.

Gah, this really isn't helping the 'Maybe I need to run away and move to Ireland' strand of thinking that grows stronger every time I look at the news in the UK...

Aye, and got to be a contributing reason as to why Ireland consistently seems to punch above its weight (or rather, population size) in the literary landscape.

Gordon Brown's graph is a tragedy. David Cameron's graph is a sober parable warning against hubris. Johnson's is a rollercoaster thrill ride.

Liz Truss's is just funny.

Great article, and very funny that she seems to be the Prime Ministerial Angel of Death.

Oops, brainfart on my part, apologies.

Also rather galling that lots of the folks throwing their hands up in horror were very gleefully fanning the flames of the Stockport riots a year ago. Casual violence is apparently fine under certain conditions, just dependent on skin colour of perpetrators and victims.

Yeah - I was a kid in the 80s/90s, and a pretty sheltered one too, but even I remember a different atmosphere back then, violence was just in the air.

This from @twlldun.bsky.social is really good on this subject: medium.com/@twlldun/a-b...

Yeah, I'm a fan of LVT and/or wealth tax, but primarily as a way of selling to the populace the broader based tax rises on low and middle incomes that are necessary for a Scandinavian style social democracy.