I’m sure anybody reading to my blog regularly (unlikely, I know) wants more of the political stuff, rather than the personal. Yet, occasionally, the personal overwhelms whatever is happening in the outer world and I haven’t had time to absorb the news. Which means on a day like today, I write about the stuff that […]
Continue Reading
Just as the writing begins (19,135 words), I remember why I moved into cartoons. It’s because I have days like yesterday and today… My mother has a bad neck. We’ve known about it for years. She has arthritis in it, which occasionally flares. It’s been fine for months but this week she’s had symptoms which […]
Continue ReadingSurprisingly deep sleep last night yet it is now days since I had my last hayfever tablet. I guess it was an exhaustion sleep. I’d had a pretty long day and topped it off by watching Bombshell into the early hours. Looking at the IMDB this morning, I can’t help but feel it’s a grossly […]
Continue ReadingDay three, I think, of my new drive to write more and I’ve hit at least 1000 words a day, though today had an added 1000 because I wrote about Trump/Woodward for Reaction. Wordcount so far (including some deletions in order create a clean re-start: 17,571). In other news… The Moonshot. It is, of course, […]
Continue ReadingI read Dune many years ago as a teenager and, then, I think I read it again. It’s a nailed-on sci-fi classic and was instantly one of my favourite books. The whole mythology of the fremen, the blue eyes, the spice, the worms… It was so good I remember immediately setting out to read the […]
Continue ReadingIt’s always been an ambition to write a proper novel. I say “proper” because the novels I have written have never been, in my estimation, properly done. Even the first, which I technically sold to a publisher, wasn’t ideal. There are others, in various states of revision, in files on my computer or printed out […]
Continue ReadingI didn’t blog yesterday and don’t entirely feel like doing it today. I guess putting the old What & The Why website into legacy mode by transferring it over to Google’s free Blogger service feels a little like the end of an era. Plus tomorrow is the last day I can hear from Private Eye […]
Continue ReadingSpent too much of my Friday filtering my rage through a Microsoft cartoon strip which I might post later today. My anger at Microsoft hasn’t been helped by today’s emails which contain quite cheerful posts from them telling me all the great things I can do with my “new” Surface Pro. I had another email […]
Continue ReadingIt’s so typical of my luck this year… It’s only a couple of weeks ago since I wrote a piece in which I defended Bill Gates against all the toxicity that’s being directed at him and his charity work. I said at the time that I didn’t consider Microsoft one of those “bad” companies and […]
Continue Reading
As well as being a long-time fan of Don Winslow’s books, I’ve recently become a fan of his transition into political activist. Both have a take-no-prisoner’s approach to their subjects and, in the case of his opposition to Trump, he voices concerns that probably wouldn’t be voiced if somebody like Winslow wasn’t voicing them. The […]
Continue ReadingI have a new piece over at Reaction (clicky here) about the politics around the violence that is sure to define the last weeks of this election campaign. I was quite pleased with it, pleased too that it got a retweet by Adam Boulton. I have these moments when I actually feel like I’m part […]
Continue ReadingWriting needs to be done regularly. Today, for example, felt like a struggle, though by the end of 1000 words, I was back in the groove I’d lost over the long weekend. I guess it’s one of those small rules about creativity that you learn by doing and doing regularly. Which is why I’m hoping […]
Continue ReadingSo, the new head honcho at the BBC, Tim Davie, wants to cut “left-wing comedy” from the schedule. It’s hardly a surprising decision, though hugely mistaken, but not because of the “left-wing” aspect. Reports this morning say that Davie wants less comedy which is “unfairly biased against the Tories, Donald Trump and Brexit”. Might it […]
Continue ReadingWhy Dunciad.com?
It’s a cool domain name and it was available. Yes, I know. Available. Crazy, isn’t it?
Really?
Yes. It also helps that it’s also my favourite satire written by Alexander Pope, one of the most metrically pure English poets who also knew his way around a crude insult or two. If you’ve not read it, you should give it a try.
So this is satire, right?
Can’t deny it. There will be some. But it’s also an experiment in writing and drawing, giving work away for free in order to see how many people are willing to support a writer doing his thing. It’s the weird stuff that I wouldn’t get published elsewhere in this word of diminishing demands and cookie-cutter tastes.
