Jesus called me yesterday and tried to sell me a 50% discount card, valid apparently at most of the best shops in the UK, including (He made a special point of telling me) Boots*. When I tried to find out more, He said he was going to put me through to His supervisor, at whichContinue reading “Jesus wants me for a loyalty card special offer”
Category Archives: Aliens
THE SENTENCE THAT MAN WAS NEVER MEANT TO READ (or, why the new X-Files movie stinks)
A quick post today, as – what with one thing and another – I’m running around at high speed. So, a high speed rant about what a total dog the new X-Files movie is…. As it is an epic of badness, a truly colossal set of plot and ethics blunders, a movie that gives dunceryContinue reading “THE SENTENCE THAT MAN WAS NEVER MEANT TO READ (or, why the new X-Files movie stinks)”
We’re the Shoggoths now
Well, there hasn’t been much weird pondering for a bit – but now, I’m back, and thanks to China Mieville’s excellent introduction to the Modern Library edition of ‘At the Mountains of Madness’, once again I’ve been a-pondering H. P. Lovecraft. China sees him as a kind of crazed pulp modernist, breaking out of traditionContinue reading “We’re the Shoggoths now”
A hiatus
Well, it’s taken a while, but allumination is now officially in hiatus. This is largely because my laptop has blown up, and while my groovy little Asus EEE is fantastic for emails etc, it’s become a bit too wearing to think exclusively onto a 7.4 inch screen. So, for a week or so only (becauseContinue reading “A hiatus”
No ideas but in THINGS
Well, for various reasons a slight hiatus here at Allumination; most recently because I am shattered, having been enjoying an epic cycle commute between Clapham Junction, Acton, Stoke Newington, Acton, Oxford Circus and at last Clapham Junction again over the last couple of days! Very satisfying. So this is going to be more of aContinue reading “No ideas but in THINGS”
Quatermass, science and absurdity
A friend’s engaging with Nigel Kneale at the moment, which has left me thinking about him too. If you’ve seen any of his film or TV pieces – the Quatermass movies / TV series, ‘The Stone Tapes’, ‘Beasts’, and so on – he won’t need any introduction. If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat;Continue reading “Quatermass, science and absurdity”
Show me the way
Outside my window, it’s science fiction. Network Rail are repairing the railway. Spotlights blast white light, and hard silhouette people move through the night. Sparks shower against the darkness where the welders work. It’s a view of industrial alienation. Every day I travel to work, changing at Willesden Junction. Over from the platform, metal clawsContinue reading “Show me the way”
Cities, alienation, spaceship design and fish
Space is so often seen as an open field that exists to support some form of vast, optimistic transcendence. But in fact, reality suggests that it will force an almost infinite claustrophobia on us. Surrounded by its empty hostility, we’ll travel it in tiny metal tubes, at best spending only years locked together withContinue reading “Cities, alienation, spaceship design and fish”
Unarius dove release
Well, I wasn’t going to post again before I went away, but sometimes you find things that the world really needs to see. And today is one of those days. I like doves. I like UFOs. I like white suits. I like Aaron Copland’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’. But I never thought I’d seeContinue reading “Unarius dove release”
Space is Deep
A.R. Yngve’s comment below set me thinking about the deepness of space, and a writer who’s dealt with its profoundly dislocating emptiness more successfully than most – A. E. Van Vogt. Van Vogt’s ‘Voyage of the Space Beagle’ (or ‘Space Bagel’, as it’s known round these parts) couldn’t really exist without that awareness. Its protagonist,Continue reading “Space is Deep”