2026-04-05 21:08:07
The clocks did that thing they do each Spring but I didn't really notice. The wall clock in the bedroom had needed a new battery for about a week, my phone updated automatically, weirdly my wristwatch died at 00:55, and the clock on the oven hasn't worked for months since a powercut reset it to midday and I couldn't be bothered fixing it.
⌚ Watch battery replaced by the lovely guy in the market. £8 and five minutes; long enough to buy pastries from the deli across the aisle. I really enjoying shopping locally when I can. The market is my kind of vibe!
Came across the photorealistic portraits of Anne-Christine Roda and I am always amazed at the incredible talent and dedication of humans. There will always be a need for this in the world. "la jeune fille au châle" ("the girl in a shawl", if my high school French holds up) is phenomenal; I honestly thought it was a photo until I read the description.
Storm Dave (The Irish Met are really putting us to shame with their storm names (Apologies to all Daves everywhere (from a Tom) is making me glad we're getting the leaky window seals repaired soon!
I checked the BBC and we're technically outside the yellow warning zone. That means it's much worse than this elsewhere. I hope everyone is fine!!
There's a trio of juvenile crows playing in the wind. Hovering and dive-bombing each other around the church spire they clearly live in. Excited and distinctive "caw" call carrying across the graveyard.
That was before the Skulls threw us onto their ships.
Before they stripped us of all we had.
Before they dragged me away from those I loved, held me down, and shaved my head.
Before I looked into the eyes of my abductors and could only see the blood runes carved into their masks.
I think of all the maji who were stolen from their lands.
Tomi Adeyemi, "Children of Anguish and Anarchy"
2026-04-03 21:59:52
This sequel to "Children of Blood and Bone" follows all the sequel rules; much action! bigger plot! such characters! wow!
In all seriousness, it's a rollicking good fantasy. It feels like a classic "middle book" — a stopgap between the rush of the first book and the sweet climax.
There's is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Full of lovely character development –even from the villains– which is something usually a bit sparse in young adult fantasy.
If you liked the first book, you'll like this. Maybe not as much, but you will.
2026-04-02 00:51:43
Happy April!
Here are a few photos from my phone from the last month with neither rhyme nor reason to the theme.
2026-04-01 15:56:10
Julia Donaldson is one of the most prolific authors of children's books ever. She writes poems for kids using the same "bouncy" anapestic meter as Dr Seuss and collaborates with artists to bring these tales to life. One of the most popular collaborations is with Axel Scheffler; a partnership that has seen their work translated from page to screen by Magic Light Pictures animation studio every Christmas for the last decade.
But, in servitude of the rhyme, Donaldson often creates worlds where questions are raised she has no interest in answering.
Today we will examine The Highway Rat1. Fair warning, there will be spoilers.
Spoilers
This is an analysis not a review so plot points will be discussed in detail.
The basic premise of the story goes;
The Highway Rat rides his horse along the highway robbing the travellers for their food. One day he discovers cupcakes and his crimes escalate to indiscriminate theft, bullying, and general terrorising. Eventually a plucky duck tricks the Rat into going into a cave where he wanders, lost in the dark, for months until he repents his thieving ways. When he escapes the cave, he makes his way to a neighbouring town and gets a job in a cake shop. The End.
The unaddressed animal caste system. From the outset the animals are clearly divided into two groups; the "human" animals that wear clothes and farm and make wanted posters, and those who are "traditional" animals like the bees he steals honey from, the bats in the cave, or the two flies he steals from the spider.
But closer inspection reveals a third class — in one scene the Rat is seen stealing a salami from a fox. Until this point all of the food is natural, the rabbit harvests clover and the squirrel collects nuts. But salami requires butchery, curing, and a knowledge of cookery.
Where does the salami come from? What, or rather who, is it made from? It speaks to a sub-classification of pigs somewhere kept for food.
On the surface, the punishment meted out by the Duck doesn't fit the crime. It leaves us with a moral of "if you are greedy you will be left to die in a cave". She doesn't plan on teaching him a lesson, she plans on leaving him to die alone; for stealing some food. Far from the hero of the piece, this is a duplicitous vigilante dispensing frontier justice.
Within the world, though, we see how the Rat takes the rabbit's last clover, all the squirrel's nuts, forces the spider to hand over the second fly. He even takes a colony of ants' only leaf. This isn't theft, this is territorial dominance. The entitlement to everything is truly monstrous. In this framing, we see the Duck as a reluctant freedom fighter pushed to drastic action by extreme circumstances.
Our villain, personification of greed and excess that he is, never actually atones for his crimes. We see him terrorise a community, wielding fear and power like weapons. Indiscriminate crimes; he can't eat the leaf, clover, or nuts but he'll take them anyway. A feudal lord taxing the last pennies from a starving population, a dark mirror of the folktale highway men robbing the rich to feed the poor.
In the echoey cave, scared and starving, he decides being a highway robber isn't fun any more and discards the trappings. He shows the smallest amount of repentance when he helps the flies (that he kidnapped earlier) and they show him the way out. Notably, he doesn't go back to make reparations or even apologise.
There's an argument for the cake shop as "middle class hell" — his punishment eternal is working in the service industry, stripped of his status and his possessions.
I'd posit it's hardly a punishment as it's just a way to feed his cupcake addiction without resorting to crime. An addict tamed but not recovered.
Magic Light did an excellent job of enhancing the horse's character; adding personality, a sense of humour, and a clever little twist at the end. However, on closer examination, it simply reveals the horse's questionable moral arc.
The horse is complicit in the Rat's crimes — at first happily so. He's a little irked the Rat spanking the Duck with his sword but it's in an rolled eyes "boys will be boys" way with no real substance to his objection.
As the Rat's depravity grows, the horse gets more distant from him; the crushing of the ant, threatening to eat the Duck (tantamount to cannibalism in the caste system), stealing his hay.
Eventually the horse rebels when the Rat smacks him with the sword. And immediately switches allegiances to the Duck drawing stark parallels with "just following orders" and Niemöller's poem. The horse aligns himself with the powerful Rat and is safe from tyranny — until the Rat turns on him, until the tyrant's actions directly negatively affect the horse. The apathetic bystander as abject coward.
Magic Light's clever twist to make the horse the narrator allows the horse to reframe his role from "war criminal" to "liberated slave".
At the end of the story we see the true bleakness of morality; our greedy villain lands on his feet after a brief period of discomfort while the "hero" is a bold-faced liar ready to commit murder — all told through the unreliable narration of the Rat's willing collaborator.
1: "The Highway Rat" (2017, Jeroen Jaspaert, Magic Light Pictures)
2026-03-30 03:50:55
Unhinged behaviour from the British weather (more than usual, tbh) hasn't dampened the spirits of tree blossom. Several many trees around are in riotous bloom in defiance of the snow and rain. Gorgeous. My friend, Ellie, is currently enjoying Sakura season in Tokyo though and I'm not jealous. Not at all.
OK so this is mad; the Friends theme song, Boogie Wonderland, You're the best… around! from Karate Kid, and What Have I Done to Deserve This? by Pet Shop Boys were all written by the same person!
2026-03-28 05:04:44
Sol Seppy has a fucken cool name and, on debut album "The Bells of 1 2", sounds a bit like Jenny Lewis crossed with Lily Allen singing on dark and moody trip hop beats with slow hoover rave.
"Listen to this" demanded my wife handing me an earphone. It was Kill Karl; Mindless Self Indulgence-style heavy alternative rock but also glitchy and also operatic — heavy metal Sam Smith perhaps…? "SUCK ON MY ALBUM" is 14 tracks (in all caps) of loud, messed up, fun, and pretty unique heavy metal.
I needed to read technical documentation so no music with words, as is my rule. A rule that brought me to Austere, an Australian black metal band - shouldn't work but it does. The lyrics seems to be entirely screaming to the point it's just another noise in the wall of atmospheric dark shoegaze. "To Lay Like Old Ashes" from 2009's album of the same name, is gorgeous.
Brand new album from Melanie Martinez, "HADES" is typical Martinez fare; babydoll gothic pop. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. On first listen, it's better than "Portals" but not as good as "Cry Baby".