2026-07-24 04:26:48
What Collins does impeccably is plainly state the magical element: some people can extract memories from people and store them in books. There's no real history or explanation for how or why — it's simply a universal truth and unexamined.
The book is split into three acts, all written in first person. Emmett, our classic unreliable narrator, vaguely alludes to an incident that's happened to him, with no details of any sort. We know he's been ill, a shadow of his former self — but we have no idea what the incident was, or how it came to pass.
Collins pulls a masterful trick by flipping the literary mode part way through; the first half of the book has us trying to piece together the past, then flips to dramatic irony which is a trick I haven't seen before — but it gives me life.
While managing to not stray into effulgent purple period prose, Collins isn't shy of an evocative phrase. Despite, or maybe because of, the narrator we get flowery descriptions and metaphors aplenty.
The misery was a grey river, dragging me over and under and through a life so quickly that I only caught glimpses of it.
Bridget Collins, "The Binding"
The Victorian setting is well rendered, even with the addition of magic; I imagine real historians would pick holes in it, but I am not one. Having also read Collins' The Silence Factory, I can see this in the same universe; it's an interesting space I've not previously encountered and I'm excited for more!
The book is long, but incredibly well paced for such a long book. I didn't feel rushed, and I didn't feel it was lagging at any point.
There are some content warnings to be aware of. There's an unpleasant scene with some animal cruelty. And, as you might imagine from a book with a dark urban fantasy feel and the magical ability to erase people's minds, there's a fair amount of abuse. Knowing that up front wouldn't necessarily have stopped me from reading — it helps that Collins treats the subject with gravity and pathos. It's not gratuitous, it's not glorified in any way, it's not done for the vibes. It's all really rather in keeping with both the characterisation and the level of villainy, and completely in service of driving the story forward.
As much as it's set in a magical Victorian world, this book examines exploitative abuses of power under a microscope. The wealthy never having to face the consequences of their crimes is as present in our world as it is in theirs.
Extracting memories turns from an ostensibly, objectively good thing — we're helping people forget horrific events — into something truly uncomfortable: exploitative body horror. We meet people selling their memories of holding their own babies; the ghoulish horror of people paying for that sort of book, and people stripped of those memories.
Because in the end, memories are all we have.
2026-07-22 22:12:21
Alex over at The Wry Writer started Five Ws of Reading. It was brought to my attention by David, who found it through Frances Crossley who got it from the fabulously named Explicating Elle.
Although I'd like feel a right idiot, I'd love to have a chat with Ursula K LeGuin. Particularly about how she feels about her themes being so "radical" these days. It seems like "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" speaks to every single reader in a highly personal way – “wow this is happening right now” – regardless of when they read it. That, in itself, is an incredible feat!
Definitely fantasy. Not so much sci-fi (although it's not a hard no) but I prefer the "magic" to the "science". I especially like Urban Fantasy where the protagonist's mundane world view is shaped and/or shapes the fantastical.
I can read anywhere really. Out of necessity, sitting on the floor of a train is where I'm usually found with my nose in a book. When I get the opportunity, sitting in the shade in the garden or by the open door when the rain is pouring.
Again, any time. I take my book around with me to fill any waiting time that crops up. Commuting is a popular slot. As is right before sleep.
This is a slippery one; I don't have a favourite book. Or, rather, I have 40,000 favourite books. Taking a cue from David, here are some books that are "favourite" in very specific ways;
Lev Grossman's "The Magician's" is a near perfect urban fantasy. It's hilarious and bleak and so very real. The way Fillory, the fictional land, is written makes it both a pastiche and homage to Narnia and something so wholly unique. One of the few books I was genuinely sad to finish because I wanted to spend more time with those characters in that world. I reviewed all three books in the trilogy;
"Book Review — The Magicians by Lev Grossman"
"Book Review — The Magician King by Lev Grossman"
"Book Review — The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman"
"Let the Right One In" by John Ajvide Lindqvist kicks me in the feels every time I read it. Whether it's the childhood outsider "doesn't fit in" solidarity with Oskar and Eli or, more recently, the empathy for the alcoholics and their complex hopes and dreams, it's essentially a book about bullying and murder and cruelty and it makes me sad in a way I keep coming back to for more.
Murakami's The City and its Uncertain Walls taxed my grey matter. It felt like every single sentence was quotable in a way most other books aren't. I don't think I ever quite understood the book but that didn't bother me; even failing meant I was trying to understand and that's enough.
I've read a few books multiple times; "Redwall", "Twilight", "The Dark is Rising". I think I'm drawn to sensory books, chasing that feeling I once had. Meyer's damp and lonely Pacific Northwest, Jacques' inviting halls of feasting and merriment, Cooper's peaceful village life.
Vibes…ish. I used to go pure vibes; whatever popped into my head when the last book finished. That led to a lot of same-y reading patterns so now I spice it up. I create a rough reading list at the beginning of the year comprised of books on my to be read list with enough of a spread of genres that I won't get stuck in a genre hole like when I spent an entire year only reading Wallander books.
And now it's your turn! Get in touch by email, hit me up on the Socials™ or elsewhere online, or better yet — write your own blog post on the subject and send me the URL, I would love to read it!
## WHO - An author you would love to have a ‘one to one’ with?
## WHAT - What genre do you most gravitate to?
## WHERE - Where do you prefer to read?
## WHEN - What time of day do you prefer to read?
## WHY - Why is your favourite book your favourite book?
### A book that took me into a fascinating world
### A book that made me cry
### A book that was thoughtful and profound
### A “comfort” book, read and re-read many times
## Bonus - How do you go about selecting what you will read next?
2026-07-20 15:27:15
I find myself doing this every month so I find myself Googling this every month so, in the spirit of "write about it so you never forget it", I decided to write it down. And, who knows, it might be useful for you too.
When I get my photography scans back from the lab they arrive named with a sequential number that is neat but useless.
ThomasRigb036944
├── 000001.JPG
├── 000007.JPG
├── 000008.JPG
...
└── 000030.JPGThe associated Field Notes all have a standard naming convention of "Camera Name plus ISO Date": Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09.
When I share my images on my website, the original file is copied into the repo which results in even less helpful files names like 000001 (4).JPG.
So, I have added this function into my .bash_functions file (remembering, naturally, to source ~/.bashrc!)
mvff() {
for f in *; do
[ -f "$f" ] && mv -- "$f" "$(basename "$PWD")-$f"
done
}[ -f "$f" ] checks that we're actually looking at a file, not a directory. If it's not a file, the && short-circuits and we skip it — no accidental folder renaming.
$(basename "$PWD") grabs just the name of the current folder (not the full path), which is what gets used as the prefix.
mv -- "$f" "…" does the actual rename, tacking the folder name onto the front of the original filename. The -- is a little bit of insurance — it tells mv "everything after this is a filename, not a flag," which saves you if you ever end up with a scan named something silly like -000001.JPG.
Now, when I've extracted my scans, I quickly rename the folder mv ThomasRigby036944 "Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09", cd into it and run mvff to get meaningful filenames in a fraction of a second.
Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09/
├── Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09-000001.JPG
├── Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09-000007.JPG
├── Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09-000008.JPG
├── Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09-000009.JPG
...
└── Minolta SRT303 2026-07-09-000030.JPGA note for future-me: run it twice (on purpose or, likely, by accident) and you'll get double prefixes, since it doesn't check whether the name's already there. I could add a check in but that's overkill for this use, I think; the function is supposed to be quick and dumb but effective.
Another side note: This is also possible using the "bulk rename" capability in MacOS Finder and Nemo (which I use on Linux Mint). But the terminal is, in many ways, quicker and more intuitive.
I hope you find this useful!
2026-07-20 04:29:00
Back in September last year, my faithful Kobo Nia died on me. I started a firmware update, fell asleep, and woke up to a boot-looping brick. I picked up my wife's ancient Kindle and have been limping through the last 11 months on that. I even wrote about e-ink being incredible technology off the back of that (and it really is) but what I've been missing is the backlight, which is an odd thing to miss but I do a lot of reading in bed and would rather do it with the light off, so as not to disturb anyone else.
So I've been trying, on and off, to restore the Nia, with basically zero progress in those 11 months. Eventually I decided to just contact Kobo support and ask them for a clean ISO disc image I could flash onto it, to get it working completely from scratch with a factory reset. They said they don't do that and wouldn't be able to provide it — however, even though my device is seven years old and long out of warranty, because it happened while I was installing firmware, they were happy to send me a replacement free of charge.
So I saved myself about £80 just by getting in touch with them! They gave me a free postage label, which I printed off, stuck on an old Jiffy bag, and chucked in a post box. I'm expecting to get my replacement in the next seven to ten days, according to their customer service team. That's a definite bonus to the week.
Something else I'm quite excited about: I decided to YOLO it and get the "Inseparable Pen" from Yanko Design. My wife shared a link to it a few months ago, and even though I'm very happy with my cheapy Titanium bolt action pen for the notebook in my back pocket, the Inseparable's design is way cooler and would be ideal for my work notebook. I found a reliable supply of refills — it takes a standard refill, sadly not the same standard as my Titanium bolt-action, but still affordable.
Following last week's delivery of the changes to the website, and the inevitable post-launch updates, changes had to be made to the implementation guidance.
The website is due to be packaged up and delivered to a variety of partner markets, who will be installing and managing it themselves with no oversight from the central team. Everything they need to do needs to be clearly documented, and I've been pulling that together — which has been tricky as some of the tutorials had to be written prior to some of the development; given the scale, we needed run in parallel rather than after successful deployment.
That said, it's now done, and the client is extremely happy with the result — always nice to hear. We're now teeing up a few hours of one-on-one training with some of the key partner markets to get these projects deployed. Exciting times ahead, expanding outside of Europe.
The misery was a grey river, dragging me over and under and through a life so quickly that I only caught glimpses of it.
Bridget Collins, "The Binding"
2026-07-18 13:31:10
Billed as Neo Dolly Parton melodic noise stark punk and post-punk soundscapes
by my old mate John Robb1, Molly Vulpyne and her band rattle through a number of sleazy punky numbers that are pretty good but I probably need to sit with them a bit longer. "UR A FAD X" has shades of early Soundgarden mixed with "The Spaghetti Incident?".
I bought "Back Down" by defunct Dublin "Diet Punk" band, Katy's Party, based solely on the opening riff to "Clement's Time". I could easily see them as a support act for Los Campesinos.
Is it a cliche to say Canadian synthpop is "icy"? Probably, but that's what you get with Leathers. The brainchild of visual artist, Shannon Hemmett, hits somewhere between a more unhinged Ladytron and a less unhinged Lebanon Hanover. "High Rise" is ace; the style of music genuinely suits the dispassionate lyrics about life in a bland apartment. The principle of elevating the mundane to art by virtue of observation in full effect there.
Despite the assertion The Field Mice were restlessly reinventing themselves and their sound not just with every release, but sometimes on opposite sides of the same piece of vinyl2
, their output doesn't stray too far from the lush jangly indie sound that was popular at the time. It's lovely though; Bobby Wratten's voice is clear and melancholy without descending into a Morrissey pastiche and is beautifully countered by Anne Mari Davies' cut crystal vocals. "Where'd You Learn To Kiss That Way?" is a 36 track compilation of practically everything they released in their career — for a mere £14 over on Bandcamp!
Last minute entry this week, Sygh are a Dublin three-piece peddling "alternative rock" that's shoegaze-y without being impenetrable, rocking without being bombastic, and emotional without being overblown. This corvid-lover is going to recommend "Magpie" — a mid-album banger dripping with 90s grunge nostalgia.
1: He used to cycle past my house every day
2: Source: Bandcamp
2026-07-12 08:00:00
Thick morning fog completely hides the hills on the horizon. smudging the yolk-gold sun like it's trying to erase it from the sky but, instead, spreads it across the firmament like butter. It feels like a dream.
Not entirely sure what possessed us to take a day trip by public transport during a UK heatwave but we did and, not only did no-one die, it was genuinely pleasurable; much better than hoofing up the awful A-Roads in the car. Perhaps we can work up to an inter-railing holiday. Perhaps.
They say (something along the lines of) "there is no better spell checker than the publish button" and, following this week's big deployment, I'd begrudgingly agree.
Quite a few things could have been more perfect but, importantly, the client is very happy. Several many learnings for ways of working in future; mostly around robust documentation and structured communications. Mostly.
Like a frog in boiling water, I didn't quite appreciate how loud the old washing machine had got until the new one was running. Silence has a sound.