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Here's the Japanese Beatles bootleg that contains the full text of my book about Revolver. Being bootlegged made me feel very cool and edgy. They also kindly added a note saying that I had nothing to do with their highly illegal release.

I discovered it at university, too, having previously been a 'I don't like the Beatles' guy for some reason I cannot now remember.

Serious question: what's the benefit of entering these competitions if you're not likely to win? (Like 99.999999% of entrants.) Is it just a good thing to do for The Sake of the Literary Community or something?

“Early 21st century in London and it’s too hot to sit in the park – next best thing is to stand in a Tesco Express, press play, and let the harpsichords and mellotrons guide you towards a Solero.”

Because they couldn't be bothered to implement EU cookie regulations. They don't really want us to read them.

Yes. You go into settings and choose whatever mode isn't dot mode, and set the print density to heavy or dark or whatever it is.

It's true that all films in 2026 are about trauma.

@gralefrit.bsky.social has been talking about Solar Gothic this week.

I don't mind the dodgy model shark too much but there is a lag in the middle that I reckon could be fixed with a couple of quick snips.

There's a modern instinct to make things darker, grittier and more realistic. Jaws is gritty (terms and conditions apply) realistic. But it's also got jokes, verbal and visual, all the way through. Spielberg knows how to walk the line between light and dark, comic and horrific. And the sun is out.

I think Jaws is close to perfect and I'm not sure it needs, or needed, any sequels.

...within those parameters. How this adds up to a pitch, I don't know. I'm not a Hollywood screenwriter.

In part because he got to see what everyone would say about him on social media after he died.

I dunno, maybe it's useful. The real heavenly reckoning is how you're remembered by the society you lived in etc. A reminder to us all not to be Ebenezer Scrooge.

It's a whole way of being. I think I probably got burned early on saying I was sorry someone had died and then discovering they were privately terrible. It made me think, huh, I actually don't know these people AT ALL.

Aaaaaaand you've just outlined a story. Look forward to reading it!

One of the few things I enjoyed at university was the English and history faculty site where concrete pillars and colonnades were designed to feel like a forest. And they did! I could sit there early in the morning, before all the other lazy buggers were up, and feel absolutely at peace.

I've tried to express this often over the years: my attraction to modernism and brutalism isn't purely aesthetic, or divorced from the social realities; it's nostalgia for the optimistic, would-be utopian landscape of my childhood.

Happy birthday! Hope you enjoy it.

See also: my brain knows my colleague is called Antonio but my fingers are convinced he's called Antonion. 🐜🧅