Faber & Faber

I’m sure more than a few of you will have seen the story out of this week’s Adult Entertainment Expo about the launch of TrueCompanion’s “anatomically consistent” artificial intelligence-driven sex robot, Roxxxy. I’m reasonably unmoved by the story itself: sex robots aren’t new, and I think it’s safe to assume they’ll grow more sophisticated and lifelike [...]

"Horchata" sensational"White Sky" very very good"Holiday" very good"California English" sensational"Taxi Cab" good"Run" very good"Cousins" very very good"Giving Up the Gun" sensational"Diplomat’s Son" supersensational"I Think Ur A Contra" sensational

Mulling the possible fall-out of the Peter & Iris Robinson Debacle on Newsnight last week, scholar Paul (Lord) Bew warned viewers to be aware first of all that ‘there is no-one to the left of Peter Robinson in the DUP.’ Now, there’s a thought to make you gulp: Bew is right, of course, and it’s been that way for a while, and yet the plain statement of the truth does chill the blood somewhat. (The excellent David McKittrick summarises the ...

Amongst my recent mail I received a lovely letter from ten-year-old A.H. in which she writes about having done a school report on STINKING RICH AND JUST PLAIN STINKY. She even included this fabulous extract: “You can laugh at the Grumbly girls, faint at the stench of Manual Org and go in a flabbergasted voice, ‘Well, I didn’t know [...]

In case I was sounding too morose below, I should say that one fairly solid-looking item on my professional dance card for 2010 is the filming, in February, for Channel 4, of a 30-minute drama script of mine entitled Jennifer, which is being developed under the channel's invaluable 'Coming Up' strand for writers and directors new to TV. The director is a very gifted young Belfast man called Michael Lennox, and the Jennifer script is a variation on such themes ...

As an allegedly professional writer of fiction I might look back on 2009 with a certain sense of unease, insofar as one could say I failed to produce any writing of substance - at least, nothing fit for any significant number of people to actually read: a novel in the works, for sure, just as in 2008, but still a fair way away from home; a couple of screenplays, both in development limbo; bits and pieces of a couple of ...

sad to hear of the passing of Al Green producer and Hi Records founder Willie Mitchell on January 5th. Here's some classic Soul Train footage of Al in memory...

Thanks (sic–ed.) to nutellaontoast over at Fire Megan McArdle (now there’s a blog to love…ed.) I clicked through to Will’s meditation (FSM, I hate it when you link through to the Post — ed.) on cosmic scales of space and matter-density…which led him somehow to solar system dynamics…which led him to the divinely ordered (sic) [...]

Faber are running an ace competition to win copies of Mousebeard’s Revenge. The star prize is an illustration of a mouse from the book, which is not to be sniffed at if I do say so myself. So spread the word and maybe even enter the competition. What have you got to lose? Closing date is [...]

For reasons to uninterestingly tangled to explain, I recently found myself in the wee hours of the morning, reading Algernon Charles Swinburne’s biographical entry on Mary Queen of Scots in my copy of the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Swinburne was inordinately proud of this piece. The 11th Edition’s compilers appended a note in which [...]