Of course, back then November 2019 seemed an impossibly long way away. Never mind your galaxies far, far away. Blade Runner felt even more unreachable, if only because we’d been told at the start just how close to our lives it might be. The flying cars. The replicants. The seething streets and the nightmare skyline. Flames erupting into the darkness from skyscraper high chimneys. Towering advertisements for soft drinks and escape blaring into the night at all hours. The rain and the traffic never stopping.
Read MoreNo two men were more fascinating in the world of model fairground construction than Nigel Fairfax and Jacob T Kilburn. Not that you need me to tell you that. We live in different times now. Fairfax, Kilburn and the whole Tempo Generation are no longer the controversial figures they once were. We have come through far more interesting times since then. Times they held open the small, to scale door open for; waving them all through to a better future.
Read MoreTo look at him back then, you’d never have guessed his future. As with all babies, he was simply a writhing ball of potential. A seed person. His eyes furious with fascination. His fingers tricky to steer, occasionally managing to land a grab. He responded to the voice of his mother, to the shape of her. He would reach for her always.
Read MoreI’ve never been what you’d call an animal person. I suppose it’s partly because I don’t cope well when things die. I struggled when Sam’s tropical fish floated to the top of the tank. I think it also comes from the fact that I didn’t grow up with animals around me. Thanks to two thirds of my childhood home having allergy issues, my parents never bought a pet. So I grew up without a puppy, kitten or baby gecko to call my own.
Since living under my own roof, any thought I’ve ever had about owning an animal has been crushed by realising just how much hard work that lies wrapped up in the relationship. Let alone the fact that living in a street where everyone apart from you owns a cat really puts you off owning one yourself.
Today we're going to talk about basketball. I know, I know. The fat, white horror writer fast approaching his 40s is going to try and talk about sport. Not just any sport. Basketball. The fast paced, money spinning game that has millions of people all over the world shouting at their TVs over the squeaking sound of trainers on wood.
Read MoreEither last week’s blog is incredibly late or this week’s blog is incredibly early. I’ll leave it up to you to decide. I’ve got other things to try and worry about. Like, for example, where to begin? Seriously, where do you start something like this? Last Thursday, in a little pub near the ring roads of Birmingham, I got on a stage in front of friends and family and launched my second horror novel. Which is not to say I threw a book at my friends at family. Well, not physically anyway.
Read MoreI suppose some people like to keep the defining north and south poles of their empires a little further apart. Span a larger axis. For whatever reason, life has really made sure I’ve kept my own poles far more provincial. Hoping between two neighbouring counties, whose defining edges are so uneven that they practically border on incest. Still, it’s okay, there’s some history around here. Shakespeare wrote plays and poems not too far away, before commuting to London and possibly not existing. Richard the Third, pantomime villain turned award winning role in one of those plays, slept under car park after forgetting where he parked his horse. Alan Moore only lives one country over, sewing seeds of magic, myth and political mayhem. Not a bad neighbour to have in these times.
Read MoreThere are some people in the world of cinema whose name becomes synonymous with what they do. You can spot them quite easily. They normally get the word ‘esque’ stuck on the end of their name to tell you another director has tried to respectably rip them off. It’s a sign that their talent has sewn them into the fabric of the cultural landscape. Steven Spielberg is very much one of those people. Although, unlike so many other directors who share that honour with him, he’s transcend the need to be seen as connected to only one genre or style of film. When it comes to Tarantino, Hitchcock, Fellini, Lean or Kubrick, you know roughly where the movie is going to take you. Whereas Spielberg feels more of an iconoclast than the rest of them. Or, at the very least, he appears to have a few extra clubs in his bag.
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