It's frustrating that after all last year's headlines about "the collapse of nature" w/r/t insect population declines, there's been zero public visibility for the vast amount of connected research which - as ever - is less bleak but way more complicated:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ic… It drives me fucking spare. This isn't yahoo research funded by oil barons. It's decent scientists, who are _of course_ concerned about anthropogenic change, but don't get listened to unless they blurt out shit for tossers to retweet with "the end is nigh" gifs

Idea for a book called "harry potter and the stone" where he just finds a stone in a dirty yard and uses it to bash in people's windows. no magic or anything. just 800 pages of harry shattering windows and snarling swear words at anyone inside, then running away Next book is called "harry potter and the chamber" where he kicks his way through the boards over the door of a condemned paint factory, and finds a room where he has a massive piss, draws a dick on the wall, & spends an aimless hour trying to set fire to bits of insulation foam

It's february 16th, which means @Glitter_brawl, our daughter & I are watching all 3 Lord Of The Rings films as a weird memorial to my dad, while eating _every food item shown on screen_. This is #ThereAndSnackAgain, and we're in for nearly 50 courses over the next 12 hours... 1. Already seen a hobbit honk down a cake in a montage, so first course is a litte slice of cake with a mug of weak, sweetish tea

Keep hearing "It's not living" by the 1975 on the radio, and there's this bit of the song where it sounds like he's singing about having a twenty stone monkey that he "just can't eat" and let me tell you folks that's one hell of a mental image Now, the heaviest living monkey is the mandrill - a massively sexually dimorphic species where males can grow up to 50kg, and there are reports of exceptional individuals of 60kg. Even being generous and accepting the possibility of a 70kg mandrill, that's still only 10 stone.

Ok listen my cousin has asked if I can boost her undergrad research survey so I'm going to need a load of you to do this please. Come on you bastards make me look like I'm cool online

https://twitter.com/MeiiPlumsteadd/status/1089921664207458304

If you have done my cousin's survey, please reply below and I will PERSONALLY carry you through the gates of Valhalla, and/or pay you a single very high quality compliment

Had a really rough time keeping focus on work yesterday, so tried tricking my brain into a better today with a weird ritual oath. HOWEVER it seems the ritual has summoned an unexpected ally, as I found this on my keyboard when I came down to my office just now! Ave Ghoastus! Two hours of complete focus so far, and feeling well up for another 10 or so. Truly, this is the power of the Ghoastus Ritual.

Today’s a pretty special day to me, and it’s special because of a really good friend. He’s called @Daniel_Barker: it’s his birthday today, and it *still* feels odd to type his twitter handle because of what happened on this day four years ago. In 2015, @Daniel_Barker made a joke tweet about how not enough people were wishing him a happy birthday. Daniel is a very sensitive, self-critical fellow, so this tweet was adorably out of character:

https://twitter.com/daniel_barker/status/554950732538212352

Sometimes to relax I look up how chefs prepare weird fish, and last night I saw a geezer prep a giant isopod. I was expecting a nice surprise where it was full of fun meat but no: it was full of sloppy grey hell, like you might expect in the innards of a ghastly benthic scavenger Here's a giant isopod; it's the size of a moderate loaf of bread & is essentially a woodlouse, but consigned to the frigid abyss of the ocean floor. I actually reckon they're quite aesthetically satisfying, like most crustaceans, but there's something really unnerving about them.

PSA for anyone keen on buying my big book of fictional video games - Amazon seems to be dispatching them a bit late for Christmas, but Waterstones can get them to you on time! waterstones.com/book/100-best-…

https://twitter.com/RebellionPub/status/1075413273951002629

I have _no idea_ how Amazon works. I was delighted when loads of people RTed stuff about 100 Games this week, but Amazon taking 1 week plus to ship is disappointing. I can cope with the responsibility of marketing my published work, but I feel a bit powerless over distribution!

If you're still shopping for christmas, this book will sort out everything for 8 quid. It's 100 completely fictional games, reviewed in depth & illustrated by professional games artists, and the person retweeting this will tell you just what a laugh it is: amazon.co.uk/Best-Video-Gam… Thrill at the groundbreaking annelid business simulation of WORM SALESMAN '84!

Just had my first proper advert dad moment going through departures at berlin-tegel. After 5 minutes of confusion over what to do with the baby's pushchair, the security lads politely commanded me to fully disassemble it, as a massive queue of waiting businessmen watched on. We'd already held everyone up for ages, so I was feeling acutely anxious, & suddenly the pressure of the moment folded some valve of my brain completely shut. I forgot all my German, most of my English, & every conception of the pushchair as something more than an abstract shape.

FYI anyone who was watching the stream, I had this one sat next to me like jabba the hutt's little mate, laughing like a drain as I got obliterated by wolves <3

https://twitter.com/Glitter_brawl/status/1069678228489596933

Also, bravo to @UnrealMcGravin, who donated to @OfficialZSL because I got through an hour without doing a crime. I'm gonna match that as an act of apology to all snapping turtles.

https://twitter.com/UnrealMcGravin/status/1069683119048003585?s=19

I reckon I might pull forward this week's Cowboy Game stream to tonight - what do you reckon, mates? As a sort of respite from the horror of the last stream, I'm thinking of doing a gentle desert safari for the first hour, followed by the usual pandemonium for the second. Alright then folks, I'm going to be unleashing the dark majesty of the Cowboy at 7pm on twitch.tv/realmsoffighti… - I'm going to attempt an HOUR OF NO CRIMES, so come along and see how far I get!

Noel Edmonds, waking in a dank maze. He stumbles down passages lined with brine-rusted rivets, groping in the half-light for a way out, but finding only rough iron. A shape emerges ahead; a battered steel toilet seat, bearing the numeral '1'. With trembling hands, he lifts it. The scent of pink custard blasts Edmonds' face, hot & dense as a sick dog's breath. Blinking the fug away, he sees an image swim into focus: a victorian butcher, beaming behind a barrow of hams & turkeys. But the meat doesn't look right. It's pink & foamy, with broad yellow spots

Having my nightly session on the Cowboy Game and encountered a strange moment of transient beauty as the protagonist stopped to consider a sunrise, before emptying a bottle of gin into his gullet, smacking his lips, and tossing the bottle into the puddle of owl blood at his feet. Honestly, with the number of innocent lives this dreadful man has snuffed out through panicky chain-killings of witnesses to his minor acts of theft, he's truly red dead irredeemable. Sometimes I truly hate him

Really weird moment playing the cowboy game where my cowboy was wading up to his waist in mud and I had a momentary flash of deep worry that he'd get his phone wet Further cowboy adventures: after stabbing a bear to ribbons, the cowboy became obsessed with selling its skin. He rode the land in an increasingly anxious search for a vendor, refusing to carry wounded people to safety as he did not value their lives as highly as that vile pelt

Damn, I am really looking forward to announcing my current project. I've been working on it since the start of the year, through some pretty intense times, and it's almost, _almost_ done. It's an entirely fabricated non-fiction book, and it's... quite in-depth. You'll like it. (For clarity: (1) this isn't the Schneider Wrack sequel, but I'm still well keen to work on that when the day comes (2) it's not a followup to 100 Games (3) it is with a new publisher and an announcement shouldn't be too far away)

I've been quiet for a few days because I have been having a really difficult time, and I think I need to vent about it before I can move on. If you've had conversations with me go cold in recent days, apologies - I'm finding it quite hard in general to talk. I'll not beat around the bush: I've spent far too much time watching people die over the last couple of years. We've had a _lot_ of losses in our family, and we've spent the last three weeks making tense daily visits to the ICU as @Glitter_brawl's dad's life hangs by a thread.

October arrives, like a pack of rain-matted apes dragging a tarp full of spoiled ham through an abandoned funfair, urged on by a trudging dunce swinging a length of chain. Walk on, boys, walk on October arrives, like a crumpled cigarette packet pushed through your letterbox by a clammy, shaking hand, containing a single ailing wasp

Out of curiosity, I just sat down and watched the full music video for 'Party Rock Anthem', and I don't know whether it's accidental but it's a genuinely brilliant bit of horror storytelling. For those who've not seen it, the video for 'Party Rock Anthem' begins with a parody sequence based on 28 Days Later, where the song's architects wake from a coma caused by excessive party rocking around the single's release, to find an abandoned world.

I just want 10,000 followers because that's how many orcs saruman had. When it happens I'm gonna give you all a handprint on your foreheads and we'll go off and trash a castle or something looks like meat's back on the menu boys