Northumberland is border country, and normal rules barely apply. It’s wild land, rugged but beautiful, a place where authority has always struggled to assert itself. One of the most famous hard borders in the world is here — George RR Martin was hardly the first person to come up with the notion of a defensive wall between the ‘civilised’ south and the ‘untamed’ north. Rievers, bandits and scallywags roamed free across a landscape called, with no lack of irony, The Debatable Lands.
Here the borders between past and present seem thinner, too. Walking a path across fields hemmed by dry stone walls, or simply gazing out over a landscape where human intervention is barely visible, it’s easy to think you’re looking at the same view people from hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, would recognise.
But be careful, student of history. What you’re looking at and what you’re looking for are not the same thing.
Featured image: The Great Hall At Wallington, Northumberland. All picures by yours truly.
It’s easy to lose faith. As a fan, reader and outspoken advocate for the medium of comics, it can be a struggle to argue your corner when folks will only see the worst parts of your favourite things. Worse, when they confuse the medium with the genre and offer up their gotchas based on prejudice, misinformation or plain ignorance.
I believe that human ingenuity is only matched by the equally human capacity for cruelty. Think about what we have achieved over the millennia—the great works, the stunning, almost incomprehensible technological leaps. Then think about how they were achieved, and the terrible choices we made to enable that progress.
The week can just run away with you. Perhaps it’s a symptom of age, maybe a simple matter of perception versus to-do list versus the increasingly urgent need to bank more than eight hours sleep a night. You can only fit so much into a sixteen-hour day. This week, unfortunately, has not provided opportunity for the glean and winnow of the internet which ends up with the half-baked confection that is your soar-away Saturday Swipe.
To put it another way—no linky madness this week, chums. Instead, let me open up and talk in a freeform way about time, roughly ordered into five short segments.
You have to take the bright moments when you can find them. It has been an especially dark start to 2025, and I for one am ready for a dose of sunshine.
Warmth, though, that’s still a big ask. Even though the skies have cleared to a shining, sapphire blue, it’s still scrape-the-windshield weather in the morning. I have never been happier to embrace one of car technology’s greatest innovations— heated front seats. One button push and a toasty tush is yours in a minute flat. After twelve years of shivering while the old Note’s AC coughed out lukewarm air on a frosty morning, Harvette’s little trick on the morning commute feels like sorcery.
That half-hour drive into work has its own quiet magic now I’m on the road at sunrise. The bridge at Sonning, cloaked in mist from the Thames, has an otherworldly feel. The treeline flattens into two-dimensional planes, hovering like ghost-giants in the soft luminescence. Crossing the bridge feels like slipping into another realm, a place of fog and mystery.
As I hit the M4 the light changes again. The horizon is washed in rose gold, peach and tangerine, while the sky brightens to the clean denim blue of a country singer’s jeans. There’s still a diffusion to the light. The morning traffic is haloed, glimmering, sparks striking the chrome. In another week or so the sun will be in my eyeline, and I’ll need to wear shades to get into work.
TLC and I have been spending every weekend in the garden, making the most of the lighter days to get some heavy lifting done. This is the latest episode in our ongoing struggle with the bottom section of our property, Copse End. Over the years it has been home to raised beds, a lawn and summerhouse, and always, always the unstoppable infiltration on three sides from ivy, bramble, nettles and bindweed. In the summer of 2020 the situation reached a low point, as the spiny invaders almost took over. I spent a lot of lockdown in pitched battle with Copse End, a bruising, slashing conflict which helped take my mind off other more pressing issues, even if it did leave thorn-scars behind.
Anyhow. Copse End Mk. 3 is a complete restart. Last November we had the ground rotorvated, tearing up the last of the lawn and long-standing weeds. The ensuing swamp overwintered under cardboard and plastic while TLC made drawings and began to portion out the ground plan. We’re opening up the whole area, moving away from the notion of a two-thirds split down the long runway of the garden, revealing the full 130m airstrip right down to Gwen’s Den, the huge pergola that marks the far boundary of our property.
It’s hard work, don’t get me wrong. We didn’t need to waste money on a gym membership in January—swinging a lump hammer and digging up heavy clay soil is all the exercise we need, thank you very much. It feels like a very long haul, and at times, aching and frozen, we fervently wished we’d left well alone.
But no. Copse End is where the sun lands in the afternoon. It’s where we want to be come 5pm on a weekday evening, soaking up rays alongside a well-deserved glass of boozy. It’s where we want to eat as the sun hits the tree line, with the smoky tang of barbecue drifting up from the kamado. It’s our escape plan, our refuge. In Copse End, you hear nothing but birdsong and the drone of an occasional plane. Traffic noise is over there somewhere, out of earshot. If we put the work in now, the rewards come June could be magnificent.
Filling C’s planned beds with plants is going to be a big job too, and could prove expensive, so we’re indulging with another of the gardener’s winter pleasures—getting seed trays on the go. The window sills are crowded with propagators, dewy with condensation, warm beds for our new potential haul. I’ve started thinking about veg as well—there is a raised bed planned for me to grow squashes, chard and fennel. I have a couple of types of cucumber under glass, and garlic is already poking out questing green shoots from the buckets I split two heads into a couple of weeks back. There will be tomatoes and chilis too, herbs by the armful, and salad for days. I may not be the gardener that C has become, but I have my moments.
Sure, we spend our weekend evenings in a woozed-out blur as the endorphins of exercise wear off and our joints and muscles noisily remind us we are in our fifties. Ordinarily, any reminder of my mortality would give me a bad case of sads. But we pack away the tools at the end of the day with a glow. Every week we’re a little further along, a little closer to the goal. There’s no real deadline as such—after all, a garden is never finished. But that’s part of the fun of it. We do this because we choose to, because it’s good for us to put in the work (mostly) by ourselves. Because come the summer we will have a place of peace and comfort carved out of cold earth and old stone and warm seedlings.
This week has rinsed me out more than I thought. The Day Job has challenged my patience to extremes. House Beast Millie developed a case of conjunctivitis, which had us running around to vets and organising weekend cover to get someone in to give her eyedrops. Have you ever given a cat eyedrops? It’s dramatic and potentially scarring.
Meanwhile, a side effect of trying to stay away from the news this week means I have a paucity of links for to Swipe at you. Therefore, I offer apologies and a little something from the archives.
2025 marks the tenth birthday of an audio drama that pal Clive and I put out when we were podcasting regularly (links to both the Speakeasy and the A-Z OF SFF are in the sidebar if you want to explore a bit), an attempt to expand the remit and try something different.
For reasons lost in the mists of time we decided to make an episode of a fictional 1930s horse opera—a cowboy comic in audible form featuring a whip-bearing protector of the plains and his Native American sidekick. We corralled a few friends and performed a script what I had wrote, then wrangled it into crude shape in GarageBand.
It’s not the most polished bit of radio you’ll ever hear. Performances veer from barely there to scenery-chewing, the mix is a bit weird and let’s be honest, our enthusiasm for recreating the spirit of the times makes it a bit tin-eared towards the sensitivities of the present day. Approach with caution if you’re easily offended.
However. It was a thing that we spent time, love and energy on and I’m still pretty fond of Whip Crackaway, janky edits, wobbly sound levels and all. It was fun to make and features a wonderful moment where due to casting constraints forcing us to double up on some roles, Clive was forced to flirt with himself.
So settle in, pour a glass of something warming, light up a Caversham and let the Speakeasy Players perform for you.
I mentioned last week that my involvement in Dingtown’s longest-running writing group Reading Writers (other groups are available—we have no problem with competition) has deepened this year as I amble gently into the role of elder statesman. I’m prouder than ever of our merry band, and the quality of work I see in our monthly manuscript nights and competition entries fills me with warmth and pride.
I’m not a stand-back member by any means, regularly getting stuck into presentations, event management and entries for our twice-yearly themed competitions. But, my friends, there is a complication, one which I couldn’t really vouchsafe for any other aspect of my life.
I think I’m getting too good at this. I have regularly been a prize winner, but in 2024 I won top billing for both the spring and summer contests.
Immediate clarifications required. RW competitions are overseen by a judge from outside the group, and submitted anonymously. There’s never been any accusation of rigging or undue influence—what would be the point? It’s about the work, not the glittering prizes on offer. I’m not desperate enough for a £20 Amazon voucher to risk my integrity and reputation.
This puts me in a bit of a difficult position. The sporting thing to do, surely, would be to withdraw, at least temporarily. If I do, then I can already hear the derisive jeers of ‘gee thanks for giving us mere mortals a chance, oh mighty wordsmith!’ Damned if I do etc etc. I’ve got until March to figure out what to do. I guess I could write a story and hold it in reserve in case we need an entry to make up the numbers—actually, that might be worse.
Here are the two prize-winning stories what I wrote in 2024. I’m very proud of both. For context, the prompt for The Interstice was a set of photos ‘found’ on an old SD card by judge Damon Wakes of the abandoned Childs Hall at Reading University. Rotting urban infrastructure, which informed the mood of the piece. Hercule came from Julie Cohen’s theme of ‘talking parrots’. I don’t think I need to elaborate further.
I hope you enjoy them. Heads up: The Interstice is a horror story, which includes imagery some readers may find disturbing. Hercule was performed by yr humble etc as part of the 2024 Reading Writers Autumn Competition evening with sub-‘Allo ‘Allo French accents, which those present may have found offensive.
One last thing, which I’ll shout about again closer to the time. Reading Museum is currently running an exhibition called Art Stories in the John Majeski Gallery, which teams recent acquisitions to the collection with short pieces from local authors. Reading Writers is very strongly represented, and I’m in the mix too.
On February 1st, some of the writers and artists involved in the project will be meeting each other and anyone who fancies coming along. There will be readings. There may be emotions. It should be a fun afternoon. 2 till 4 pm. Say you’ll come.
I’ll Outro with one of my most-played tracks of 2024, which also serves as a reminder of new Swipery next week. Yep, we’re right back to it.
This week I’m going to be a bit looser, a bit more personal in my approach to the newsletter. For one thing, I’ve been attempting a social life, so not had much time to trawl for links. For another–well, it’s good to mix things up sometimes. Grab a cuppa and a slice of cake and let me tell you about my week.
In a change to our regular programming, Excuses And Half Truths is delighted to welcome Ryan Morris back to the fold. He brings us a special report on the 2024 London Film Festival, and what it takes to survive the madness of one of the biggest gatherings of film-makers and fans in the world…
It’s 8:20am on a Wednesday morning. I’m sat in Picturehouse Central’s lavish Screen One, matcha latte in hand, blissfully unaware that the first film I’ll be watching at the 2024 London Film Festival will involve a man having his penis cut off and refrigerated. As I stumble out of the cinema some 98 minutes later, still in a daze from the frenetic blast of French cinema I’ve subjected myself to before the clock has even struck ten, I wonder to myself – “Would I rather be at work right now?”
The answer, of course, a resounding “No”. LFF 2024, here I come.
Noemie Merlant’s The Balconettes was the first of thirty films I saw in the cinema over the next eleven days, a whirlwind of fancy red carpets, sleepy early morning trains, movie-induced tears, movie-induced yawns and the occasional mad dash to a cinema on the other side of the Thames. People think of film festivals as something of a static affair in which you spend the whole time sitting down. Tell that to my Fitness app — it clocked an average of 18,500 steps a day.
Having the Press & Industry pass gave me access to screenings away from the public eye, a chance to see the kind of films that’ll never make it to your local multiplex. Apocalyptic musical comedy/drama about the last surviving family on Earth, anyone? These were the bulk of my films this year, based almost entirely at the retro-fitted Picturehouse Central by Piccadilly. It’s a warm and welcoming place, a cinema mostly frequented by the more passionate of film fans and given an even further jolt of energy when filled by a festival crowd.
All of my four-film days – of which there were, aptly, four – were mostly spent here, often with only half an hour to digest a gritty and contemplative Portuguese-Scottish drama about the systemic failings of immigration before sitting down for a gentle comedy about a man being left to single-handedly look after his and all of his friends’ elderly mothers when they jet off to a Pride event without him. These half hour breaks commonly involved a very brisk walk to a Leon around the corner, with their monthly membership giving us five free barista made drinks per day – a lifesaver in every sense of the word. I’m all for supporting the independents, and boy did I find a croissant or two to prove that to myself, but it’s hard to turn down a deal that good. Ryan needs his film fuel.
The other side of the festival is the public screenings, reasonably priced until you step onto the nightly red carpet gala premieres. Star-studded events both on and off the stage (I’ve seen Edgar Wright in the crowd so often at these he feels like a cousin at this point), this is the side of LFF that hits the headlines – and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t my favourite. It feels like a reward for the early starts and the long days, to walk the red carpet with names like Angelina Jolie and Andrew Garfield, and have them introduce their films before they premiere. If the endless barrage of the P&I screenings is a testament to one’s commitment to cinema, the galas feel like a celebration of just how loved cinema truly is.
And then day eight came – the day I hit the wall. It was the fourth and final of my four-film days starting with 7am trains into London, and at the risk of sounding ungrateful for an experience I truly do adore every year, this was when I started to flag. I’d seen fifteen films in the past 72 hours and was facing a five hour gap before sitting down for the sixteenth. Even with a close friend I attend the festival with keeping me company, this next film felt like a chore. It was the Surprise Film, so we didn’t even know what we were in for. The unimaginable threat of the Robbie Williams CGI monkey biopic felt like a guillotine blade quivering over our necks.
But then came the suggestion – ice cream? On a cold October night, ice cream? It’s a mad idea but it might just work. We galloped off to Anita Gelato between Soho and The Strand for a three scoop tub of coconut, almond & white chocolate. And do you know what? The sugar and fat saved the day. Suddenly film sixteen didn’t feel like such a chore. It turned out to be a comedy, too. Thank the Lord.
The last four days are when the festival quietens down. The early trains push back to late morning, and the trips to Leon become leisurely walks rather than breakneck runs. This is probably how days out to the cinema are supposed to be enjoyed, but I’ll be damned if I let that stop me. After thirty films in eleven days, spread between eight screens across three venues, I caught the sleepy last train home from Paddington and revelled in the fact there was nothing new in the cinema I wanted to see that coming week.
I’m writing this a mere nine days after the festival ended, and I now have five cinema tickets saved in my Apple wallet for the next seven days. Time to relaunch that Leon subscription.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 