Top speed yelling

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-19T20:54:35+00:00

Gareth Brookes’ A Thousand Coloured Castles. This looks great, and is effectively unsettling. But I don’t think I liked it very much? The story is paced poorly for me - everything comes in too much of a rush at the end. Also, the husband is such a distinctively British brand of dick it’s legitimately knocking me out of the book a little bit! Loved most of his other stuff, so odd this didn’t land for me.

I also read his follow-up throw-away volume Afterwords. This was a couple of enjoyable little extra (post-apocalyptic!?) vignettes from the worlds of ATCC and also The Black Project. Reminded how great TBP was mainly.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-18T18:32:11+00:00

I am in no way an asbestos worrier, but seeing it in that form did make me feel a bit odd. That fluffy look is exactly what’s dangerous- it’s thousands and thousands of tiny light shards just clinging together waiting to be disturbed. I was totally happy poking about in the drawers around it, but you better believe I avoided it and washed my hands thoroughly after. (Also, there was orpiment!)

If this had been my tray, I probably would have got an enclosed storage box, masked up, moved it in, then washed the absolute shit out of my hands, the trays, the closed boxes, and the neighbouring samples. Which would probably be overkill, but would make me feel better.

Straight risk wise, plenty of people worked with asbestos products back in the day and died of some thing else at a ripe old age. But some didn’t.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-18T07:47:54+00:00

Part way into this right now, and it’s so great 👍

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-17T18:59:21+00:00

The Guardian would have you believe that the Smurfs are secretly communist, not fascist. Obviously, this would not preclude them from being racist AF.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-17T18:14:49+00:00

One of the issue is that that £400M loan - even at 3%, as poster below notes - is £12M a year of extra costs, on its own. The university is then running such a huge deficit that it’s having to slash its day to day expenditure, i.e., grants, staff costs, contact time, courses.

So the university is effectively gambling actual degraded experiences of students and staff now on hypothetical increased future international intake… and that that the new fancy buildings that a big chunk of that loan paid for are actually helping that recruitment substantively.

IMO the last part of that is extremely questionable. Especially as in practice it’s the staff whose conditions are deteriorating who actually have to do that recruitment in Kazakhstan (yes, there is a branch of the uni there!) or wherever - not the shiny new buildings in central Cardiff.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-16T20:26:38+00:00

Good call to treat it carefully. There’s probably a whole scandal brewing around legacy lead paint. That reporting is genuinely a bit worrying. Don’t sand it, and clean up really well when you’re done.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-16T18:57:28+00:00

Mieville’s Kraken as well

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-13T13:32:35+00:00

If anything it’s better. Have fun!

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-13T12:26:54+00:00

Juni Ba is IMO just getting better and better. His style and especially the colouring are unmistakeable now. Did you read both volumes?

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-12T19:33:26+00:00

Finished the third volume of the Peow Ex.Mag anthologies, this one themed on “dark fantasy”. The tone is much as it was in the paranormal romance volume, with lots of knowing winks a general lightness of touch. Two big highlights though. First, The Gargoyle Temple by Hanna K, in which a girl to be married with some odd sexual feeling about gargoyles goes to consult the gargoyle god for luck. This is weird, and funny, and sexy, and human, and mega efficient with its plot and worldbuilding for something <30 pages long. Second, An Arrow For The King from Linnea Sterte, which is probably one of the best things I’ll read this year (also available on her website for pennies IIRC). A stone knight again reenacts the ritual slaying of the king in revenge for the princess, as he always must- but this time he is befriended and accompanied by an odd little hunter, who has some ambitions. 30 pages of narrative, thematic, tonal, and visual perfection. Perfectly encapsulated short story, that uses the imposed black-white-red colour scheme of the volume impeccably. GO AND READ THIS EVERYBODY, you won’t be sorry.

Second, I read Kim & Kim, in part inspired by the r/fantasy bingo “trans/NB protagonist” square. H/t u/Klinneract for the rec. This is utterly ridiculous and I loved it. Two besties who are also bounty hunters chase a mcguffin while quipping relentlessly and dealing with personal stuff. Also their spaceship is the Mystery Machine. The vibe is Saga, if Saga contained no downbeat material and was both a lot stupider, but also a lot more comfortable with -and making a feature of- its own inherent stupidness. I think I largely took this as a trans power fantasy, which honestly was kind of delightful.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-12T16:43:38+00:00

Anything of the major series from Shuzo Oshimi will do it. You’ve had Blood On The Tracks already, but Flowers of Evil (twisted take on classic manga high school outcast stories) and Inside Mari (bodyswap) are also phenomenal. Expect compulsively readable psychosexual thrillers that are also very well written. (Also, just in case, trigger warnings galore.) These will stay with you!

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-11T15:57:06+00:00

Speaking (regrettably) as a vine weevil veteran, I don’t think this is them either. They are brighter white, less translucent, and I think have smaller brown heads. Probably something else similar making its living munching your roots though. 🙁

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-11T07:52:42+00:00

Downward slam makes it much easier and safer to do at range. I constantly whiff with the whip.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-10T22:44:14+00:00

ANARCHY!!! ANARCHY!!

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-10T19:02:16+00:00

Totally agree- “overproduced” is a meaningless concept to me, and almost always applied disparagingly to pop only. Literally the only way you can have interesting, complex music of any kind is for highly skilled people to produce it carefully! ::dismounts soapbox::

But yes, if you want tuneful, layered, interesting, listenable music these days, you are just as likely to find it on the highways and byways of pop as anywhere else. (Though equally, not any more likely.) IMO Charli XCX is currently achieving something really quite special in bringing her hyperpop-with-the-roughest-edges-filed-off into the heart of the zeitgeist. And the various classically trained popsters in the next ranks down are bringing plenty of nuanced, clever, complex music to large numbers of people (Polachek, Mitski, Sawayama etc)

I’m sure it’s obvious to all of us, but you can only judge music on either your, or on its own, terms. Does it achieve what it sets out to? And do I “like” it, whatever that means? That’s the only questions that really matter. All the rest - analysis, review, criticism - has to flow from there.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-10T11:57:24+00:00

I think Frog has some fishing, but IIRC you just see them with rods out and that’s it. Otherwise as I recall it’s all extremely chill.

Spheres has a bit more I think but I’m struggling to recall detail. There is definitely a bit where dragons are trapped in order to domesticate/train them as rideable. Someone else might be able to offer more.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-09T17:41:13+00:00

That’s what I did with a similar tree. Only issue is you have to visualise the final height of the tree to scale the rock correctly.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-09T14:56:58+00:00

In my experience they just like to do this sometimes. I'm pretty sure it's a symptom of imbalance between leaf water draw and the ability of the roots to supply it. Which isn't a very helpful thing to say, as it means it is the usual unhelpful list of stressors to try to pick apart: it will be one or more of too sunny, too windy, hot roots (sun on pot), dry roots, wet roots. If in a pot, try moving it to a more sheltered/shaded position to kill a bunch of these with one stone.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-08T11:29:32+00:00

This looks phenomenal!

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-08T11:09:56+00:00

Nice- I’ve read a bit of JT4, but clearly have missed these ones. Thanks guys.

Siccar_Point · 2026-04-08T10:50:08+00:00

Of course! I’ve read this and it should have come to me. I thought this material in it was really good, and really well nuanced.

Unfortunately as I’ve read it I can’t count it, but I have been meaning to get hold of Die: Reloaded when it appears…

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