I'm still alive. Quite likely to write something about something before too long. I'm sure by now you've all been to the Other Blog and read the album reviews. If all 495-730 of you went and had a look at Brian's new on-line guide to coffee it would make him very happy. In fact I'm sure he'd buy every one of you a latte the next time he sees you.

Dylan's awfully good, isn't he?

Arrr, it be international talk like a pirate day, me hearties, jim lad, avast they, and ye may lay to that, arrr, belay and belike

Here is, sorry, here BE, a playlist of songs about Highwaymen, Outlaws and Pirates.

But in the meantime:

Lawrence Miles has written the best thing that has ever been written about Doctor Who, starting here. I only mildly want to kill him because it is quite close to and better than a thing I have been wanting to do for a while. It is wrong in many particulars, but criticism doesn't have to be right, only interesting.

The sad, inspiring, infuriating tale of Cerebus the Aardvark has taken so many twists and turns in the last month that I start to wonder if Dave is actually a person at all, but rather a sort of virtual construct in a meta-novel. The series of on-line interviews starting here  make fascinating depressing reading. Mostly sane, though, as if we've got Old Dave back. ("I'm a very orthodox religious person, although I wouldn't be in the eyes of most religious people". That word; you use it all the time. I don't think it means what you think it means.)

Very shortly, I will still be a game designer again. 

For all those waiting for some feedback on Doctor Who, you should be warned than an elderly American man has just released a gramophone record with some songs on it. If you are interested in finding out what I would be like if I was brief, some of my stuff is on the Sci-Fi Now website.  (I believe that you can get it on your I-Tablet-Thing if that's you thing.) 

I've been enjoying Gerard Jones book on the origins of comic books. Very perceptive on the difference between Superman and Bat-Man. And he uncovers a genuinely jaw-dropping biographical fact about Jerry Siegel. (At least, I hadn't heard it before.) 

At risk of turning this Blog into the Tom Paxton fan site, today would be an excellent day to listen to this song again.

This Song

I think it must be one of the four or five genuinely great "authored" folk-songs of all time. (*)

There is absolutely no excuse for The Marvellous Toy.

P.S

(*) Grand Coulee Dam, Masters of War, The World Turned Upside Down, Hollow Point, maybe?