Recently updated blogs

It’s always a special feeling to say good bye to a year and welcome a new one. When you look back, you realize how fast a year passes by, but also how much you’ve done and been through. For us, New Year’s Eve 2024 will be extra special. Not only are we saying good bye to the year 2024, we are also saying good bye to our apartment which we …

So this is the thing that I made. What's it good for? The Collection contains 30 magic items that I wrote up, more or less original. Some are weapons, some are clothes. Most are weird. Some are almost definitely cursed. The items in the Collection are grouped into five categories. When you need to quickly and randomly give your players some unfamiliar magic loot, roll a d6 a couple times, …

Madelaine Moore is a freelance theatre director and artistic director of female-focused theatre company The Thelmas with Guleraana Mir. Here, she answers five questions about their new production, Santi & Naz at the Soho Theatre, gender equality in theatre, what she likes to watch and what making theatre is like...

For last year’s check-in, I foreshadowed a year of changes for ol’ Dave Rupert and boy was I not kidding. New job, new car, new pets. But before we get into all that – for accountability’s sake – let’s check in on my resolutions from last year and see how I did… Activate an active lifestyle - Nope. Write more shitty sci-fi - Nope. Draw more - Nope. Write for …

The ‘exotic’ yet homely Central Asian restaurant hidden in Queensway Market Although it’s not quite as common as it used to be, there’s a hoary old cliche found on restaurant menus across the land: ‘home cooked’. It’s obviously meant to evoke warm, fuzzy feelings of maternal coddling, but distilled onto a plate. Yet, at the risk of sounding unnecessarily ornery, contrarian or fuelling speculation about my dysfunctional parents, I don’t …

I've started editing/re-editing some family photos. Figure I'll post the images here as groups, and add to the posts as I get photos edited.These will be photographs related to Robert Call and Charlotte Joslin. Shared December 2024 I believe this is a Christmas card sent to my grandmother Evelyn Clara (Call) Hankins by her cousin Rosalind Daniels in 1941. She included photographs of two crayon drawings of their grandparents Robert …

'Once again, reading kept me going this year. I started the year recovering from an operation and seeking somewhere new to live. I was then made redundant in February and spent a good few months searching for work. Professional losses and personal losses have combined to make the year something of a tumult, and reading has been an anchor. Except when I read something I hated.'

Training classes can be an excellent opportunity for your dog to learn new skills, build duration and resistance to distraction, become proficient in working through various levels of difficulty and distraction, burn energy, gain confidence, and build your relationship. When looking into finding a class, the first question to ask is: What are you looking to accomplish? Are you looking to build new obedience skills? Give your dog an extra …

It's only a few days until 2025. That means one thing: it is time for my yearly tradition of reviewing… some of my year. I'll cover work, conferences, reading, writing and music. This will inevitably sound cheesy, but I am once again genuinely grateful for the opportunities I got… there were fun projects at work, I got to see some of my dearest artists live and I got to share …

As we approach the end of 2024, we’re looking back at our past year in publishing and the articles we’ve shared with you—including essays on the pleasures of ensemble acting, the golden age of giallo filmmaking, and the history of Times Square as a cinematic setting, as well as in-depth conversations with pioneering directors Lizzie Borden and Ayoka Chenzira. Enjoy this selection of twelve highlights, and be sure to check …

Hey everyone, hope you had some lovely holidays! It’s been a while since I did an “On The Table”, so let’s clear my backlog of what I’ve played before heading into the new year. For those that don’t know me: “On the Table” is my short, quick impressions format for games where it’s either way too early to write a full review or I decided they are not for me …

"The Oak," observes Mr. Gilpin, "is confessedly the most picturesque tree in itself, and the most accommodating in composition. It refuses no subject, either in natural, or in artificial landscape. It is suited to the grandest, and may with propriety be introduced into the most pastoral. It adds new dignity to the ruined tower, and Gothic arch; it throws its arms with propriety over the mantling pool, and may be …

Pattern recognition is extremely fun and we love to do it. When I was a kid I loved archeology and dramatic histories of science (think “The Microbe Hunters”) and also anything about unexplained phenomena and scientific hoaxes, like UFOs or people spontaneously combusting or the original Mechanical Turk. And now I am spontaneously combusting myself as I have just read the most ridiculous fable! Google “news” shoveled a fantastic “science” …

New baby! 327g. Working with such a thickness took me a few days of adjusting details. A few imperfections, more than usual. I had to do some parts of the process in two steps. But I reached the goal of much bigger spine compared with the pages (+29%). This will help to balance the thickness once the notebook is eating notes, experiences and sticked alien stuff. The pages will get …