Recently updated blogs

Thank you to all who have dropped by here over the past year. I must apologise for not posting more regularly. But still, you will find on this clumsy-looking old blog that started in 2006 a mass of stories and information on the world of graphics, film, book covers, and much more that reveals my views and passion for the creative discipline we share. Here's to a New Year filled …

Let’s close out 2024 and begin 2025 with a long overdue open thread. Now’s your chance to get that otherwise off-topic comment posted at last. From plate tectonics to Hooked on Phonics, from substance abuse to substance dualism, from Thomism to Tom Tom Club, everything is on-topic. Trolls still not welcome, though, so keep it sane and civil.Previous open threads archived here.

Jagua Nana is a remarkable, but forgotten, novel. Set in Nigeria in the immediate aftermath of independence, it centres of Jagua Nana, a forty-five year old sex worker who retains her skills, beauty and fantastic dress sense. She is an icon of Lagos, a woman whose clothing and makeup sets the fashions for everyone else. And a woman who is desired by many men.Jagua wants to settle down and have

A bit of a painfully tenuous title for this blog post, basically to have an excuse to have some sort of image to place at the top there - showing that the audiobook version of Pull to Open is still doing well in one of the rather niche Amazon charts in which it features. Top twenty - can't argue with that!But I always look to do a blog post on …

I wrote just recently about how I'd accidentally tapped into a nostalgia mine by playing Ride 5, a game that lets you ride modern and classic motorcycles. And whilst it makes sense to me that letting me virtually ride old bikes I've ridden a long time ago might be a cause for fond memories, I was quite surprised by a similar sensation for one of the race tracks modelled in …

Now that we are at the end of 2024, it is time to look back at this year’s material published on Drew Ex Machina and see which of the new essays I posted during this site’s eleventh year online, along with earlier published material, proved to be most popular among my readers. In addition to satisfying my curiosity, this exercise is an attempt to figure out what kinds of articles …

As is traditional, the final Blog post of the year looks back on what we have achieved these past 12 months. Exactly a year ago, I wrote about the challenges of adjusting to the post-Covid world of a slashed volunteer workforce which for us had led to a drop in released carriages after we’d reverted to more thorough works, which contrasted with the 2022 quick refresh policy that had to …

I was recently taken aback by fellow blogger and friend Bruce's (from The Online Darkroom) reaction to a photograph that has been knocking about since about 1978. How can I date it so definitively? Well The Jam's Down In The Tube Station At Midnight came out in October 1978 and I seem to remember getting so fired up after seeing them on top Of The Pops (it is a great …

It's the first post of the new year 2025 and unlike every other website on the internet I am going to start with a damp squib rather than a bang. Hopefully we will build to a crescendo over the coming months and experience a few bone-dry rockets along the way... But after searching the web for history books published in the UK in December 2025 I have ended up with …

Is reading ever easy? Is knowing what you want to read possible? The times when the two click—when you find a book that says not what you know but what you need to hear—are the times I remember with the most longing. When a book speaks to you, and you are able to hear it, it’s everything. This year it was a struggle to find that match, to meet with …

As we reach the end of another year, now is the time to reflect on all the joys and disasters in the garden and allotment. This year I celebrated ten years of blogging. If you like, you can look at all sorts of developments over the last ten years by clicking on the categories or tags. In this review I’ll look at the highlights of 2024. Fabulous fruit Vegetables are …

The ware for December 2024 is shown below. This one should be a cakewalk, and I’m mostly sharing it because I had trouble searching for a recent example at an image quality sufficient to make out most of the part numbers. Maybe this can help someone else in a similar fix! Warm wishes for a safe and happy new year to all!

Every year, I make a New Year's Resolution just for writing. I don't bother with personal resolutions, because I never keep them. (I have not, for example, run the Boston Marathon, cured cancer, or finished my PhD...yet.) But, without fail, I do keep my writing resolutions. In past years, I have made writing resolutions to Write What I Feared (we must all face our writing demons), and to get more …

That Day We reach the time when I assess how well I predicted the ups and downs of the year and look forward to the next. Here we go again:The Sugababes release an whole album of brand new material.Not yet. although there is evidence they've been in the recording studio and there'll be an announcement next year. No marks.General election called, Tories lose power.They did! One mark.Overhaul of Disney "content" …

Joss Naylor 1936-2024This story appeared in The Guardian this week. It is a 17 minute film about an incredible runner in England, Joss Naylor, a shepherd and farmer who in his lifetime performed some seriously extraordinary running feats. And yet he remained a person of modest persona despite his shattering runs. He died this past June at the age of 88. Fell running is a very British sport. One I …