2025-02-19 - State of Play

Julian Simpson -

First up, let's do a round up of recent writing. On the Pleasant Green site, there's a brief update on our forthcoming audio crowdfunding effort (Crowley - Coming soon...?) and there a new journal entry from Kennedy (Wednesday 13th November 2024). And for subscribers on the Investigator and Department of Works tiers, the tenth and final installment of Saltmarsh is coming very soon.

Over on the Development Hell substack, I wrote On Authenticity and a diary entry yesterday (2025-02-18).

On the work front, I have embarked on a new feature script, even though I haven't finished the one I'm already on. My days at the moment allow me to fit in both and this new one is too much fun to postpone any longer. I've also just submitted a pitch for a new radio play and am noodling with a TV idea. The novel I'm writing has hit a slow patch, but I'm still managing to crank out at least a few hundred words first thing every day.

And here's a chance to clear out some bookmarks:

10 Places That No Longer Exist
Not even a compass could help you get to these lost places.
PocketKerry Wolfe
The Worst and the Dimmest
It’s not a coincidence that we’re being led by the least qualified monsters available; it’s a deliberate strategy. Facing the Worst - a series about directional alignment.
The ReframeA.R. Moxon
The French modernists loathed and loved the mass media of their day | Aeon Essays
How French modernists from Proust to Mallarmé were alarmed and inspired by the voracious dynamism of the newspaper world
Aeon Magazine
Why the simple life is not just beautiful, it’s necessary | Aeon Ideas
Frugal simplicity is not just an age-old philosophy: it’s also a lifestyle that offers the best hope for our planet
Aeon Magazine
19 Beautiful Examples of Historic and Modern Architecture Coming Together
It doesn’t happen often, but when old and new architecture are joined in a thoughtful manner, the results can be dazzling.
PocketNick Mafi
Ridley Scott is not looking back
Nobody is making big movies with the speed – or the confidence – of the Gladiator and Alien mastermind, now 87. He doesn’t care who notices
British GQChris Heath