Recommendations

I’m on the wrong side of a four and a half hour string of train journeys. I feel like a cheap, badly constructed replica of myself, like I’m made out of cardboard and regret. A pale and shadowy simulacrum, a husk of a man. Everything aches, I can barely summon the energy to stay awake. My mouth tastes of stale spit, a taste that reminds you that you’ve been on the move for too long, that you’re badly dehydrated and in dire need of a decent meal and a cup of tea. I crave sleep like a mad junkie craves the sweet ministrations of his favourite intravenous cocktail. I am not a well man. I am a tired man. I’m still trying to shrug off the cloying embrace of a hangover and the experience of sleeping in a friend’s spare room and a bed that is not my own, a thing which has never sat well with me. I like the comforting familiarity of my home, my seat of power. Being away from it for any length of time leaves me drained. Needless to say this is not a state conducive the rationalised and coherent thought or blogging in general. So in lieu of any thoughts from my own fevered imagination I thought I’d share with you some of the blogs that have really tickled my fancy recently.

Way back in July Ali over at 12 Books in 12 Months “nominated” me (and many others) for the Versatile Blogger Award. It’s not really an award per se, it’s more akin to one of those memetic chain things that were so ubiquitous one the internet back in the heady Live Journal days of 2004. But in essence it’s really just a friendly acknowledgement of your fellow bloggers, a little aside to inform them that their not actually shit, and that they’re not wasting their time hammering away at their keyboard. Now strictly speaking I should now nominate 15 further blogs and then tell you 7 things about myself.  However in my current mood I can only really muster the response of “fuck that.” I’m not the sharing type and I don’t even read 15 blogs. There are however two new blogs that I recently started reading that I’ve really been enjoying.

The first of these is James Clayton’s new blog “Meanwhile, in an alternate reality…” It’s based around a really simple and thoroughly enjoyable concept. The blog is a collection of brief, snappy, daily headlines from news stories occurring in alternate realities. They cover a broad range of politics, public interest, social, entertainment and science. All of them a little surreal and delightfully varied in tone and delivery. It would have been remarkably easy for Mr Clayton to simply parrot out a load of gibberish, but structuring the headlines so that have just amount of strange and believability is a difficult and treacherous balancing act which thus far he has admirably managed to succeed at. I have some personal favourites from his growing catalogue of post which I wanted to share with you to give you a taste.

“Thorough investigations into extra-terrestrial dairy have proven that milk from cows raised on off-world farms is completely safe and carries no additional health risk to that from Earth-based cattle.” – 21st September

“Fear of the rampaging mastodon horde stampeding the homelands has encouraged the clans to postpone the planned Friendsfeast gatherings until later in the Darkskies season.” – 14th September

“The stratospheric filter has been set to ‘red’ after the colour claimed a landslide victory in the bi-annual public election. The next two years will therefore be bathed in hues of crimson.” – 12th September

The second is NecromAnswers the delightfully malign advice blog for Liches, necromancers and other practitioners of the dark arts. It lives in the same vein as mockumentaries, disinformation and parody, seeking to answer all those question that you’ve always wanted to know about the dark arts but which you were too afraid to ask. Thus far it’s covered a wide range of topics from necromantic fashion, education, relationships, housekeeping and legal problems. It’s posts remain one of the biggest highlights of my week, delivered with such deadpan sincerity that it lends every post a perverse authenticity and believability. It draws you in, it makes you think and most of the time makes you laugh. It’s funny, witty and extraordinarily well written, so much so that numerous readers have been under the impression that the blog is in fact a genuine advice blog.

Some of the highlights:

How best to care for your dread grimoires

Necromantic internships

Legal advice for dark wizards

I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do and that they bring some small glimmer of joy into your desolate and meaningless existence. I also hope, that come next week, I feel significantly less like an animated corpse and more like a dread wraith.