iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Jedediah Berry @jedediahberry.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Deeply grateful to see this story of mine brought back to life. Maybe my only work of science fiction, actually!

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Meet Arlo Lang We once imagined him to be some kind of dog prodigy. 100% affection, 100% adventure, 100% relentless joie de vivre, 100% a provider of alarm & bafflement. Get a load of this wally.

Arlo, a dog, pretending to swim in the sea

Arlo, still a dog, this time a speck in the distance

000

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Best Star Trek crew, wrong answers only. I dunno, one of the crews from either the Bellerophon, The Boiling Hell, the Vivi-Quinquereme Find the Lady or H.M.S. Surprise.

Rockets, A Way of Life - Stephen Appleby

Swamp Thing 'Pog' - Alan Moore, Shawn McManus

020

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Anya Johanna DeNiro @adeniro.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

John Crowley has died--what a loss. Two books of his that really carried me through different parts of my life: Engine Summer for its audacity and pure emotionality and the Solitudes, for the uncanny that perfumes the pages like a cloud, that comes upon a person when they are utterly lost.

25121

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

David Binnig @binnig.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Engine Summer is one of my favorite science fiction novels, beautiful book.

Paperback edition of Engine Summer, John Crowley (1979). A young woman with an orb sits behind a watchful cat.

24914

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Maria Dahvana Headley @mariadahvana.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I'm sorry to hear that John Crowley has left the land of the living. Whenever we happened to meet, we talked about strange wonders and lost languages. He had a mind full of magical things, and was always delighted to discuss. May he travel to an interesting ever-afterlife.

Two authors at a panel discussion table, a microphone between them. One is me, in a gold brocade dress, smiling and looking down at a book, and the other is John Crowley, author of Little, Big among many other books. He's got glasses, white hair and a small white beard, and he's smiling and looking happy. This is 2018 at the Grolier Club, and we're talking about the history of fantasy literature, at the invitation of Henry Wessells.

1127541

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

(VFP) Strategic Gravitas Reserve @braak.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

One of the things about Elmore Leonard style crime novels that is good is that he very clearly understands that most crimes are done by idiots.

2469

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Jamie McKelvie @mckelvie.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Andy Burnham should ban poetry voiceovers in TV and radio adverts

7514

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

iucounu @iucounu.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

guys I just want to talk

141

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Matthew Sweet @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Farewell Bill, most radical of the Goodies. Present at Grosvenor Square with Tariq & Vanessa. Turned his harassment by the Met into slapstick TV comedy for kids. Angry, hairy, furiously talented.

271468290

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

How's this for a plan - I left my prescription goggles in my bag this morning & consequentially didn't see a single jellyfish. #Pwlldu #Gower #Swansea

030

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

💀 skeletori amos 💀 @rivalconga.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

A story I love about Anthony Stewart Head. Thank you to this person for sharing it on Tumblr. What a mensch.

A photo of Tony Head with a fan, standing in a barn near a horse. Tumblr post from dracofidus: If you EVER think Anthony Head is anything less than an angel then you'd best remember that I have always been a huge fan of his and we've always had a little contact over the years and he heard I'd come out as Trans and was having a hard time and that I was kind of sad that the photos I had from conventions with him were of me with long hair and no binder and they were all signed to "Sarah" and so he invited me to spend the day with him at his farm and he picked me up from the station and we just hung out and had lunch and he insisted on paying and look loads of photos and had them printed on photo paper the same day so he could sign them to Jay, along with other photos of him as Giles and Utger and he literally spent five hours chatting with me and got all the pronoun stuff right every time and then he dropped me off at the station, gave me a massive hug. Waved me through the ticket barrier and insisted I message him when I got home so he knew I was back safe.

5669692143

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

A Map Of Britain After The 2029 Technology Crash, by me and my dad.

A map of the new future regions of Britain, including 'Wolves' and Wild Golf'.

47470144

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

All cars should be no bigger than Smart cars and have a max speed of 25mph. I don't propose this out of environmental or safety concerns, I just think it would be funny and upset a lot of people I don't like.

2744943

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

List 15 non-DC/Marvel/ABC/IPC comics that accord with your current vibe. Big Numbers Love & Rockets From Hell Luther Arkwright Providence Alec Escape The Cowboy Wally Show The Bojeffries Saga Puma Blues Taboo Strangehaven Miracleman Finder It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth

110

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Post your favorite Lord of the Rings character(s). Wrong answers only. Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! #MichaelMoorcock #AlanMoore

010

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

On Gordon Ramsay: Special Ops.

He illuminates queasy splatters of food waste on every surface, plate and utensil, steps in horrid pools of stagnant, clumpy water and discovers an oven that has been left on overnight.

This all serves as little more than a queasy starter, however, as we then follow Ramsay to the basement, where he swabs surfaces and machinery for bacteria. Firing up his electronic germ-counter while the music from Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell on the PlayStation 2 saws away in the background, he tells us that an unflushed toilet will register at 1,400 on its bacteria scale.

When the screen bleeps back with 5,550, we delight at the knowledge that his shouting muscles are no doubt flexing as we speak.

Even as night turns to day, our thirst for a good ol’-timey Ramsay bollocking is not sated, for a further twist is revealed. The staff of Parthenon believe they are the subject of a documentary called Restaurant Refresh, and they have therefore allowed cameras everywhere in their premises.
These Gordon will now watch, all day, from an FBI-style surveillance van that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Tactics Truck, Andy Townsend’s short-lived but much-missed statistical-analysis vehicle.

What follows is precisely what you’d expect. Staff are useless and Ramsay swears a lot – it’s just that he mostly does so on his own in the dark or inside a truck.

Just before the halfway point, after hosting a microbiologist in his van and deploying a duo of top chefs as secret diners, Ramsay can resist no longer. “I’ve seen enough – I’m on my way,” he says, like a special-ops sniper moving in on a hostage-taker.

From there the show mutates into the standard Kitchen Nightmares format – part confrontation, part cookery course, part renovation, part tearful group-therapy session – leaving us to wonder why any of this subterfuge was necessary.

The notion that the sight of Ramsay puts restaurant staff on their best behaviour would make a kind of intuitive sense were it not for the fact that his decades-long career in American television consists almost exclusively of him proving that the opposite is the case.

One might also quibble with the premise that the best way to get these restaurants to drop their guard is to simply pretend they’re filming a different restaurant-makeover show, which nevertheless requires constant surveillance from dozens of cameras that record their every move.

2294

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

I also attempted an authoritative list of British TV shows from the last decade, in which celebs travel around Italy. I got to 12 names, but feel like I must have missed some others? I was absolutely sure Gok Wan did one - it seems mathematically improbable that he hasn't - but can find no trace.

The phrase “cottage industry” is sometimes deployed for the type of TV show that clusters within a larger oeuvre. One might, for example, cite the current surge of travel shows about celebs going to Italy, which has so far seen Stanley Tucci, Gino D’Acampo, Francesco da Mosto, Clive Myrie, Giovanna Fletcher, Alex Polizzi – I’m not finished yet – Alan Carr and Amanda Holden, Andrew Graham-Dixon and James May all front programmes about Italy this decade alone.

And then there are those individuals who have become not just a cottage industry but a genre unto themselves. In this bracket we would be forced to place Gordon Ramsay, whose new show, Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service (Channel 4, Monday), may seem strikingly familiar to fans of everything else he has ever done (one exception being the slightly more sedate travelogue he did with D’Acampo and Fred Sirieix, in which they travelled around, er, Italy).

16285

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Hell Dunkin @halduncan.com · 21/04/2026

I remember when Gordon Brown got raked over the coals for privately shrugging off an anti-immigrant racist as "that bigoted woman" with every paper *including The Guardian* being all "oh no how very DARE he???" but I guess it's OK for Mahmood to tell pro-immigrant anti-racists to "fuck right off"

212239

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Hell Dunkin @halduncan.com · 22/04/2026

Just in case anyone out there is thinking, man, that McSweeney and Labour Together really did a number on the Labour Party, all the problems of the Labour Party can be put down to that McSweeney and Labour Together, if it weren't for them... Aye naw. They're just the end point of the neoliberal rot.

2101

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

David Firn @davidfirn.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

What's even the point of driving if you have to obey the speed limit?

The enforced slow pace of traffic has made motoring less sexy. I may as well take the bus, says Helen Rumbelow

6431936

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Share a preacher, nun, or priest I'm feeling generous, have 3 nuns & a priest

Barbara Flynn as Rose Marie, A Very Peculiar Practice

Kathleen Byron, Sister Ruth, Black Narcissus

Siobhán McSweeney, Sister Michael, Derry Girls

031

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Nathan Anderson @nathanandersonart.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

How Gene Wolfe's Peace is not considered one of the great American novels is beyond me. The way it interrogates the myth of the American Dream is brilliantly done, beyond how gorgeously written it is.

2443

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Angus Dunican @angusdunican.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Never a big Narnia guy but this 6 seconds typifies everything I love about British television.

8239111035

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

It is rare for something shot in Manchester to feel absolutely Hooklandian, but Small Prophets is a rare thing - an esoteric TV comedy that grows the heart. Mackenzie Crook is a genius. Small Prophets is television treasure. m.youtube.com/watch?v=wLKL...

m.youtube.com

Small Prophets | Official Trailer - BBC

YouTube video by BBC Trailers

4259882

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

☠️ Skulls and Sheets 👻 @skullsandsheets.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Oh my Small Prophets was so good.

5251

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Bob Fischer @bobfischer.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

I've waited 35 years for the spiritual heir to The Beiderbecke Affair, then suddenly Small Prophets comes along. Just perfect.

5442

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

HappyToast @happytoast.co.uk · 15/02/2026

Just looking through some old comics and found a mail order advert for Small Prophets

Small Prophets in the style of the old Sea Monkeys advert

13832189

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Sarah Weinman @sarahweinman.com · 30/01/2026

James Sallis was one of the true towering figures, crossing multiple genres and categories, but particularly in crime fiction. His death at the age of 81 is a real loss, but we do have two more books of his to look forward to this year. mailchi.mp/sohopress/re...

24415

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

Post four TV couples you love (both actual relationships and profound yearning are acceptable)

Princess Bubblegum & Marceline the Vampire Queen, Adventure Time

Trevor Chaplin & Jill Swinburne, The Beiderbecke Affair/Tapes/Connection

000

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Nathan Anderson @nathanandersonart.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Been reading through John Crowley's wonderful Ægypt novels.

Illustration based on John Crowley's Ægypt cycle. A man ins walking with a strapped bookbag across his shoulder, while Hermetic and Alchemical symbols dominate the composition.

410814

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Bevan Thomas @bevanthomas.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

I always appreciate some love for Gef the Talking Mongoose.

051

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

REwadent Evil @ewacat.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Also worth noting here are the replies to this of people who've had a similar belief trajectory, I find them quite heartening

629564

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Core Hookland influence.

081

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Jude Rogers @juderogers.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

And another! Stories and interviews with the team behind one of the BBC's greatest ever TV dramas – "a revenge thriller, a mystical nuclear-and-environmental-apocalypse fable, a clear-eyed political document of the mid-1980s, a ghost story" – by me for @thequietus.com thequietus.com/opinion-and-...

thequietus.com

Why Edge Of Darkness makes so much sense in 2025 | The Quietus

Judge Rogers speaks to several key members of the team who made the ecologically-minded thriller for the BBC

1011941

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Marxteg 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @aled.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

It's amazing the difference in vibes between English and Welsh language poetry events. English: cringe Welsh: a powerful continuation of a 1500yo cultural tradition that stirs, awes, bites and stings, draws crowds and is broadcast nationally.

394

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Tade "Will Eat Your Heart in the Marketplace" Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Everything is so fraught... I've never seen Hollyoaks, but clearly I've been missing something absolutely batshit...

4213

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Scarred For Life Books @scarredforlife.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

The beautifully grotesque horror art of Ken Reid, one of Britain's greatest cartoonists. The genius behind Faceache, Jonah, and Frankie Stein was let loose with WORLD WIDE WEIRDIES (1974), full-page pinups in Whoopee! and Shiver and Shake. For kids, if you please!

26312

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

few ideas have damaged the average psyche more than ‘the customer is always right.’ it should be a little bit humiliating, being a customer. you should walk into any service transaction knowing that the other person, and not you, is in control over whether you get your treats

842403295

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Because I can never stick to the brief. Introduce yourself using only two foods you refuse to eat, two movies you'll never watch again and two songs you can't stand. Kendal Mint Cake/Pig's Trotters Santa Claus & The Ice Cream Bunny/Cannibal Holocaust The Pina Colada Song/Imagine

110

Jonathan Lang @gnalnoj.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

LaBostrie moves his black-fringed lips in something very like a prayer - Laissez les bontemps rouler. Please. For us. For all of us. #SwampThing #AlanMoore #MichaelZulli

000

Reposted by Jonathan Lang

Stephen R Bissette @stephenrbissette.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

My longtime (near lifelong) pal Rick Veitch announced this earlier today, OK for me to share now, here, with you. It's real. It's happening. At long last.

1212919