Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 3hZoom in on the dark flecks in this detail from the painting of the fiery destruction of the Spanish flagship during the Dutch defeat of the Spanish at the battle of Gibraltar in 1607 and you can see that the Dutch artist has rather gleefully shown Spanish sailors being blown mast-high into the air. 0112
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 13/10/2026Three women not accepting of your nonsense at the Rijk's museum. 5427
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026"'He makes me think,' she went on, 'of Principalities and Powers in high places, and of things that walk in darkness. I did not like the way he spoke of trees getting alive in the night, and all that; it made me think of wolves in sheep's clothing...'" 1246
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026"The familiar pleasure & exhilaration of working towards an end contests with something almost like terror at the thought of where I shall be when I no longer have this regular and tried preoccupation." The extraordinary Sylvia Townsend Warner. 1216
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Goodnight 4mm isopod with your blurred legs taking you round the sink. 0181
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 08/10/2026"The broach was of silver, whipped and beaten till it resembled foam; and imprisoned in it was a tiny coral figure of some sea-lover, bent-legged as if crippled, half plunging forward as though bereft of a dream that had dissolved in its embrace. There was an aching ecstasy in this little coral..." 0123
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"They walked inside a continuous stuffy sound, but left silence behind them. Behind them, rooks that had risen and circled, sun striking blue from their blue-black wings, planed one by one to the earth and settled back to peck again. Papa and the boys were dark-clad as rooks but with no sheen..." 0141
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"Now the unicorn stands for death, which continually pursues man and tries to seize hold of him; and the pit is the world, with all its evils. The bush is life, which every hour of every day and night is being eaten away, as it were by white and black mice..." This book is splendidly bonkers. 1152
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"...with one particular book appearing to be a complete compendium of every paranormal being that exists here. It is unclear why such a wondrous room of knowledge should be suffused with an atmosphere that rips absolutely everything to shreds." Happy book birthday to @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social 1112
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 06/10/2026"The dolmen arch was drab with lichen, and the stones of the avenue heeled like twisted palings. Clouds still rolled upon the plain, but there was a quickening in the air, and Findias, Falias, and Murias were etched in gold, as though they stood before the dawn." 3372
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Cooking fish curry for tea music. (Never not surprised by how much Andy Bell sounds like Alison Moyet ie amazing.) 2160
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026"She stretched out her hands to break apart Mrs Mabb's house, but upon the instant a pale-green something - or a pale-green someone - flew out of a gap in the stones and sprang up into the sunlight - and then another, and another - and more, and more, until the air seemed crowded with people..." 0211
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 05/10/2026"Also you were not so great, Not so very great nor small When as oozy muck you lay Or you stood as still, clear water On the highest ridge of the swamp land, On the crown of the barren fell Where you turned to soggy soil, Then to rusty soil transmuted." 1297
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026"At whiles with worms he wars, and with wolves also, at whiles with wood-trolls that wandered in the crags, and with bulls and with bears and boars, too, at times; and with ogres that hounded him from the heights of the fells." 0201
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026"These are the first shoots of a future folklore emerging from an urban Britain that might look soulless and secular but under the surface remains very strange indeed, rippled with weird undercurrents." @garetherees.bsky.social 36812
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Warner's hints about the Lord of Brockton's poem, Mamillion, are so wonderful. Her ability to evoke its tenor and some of its scenes and to make you want to read it is just extraordinary. What an incredible writer she is. Yes, all the superlatives, but all earned. 4353
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 03/10/2026"His seat by the window was cushioned and he could look out and see the dragonflies darting over the moat, or the aspen quiver of the reflected sunlight on the mossed wall, or a water-rat swimming across and dragging its wheat-ear pattern of ripples behind it." 4262
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026"All shun the village below the chateau in which the beautiful somnambulist helplessly perpetuates her ancestral crimes. Wearing an antique bridal gown, the beautiful queen of the vampires sits all alone in her dark, high house under the eyes of the portraits of her demented and atrocious ancestors" 0172
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026"It was not possible for her to love them all, but neither did she wish to repulse them. It would be less dangerous for a man to court every lady in an entire land than for a lady to remove a single besotted lover from her skirts, for he will immediately attempt to strike back." "Courtly love" eh? 2121
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Went to see this last night, choreography by Crystal Pite. A double header with Entress, choreography by Julia Cheng (and a fantastic score by Isobel Waller-Bridge - how talented is that family? VERY). The Scottish Ballet punching way above its weight again (see also their Mary Queen of Scots). 281
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026The boy kit-bashed one of his Warhammer figures so I took a photo of it. 0150
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026"Some of the diagrams looked like young girls and others looked like giant insects. The text portions almost read like botanical entries, except that they included warnings and danger rankings. 'It's just a book,' she said to herself. 'I am not afraid of it...'" @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social 0183
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026"I do not know what I expected. Perhaps to find a doddering and frail praying mantis, whispering about the station, blown by seawinds, a chalk-white ghost who would husk at me with voices of grass and reeds blown in the night." Ray Bradbury, Emperor of The October Country. 1337
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I am not generally one for special editions (my books are for reading not for treasuring) but take a look at this... I've not read Lonesome Dove before so this beautifully put together book is going to get a THOROUGH reading. @thebrokenbinding.bsky.social 4160
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026"There is no passion, no vague desire, no tender longing that cannot find fit type or symbol in the legends of the peasantry or in the traditions of the scalds and the gleemen." 1140
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026"On the beach on the leeward side, little field-mice ran backwards and forwards at the edge of the water, the sand slipping away from under their paws. Boulders turned over heavily, revealing the pale roots of the sea pinks. At dawn the island slept. The trees had reached the lighthouse-rock..." 2252
Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 29/09/2026"Well, what do you think Hell is? Don't hurry, you've got an eternity to answer in. But I know what I think it is. It's the two of us driving on alone. For ever. Just the two of us, Eric. For evermore." 3184