Yesterday, I and the rest of the chaps from Aisle16/Homework arrived at Glastonbury. We’re performing on the Cabaret Stage every day, doing poems to mildly confused but generally well-meaning punters. This is my sixth Glastonbury (last year the festival was cancelled because it clashed with my wedding) and I have a whole smorgasbord of feelings … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Last week we talked about plot units, which is to say, I ranted like a toothless cough mixture-swigging old man swearing at pigeons in a train station. Basically I went out to bat for plot, and its imagined … Read more

The Catch It was midnight. He pulled fish from the river with a bright slapping sound, held them bucking in the light of his fog lamps while the engine steamed and snorted. When he called me over I hid my notepad. He said that now was the best time and dipped his hands into the … Read more

Release date: 1987 Systems: Arcade, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, IBM PC, Atari ST, Amiga, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Game Boy, Mega Drive/Genesis, Lynx, Game Boy Advance, iPhone, Xbox, PS3 I believe it was the late, great Friedrich Nietzsche who said ‘Double Dragon is a rope, tied between … Read more

Merry Mondaymas, dear fastidious reader of this, the traditionally-least-entertaining-yet-most-informative of my weekly blogs. Have I got news? You bet your sweet bippy I do. This weekend I celebrated my 1st wedding anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been a year! I wrote my wife a soppy poem about everything we’ve done in our first year as … Read more

I don’t watch much TV anymore. Not out of hipsterish disdain – more my complete inability to schedule a definite hour-long window where I can guarantee I’ll be present, on the sofa, every week. Podcasts fit the slow, exploded breakdown that is my life. I like documentaries – good documentaries, with characters and stories, not … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This week, the forbidden art of plotting. We usually think of plot as the ‘what happens’ of the book. And most of us concede that there are some intuitive rules – we understand, for example, that it wouldn’t … Read more

In an interview with Time magazine, Woody Allen justified his relationship with Soon-Yi, his partner Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter, by saying: ‘The heart wants what it wants.’ And I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t hear that and recognise it as a romantic, totally unsociopathic philosophy for living. What Woody Allen’s Heart Wants I arrive … Read more

Release date: 1989 Systems: Nintendo Entertainment System, Sharp X68000, PC-Engine Super CD-ROM, Game Boy Advance You wouldn’t know to look at it, but River City Ransom is a follow-up to Renegade. Made by Technos, the creators of Double Dragon, it’s a weird hybrid of beat em up and RPG. I have this theory that the … Read more

Merry Mondaymas dear friends. Hope you’re well, finding pockets of joy in the diminishing hellmaze that is human existence. I finished working on my novel last week, so I’m in that confused, shellshocked state of the recent retiree – sort of happy, but unsure of his place in the world, staggering about, secretly terrified of … Read more

About an hour ago, I finished. As those of you who follow me on Twitter are probably only-too-aware, I’ve spent the last two years working on a novel. Given that I’d promised myself that I would never attempt a novel again, this came as a bit of a shock to me. My previous attempts had … Read more

You sat by the door spooked like I was Wes Craven You need to do more deleting and less saving – ‘Hungry’, Common It’s time for another Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This week we’re putting another author’s first page In The Barber’s Chair: Afterwards, … Read more

Two for the price of one today! Some of you may know that I present a show on Future Radio every Tuesday morning, 9:30-12, with John Osborne. John wasn’t in yesterday, so I offered to write poems for the listeners on any subject they liked. I got more requests than I could handle (I find … Read more

Release date: 1993 Systems: NES Last week we looked at the most important side-scrolling beat em up of all time, Final Fight. Yeah, that’s right – I didn’t hedge with ‘arguably’. It is the most important side-scrolling beat em up of all time. If you haven’t read last week’s post, go do that now. In … Read more

Merry Mondaymas to you, dear reader, and welcome to the least popular of all my weekly posts, News Monday. Maybe I should get some decent frickin’ news-worthy events going on in my life, eh? I have no gigs, anywhere, on this week. Boo. But I do have some news! Last week we finally announced the … Read more

So back in May, I went to Beccles to watch world-famous whistler Ronnie Ronalde do a two-hour show of singing and bird impressions. Back in the Fifties he was an incredibly successful performer, selling out New York’s 6500 capacity Radio City for 9 weeks running, doing 4 shows a day. A day! Here’s a clip … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This week we’ve got another In The Barber’s Chair, where we take the first page of someone’s novel or short story and pep it up a tad. If you fancy a turn in the barber’s chair, send me … Read more

Automata In a doorway littered with the shells of dead fireworks, he unpacks his haversack of automata: a tin peacock, a magician, a monkey in evening dress. He winds each with a key from his necklace, sets them down amongst cigarette ends and pearls of phlegm. Across the street, the fishmonger lifts his shutters with … Read more

Release date: 1989 Systems: Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, PlayStation 2, Mega-CD, ZX Spectrum, Super NES, Sharp X68000, Xbox, XBLA, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Network, Virtual Console Final Fight is the biggie, really. Even if you take Streetfighter II as the moment where beat em ups sloughed off their gills … Read more

Happy Monday, everyone! Yes, it’s that time of the week already, where I expound in dry, factual form upon my plans for the forthcoming seven days. Strap in, it’s going to be informative. I have no gigs this week. I know. But I’m working really hard. It’s just all under-the-bonnet stuff. The latest draft of … Read more