My beautiful cat

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A New Experiment

I suffer from starting many things, and finishing few. To try to alleviate this somewhat, I have decided to start a new blog.

(Irony?)

Well, not really a blog. More a publishing space for short stories, ideas, whatever comes my way.

And I would love to publish other peoples work on there as well, if they want.

To begin with, I have finished a short story I started a while ago as my first post. It called 'Letting'.

You can check out The Little Sight at littlesight.strangecircle.org.uk

(Or you can click on the winking eye on the front page of my website.)

From my Twitter Feed...

Snapped this yesterday whilst walking by the Hogsmill. #citynature http://t.co/oknamXUd1k
https://twitter.com/AlwyneAshweth

From my Twitter Feed...

I love Bank Holiday Weekends... you get an extra day on the weekend, and then only four days of work. #result
https://twitter.com/AlwyneAshweth

From my Twitter Feed...

The guard on my train just used the term 'personal stereo'. I haven't heard that in years. #blastfromthepast http://t.co/7WVkevtiQk
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From my Twitter Feed...

You have got to love #PennyDreadful #BitchFight http://t.co/iayPuszLN2
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From my Twitter Feed...

"On the contrary!We all share a part of the divine spark,and any act of union is a work against the precepts of the lie." #ColletteBowyer

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From my Twitter Feed...

"It is tempting to conclude that love and friendship are temptations that ground us, and blind us..." #ColletteBowyer

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From my Twitter Feed...

"I fear silence above all things, for only when quiet can we hear the ticking of the Universe beneath us." #ColletteBowyer

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From my Twitter Feed...

"Hark!Can you hear the beckoning of the night?In its midst all truths are equal, and the Lie is but a mote amongst them." #ColletteBowyer

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From my Twitter Feed...

#IMAJICA is one of my favourite books. Ever. #CliveBarker http://t.co/EDvvgDrEyg

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From my Twitter Feed...

I think I have fully entangled every aspect of my life with #IFTTT. Twitter to Facebook. Twitter to Blogger... http://t.co/sUiV8mI5p2

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From my Twitter Feed...

#WatchDogs is on sale on #Steam this weekend. Quite enjoying it. So much for all the dramatic reviews! #s http://ift.tt/1BEDAYU

— Alwyne Ashweth (@AlwyneAshweth) March 14, 2015

From my Twitter feed...

Just discovered #BroadCity. (I know I am late!) How can it be so excruciating and brilliant at the same time? #s http://ift.tt/1GDQCpk

— Alwyne Ashweth (@AlwyneAshweth) March 14, 2015

Blinds

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The Walking Dead - Another Death, but in such style!

In an episode more akin to an art house film than the sometimes samey, thrown together fayre you normally find on network television, AMC's The Walking Dead has outdone itself again. With fleeting, visceral imagery and constant misdirection, the episode is a fitting homage to one of its best loved characters.
And no, I'm not talking about Beth.

Just watch the cold-open.

SPOILERS BELOW!


Yes, we are still all reeling from the sudden and shocking death of Beth, the innocent (but quickly tarnishing) songbird from the farmhouse that got in with the wring crowd in the hospital from hell. But, only 17 days later the crew are destined to lose another invaluable member; and one who has become the most recent moral compass of the group.

Tyrese.

Wielding his trademark hammer, Tyrese refused to descend to the animalistic levels of some of the shoes others characters, and the rest of humankind in general. It what we first think is imagery arising from the death of Beth, the episode reveals itself to be the death-note of this gentle giant. After locating the former home of Noah, and finding it decimated, Tyrese is bitten by one of Noah's undead brothers. The last half of the episode is a hallucinatory examination of Tyrese's decisions and compromises.

Martin, Beth, Bob, Lizzie, Mika and The Governor(!) all pay him a visit from his subconscious as he comes to term with his own death. It is touching and terrifying at the same time, in a way that The Walking Dead can do so well if it really tries.

RIP Tyrese, and here's hoping that this phenomena of a programme can keep delivering like this.

A quote on the nature of history

From recently read Mr Mercedes:

"The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That's all history is, after all: scar tissue."

Mr Mercedes - the Verdict

I am not going to lie... when it comes to la King, I am one grossly biased fan-boy. I was very excited by the release of his latest offering, and although different to what many people might be expecting it is one solid, psychological, tense, character-driven motherfucker.

This time around, King has gone for the pure modern day crime thriller, sharing a genre with the likes of Thomas Harris and James Ellroy. If this was the aim, he succeeds hands down.

As with all of King's work, it is the characters which rule the plot. The main protagonist, a retired police detective, is drawn with a practise hand, and Mr Mercedes himself is a classic study of sexual dysfunction with a psychopathic mommy issue. I suppose there is nothing very new or imaginative in the themes that King uses here. There is no supernatural sub-plot of any kind, and readers wanting their dose of horror will be disappointed.

As all Stephen King aficionados know, you read one of his books because you want to care about the characters. Either way. Love or hate. You want the heroes to win because of the struggles they have endured. You want to understand what is going on inside the mind of the monsters, and you want to feel sad when a character you like ends up biting the proverbial bullet.

There are a lot of so-called brilliant writers who never achieve this, and it is a prejudice I encounter when I try to explain to folk why I read Stephen King. Just because he has been pigeon-holed as a schlock-horror writer does not mean he is not a great writer as well.

So, if you like Stephen King, read Mr Mercedes.
If you like thrillers and crime novels, read Mr Mercedes.
But above all, if you love reading novels that are crafted with care, emotion and brilliance, read Mr Mercedes.

Penny Dreadful - The Vanessa Ives Origin Story

Just watched episode 5 - Closer Than Sisters.
Wow!
This whole episode was essentially the back story of the psychic Vanessa Ives. As one of the original characters of the series, the previously mysterious femme fatale is now fleshed out as a tortured and possessed woman, ruined by a single act of lust and betrayal.
It captures, I think, the quintessential feel of a Gothic novel: dark romance, hedge mazes, rampant colonialism and the terrors of Victorian medicine. Eva Green is utterly brilliant in this episode, her psychotic episodes convincing, her facial and bodily contortions painful to watch.
This series gets better and better!

Penny Dreadful - It shouldn't work... but it does.

So, there's going to be this TV series with Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and vampires...

When I heard this I thought it was going to be awful. It sounded more like an Abbot and Costello movie, or a straight to video Scooby Doo extravaganza from the nineties.
What an amazing surprise. The writers have manage to fuse these disparate Universes in a most believable way, creating a story that is as dark as it is sensual. This is no Dracula, with its picture of Victorian England which included aristocratic ladies in low cut dresses showing far too much top-boob, let alone their ankles. The London of Penny Dreadful seems authentic; grimy, illness-ridden, poor, over-crowded and filled with real seeming people. And the effects that form the backdrop of this scenario are top-notch, on a par with the likes of the latest Sherlock Holmes movies.
If the writing creates a believable Universe, it the the quality of the actors that brings it to life. Notable mentions include the venerable Timothy Dalton as Sir Malcom, a seasoned explorer and adventurer whose daughter, Mina, has been taken by a coven of vampires. Eva Green is icily commanding as the psychic Vanessa Ives, and Josh Hartnett is a refreshing addition as the swarthy Ethan Chandler, a token, gun-toting American.

The acting cannot be faulted, and the there seems to be a twist at the end of each episode that leaves me genuinely agog. We've just had the end of episode 4, and lets just say you had better stay off the absinthe if you want leave with you masculine purity intact.
This series is an absolute must-see for horror fans and lovers of drama alike.