A long time ago The Left: “Hey, those guys are neonazis!” Intelligentsia: “Let’s talk about postmodernism and the end of history.” A bit less long ago The Left: “We’re troubled by the media’s constant racist propaganda.” Intelligentsia: “What are the media?” A few years ago The Left: “Seriously, these guys …
If you have played my Lands of Dream games, you will have noticed a wide variety of non-game influences: the poetry of William Blake, the short stories of Lord Dunsany and H.P. Lovecraft, postcolonial theory, ancient Greek philosophy, world mythology, contemporary politics, and so on. It makes sense, of course, …
I don’t like being the guy who’s always angry, always pointing out all that is wrong. I don’t like pissing off talented if misguided people and making my own life harder. I do like peace and quiet. But if you think that the appropriate response to this kind of situation…. …
[Looking back at this, I fully understand why I found this behaviour so enraging, but Joel was right – personal accusations of classism don’t really help. I do think it was wise to block some especially toxic people, but eventually I had to extend that blocking to people who were …
Michael O’Hare’s performance as Jeffrey Sinclair is one of the many things I love about Babylon 5. He died a few days ago, only 60 years old.
This is Mister Cat. Mister Cat lives in the area around my parents’ little holiday home in Chalkidiki. It’s an area at the outskirts of a village, but it’s fairly wild: there’s a big wooded ravine where foxes and jackals and all kinds of creatures live, and that’s where Mister …
[When I originally wrote this, I was not fully aware of the way in which the term “privilege” was being used in the context of contemporary identity politics; people in the “scene” were using it, and I used it because I was trying to communicate. In retrospect I realize that …
There are several things that I could write about – my father’s illness, the continuing destruction of Greece, the propaganda about Julian Assange, the heartbreaking stories I keep hearing because of The Fabulous Screech, the difficulties that come with telling unusual stories… but today I think I’d just prefer to …
A couple of years ago I wrote a post called Kill the Greeks. I wrote it out of frustration after a day on which I was exposed to anti-Greek racism several times in a row. I felt genuinely threatened and revulsed, as one does in such situations. Despite the emotionality …
It has been observed that putting the words ‘socialism’ and ‘religion’ in the same sentence can have dangerous results. This seemingly unstable mixture has been known to produce the following noxious reactions: “Socialism is a religion!” “Never forget what the Soviets did to the Church!” “Religion is evil and all …
