Old Man By the Sea

  Sea  Now  by  Eva  Meijer:  A  Novel  of  Disaster  and  Identity This book is a novel about the consequences of climate change if we leave it unchecked (spoiler alert: we will!) Set in Netherlands, Sea Now tells the story of the country, notoriously flat and slightly below sea level, succumbing to the North Sea in a sudden rising of the tide in the near future. Told in two parts, the first detailing the quick flooding of the country and the second a journey based, I feel, on the Odyssey. The tale, at least the first part, is told in a quite nonchalant style, often witty as the inhabitants of Netherlands, along with their quite inept government, at first try to ignore the issue, then attempt to build dykes which seem to be as effective as King Canute. Finally, admitting defeat, the whole country leaves to make their way to other countries (an ironic reversal of the immigration "crisis" the Right Wing in Netherlands harp on about i...

When We Were Real  by Daryl Gregory "When  We  Were  Real"  by  Daryl  Gregory  is  a  madcap  adventure  that  follows  two  friends  on  a  cross-country  bus  tour  through  the  mind-boggling  glitches  in  their  simulated  world. Earth as we know it has changed. It turns out that we're all in a simulation. This was announced to every human on the planet one day in 2017. Since that day strange anomalies, dubbed "Impossibles", have appeared all over the world. Simulation or not, there's money to be made so enterprising companies have started their own coach tour, for a tidy sum! JP, suffering with a brain tumour, is convinced by his best friend, Dulin, to take one of these coach trips across the USA to see the pick of the crop when it comes to America's Impossibles. Joining them are a couple of nuns, a rabbi, a heavily pregnant influencer, a con...

  If You Want A Job Done in Aberdyfi, son... Give Old Man Mittsy a call! It's Bank Holiday here in the UK and I've started the repair work on my garden wall. Today I took out some of the bricks around the back gate, cleaned out the old mortar that had perished, reset the bricks and mortared them in. I have no idea what I'm doing, but it seems to be right! I should have all the wall (around 50ft!) done by the end of the year. A work colleague asked me if I had the necessary skills to do the work. Nope. But I will by the end of the job! Whenever I do a bit of DIY I think back to the wonderful Barney Bodger from Tickle on the Tum (an old children's show from my childhood). He was the village handy man - no job too small. He wasn't very good at anything he did, but he always had a smile on his face when working! Of course, I'm probably more Reg Prescott than Barney Bodger.

  Mitts' Zen Garden Game The world is going to pot at the moment isn't it? There's a crazy man running America. Another nutcase running Israel, people denying Climate Change, prices rocketing. The list goes on and on. Sometimes you just want to scream! With all this in mind, I wrote a game to help people find a moment of calm in all the chaos. Based on Zen gardens, the game is simple enough: just rake patterns into the sand whilst you listen to music. A "Rake-em-up", if you will. Click on the link below to be taken directly to the game's itch.io page. Mitts' Zen Garden I hope it helps you to relax and enjoy a mindful moment. If you would like to see the code for it please  visit my OpenProcessing site