It’s December 18th 2020, Michael Moorcock and Phil share a birthday AGAIN (weird right?) and, with the help of some friends, we celebrate a great day and take a look at Mike’s Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger.
In addition we consider the broad appeal of Moorcock and how it crosses some boundaries that in this strange day and age are often extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and we get to showcase some great music c/o SÖNUS.
Christmas in the Dreaming Garden of Imrryr (AKA Hull) by Neil Burton
Hey there pards,
We’re three days out from the second Breakfast in the Ruins Birthday Special and we have a bumper show in store. As is now tradition, Phil and I will partake of booze and vittels, read our chosen story and record our bit on the day before I upload it at some indeterminate point, so long as it happens on the 18th.
Meanwhile a couple of fun facts.
Since putting the podcast on YouTube earlier in the year, it’s been very quiet in terms of views. Not unsurprising given that YT is a visual platform so not the best for podcasting, but I only put it on there because I was interested in how the process worked and it made it easier for my Mam to listen. Weirdly though (or perhaps not so weirdly), in the 40 days since I posted the Halloween show on The Rats, it’s had four times as many hits and minutes listened than every other episode combined! Obviously there’s some mileage in talking James Herbert some more. In terms of podbean analytics though it’s been a good performer, but not exceptional.
On the subject of podcast analytics though, the second fun fact is that this week we passed 10,000 downloads!
I didn’t realise at first, but when I put the first two episodes out I used Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue Oyster Cult as the opening music. After I was tipped off by someone on twitter that it could become an issue further down the line I made the decision to re-edit and re-upload the files with the now familiar Giantkind opening and closing music (thanks Loz & Neil). As a result the couple of hundred or son downloads up until that point disappeared from the analytics. Yesterday I saw that the count for the current roster was up to 9815. I did some counting on my fingers and the penny dropped.
Over 10k!!!
Whilst it may just be numbers, that feels like a pretty significant milestone to me, so thank you all for your support!
We’ve had a productive couple of months recently, and the output has been higher than normal thanks to a couple of very gracious new guests making themselves accessible.
In the new year we’ll be concluding our look at the Knight of the Swords with Loz, Tash and I will be investigating a potential ‘one shit book’, we’ll take another look at Moorcock and music with another brand new guest and Hussein and I will conclude The Final Programme with Phase Three (setting a new record for taking four and a half, or more, hours and around a year to talk about a 160 odd page book).
The recent fast pace may relax a bit as my day job goes high intensity for a while thanks to the bizarre political situation here in the UK, but it’s been great to have you along for the ride and I hope you can stick with us.
And finally, thanks to our Patron Demon Sir Neil of Burton for the amazing bespoke card. It’s fucking amazing!
Stay safe pards, and a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Team Ruins.
On our first purely music focused show we talk Hawkwind with biographer and writer Ian Abrahams. We also muse on how notice boards on launderette walls can produce great results.
Also, Loz calls in to Derry & Toms to drink some traditionally stupid beers and reminisce about the days of yore, sleeping dogs and the Giantkind track Breakfast in the Ruins.
After getting caught between worlds and never managing to quite hook it up, through a radio link between Earths 2 and 5 we finally get it together to discuss Moorcock with comics luminary and 2000AD Script Droid KEK-W!
We talk Moorcock, comics, Dark Judges, music and the disturbingly beautiful art of Dave Kendall.
I continue to learn regarding online recording, with mixed results.
Gerard Arthur Connelly gets his slippers wet.
As discussed on the show Jim’s Kickstarter for Urish’s Horde – The Guide to Elric Collectibles is here.
Breakfast in the Ruins 