Incredible as it may seem, we are just about midway through 2023 already. We’re just a few hours out from our traditional midyear repose so of course the rain is falling here in Bradford and the weather forecast suggests that is to continue throughout our break at our destination of… Morecambe. But who cares when you have the sea and some decent hostelries and restaurants to haunt right?

We will end up back in the Old Pier Book Shop, so the fact my to-read pile continues to grow rather than diminish (despite a break from work) is just another pillar of my existence that I long since ceased to fret over. Until it falls on me of course and I’m trapped under it for the winter, surviving only on the scraps Phil feeds me to keep me alive to appreciate the irony of my cosmic retribution.

It remains to be seen whether we will undertake another Old Pier Book Shop Special – that will entirely depend on whether the fates decide to throw two copies of something interesting in our paths – but no doubt it will throw up some goodies that I fail to resist.

In other news, at times on the show I’ve mentioned that my taste in Hawkwind tends towards the earlier 1970s material and that I’ve never really held the album The Chronicle of the Black Sword in particularly high esteem. As a result, several of you have pointed me towards Hawkwind’s Live Chronicles album as a superior representation of the material – so having picked up an audio technica sound burger recently that allows me to play vinyl on my desk as I’m doing other bits and pieces I’ve been bashing through a whole load of albums I’ve picked up in the last couple of years that I still haven’t got round to spinning. I may well share my thoughts on that sometime soon.

Perhaps it’s worthy of an episode… we’ll see.

Our last show, Tales From Strange Cupboards was our latest swing at the world of Moorcockian roleplaying games and in a few weeks I’ll be running a game of Black Sword Hack Ultimate Chaos Edition – my first GMing effort of 2023 – so I’ll report back on that too in a couple of months.

Anyway, I need to sort my reading pile out for our jollies and finish editing the latest show so I shall depart and get my head down into it (and we’re off to a poetry and whisky night at Bradford Cathedral shortly – part of the Bradford Literature Festival itinerary) but meanwhile, be well out there. All power to our friends that are fighting and protesting to keep their heads above water not only here in the UK, but all around the world.