The 2025 Mycelium Parish News is out and available on Etsy. Thank you to Dan and Ben Graham for all your help.
Our 4th edition contains the usual listings of things that happened in our corner of counter-culture in 2025. There are also micro-essays from John Higgs, Reverend Jon Harris from the Church of Burn, and Saath from Echologorrhea. As ever, this will be put online once we’ve distributed all our physical copies – but we think it’s more important than ever to promote things outside the feeds and algorithms of the Internet.
Compiling this was hard work – which is why the publication date drifted by a couple of months. A few times, Dan and I discussed skipping this year. But I’m glad we kept pushing. I’ve changed my approach for compiling the 2026 edition and expect this to be much, much easier.
One major change is that we’ve dropped the use of GenAI images. I’d hoped to write an essay on this but didn’t have the capacity. We’ve listed some GenAI projects that we love in the zine, but I’m aware that some people are boycotting anything made with GenAI. I’d rather not be putting people off from our magazine – but I wish I’d had time to say how much I love the interesting GenAI projects I’ve seem.
Future issues will be published in Jan/Feb. We’re collecting entries throughout the year, so let us know anything we should add.
The last two years, I saw all of the Best Picture Oscar nominees before the winner was announced. I seem to have made this a commitment, and set out to do it again this year.
In both 2024 and 2025, I had to watch most of the films between the nomination and awards – I even made an overnight trip to Manchester to be sure of seeing I’m Still Here.
From the 2026 list, I’d seen nine before the list of ten was announced. The only one missing was The Secret Agent, which was not released in the UK until a month after the list came out, and was showing in my town last night, the weekend of the Oscars ceremony. I had a fairly good hit rate of films I watched because they were said to be likely contenders – I don’t think I saw anything I hated that didn’t make the list.
Tomorrow the Oscar winner will be announced, but here is what I think of the nominees, along with links to my letterboxd reviews:
Sinners (10/5/26) – My hyperbolic statement about Sinners is that it is the most exciting film I’ve seen since Star Wars. I stand by that. A lot of the joy was that this was a fantasy movie that did not rely on existing intellectual property, and used the fantastic elements to say interesting things. That one scene in the juke joint is as great as everyone says. I’d love to see this win the Oscar.
I saw F1 (12/7/25) with James and Alex. This was very much an IP-based movie, with a clumsy plot and fast cars. The only moment I loved was that final lap, played in near silence. Maybe there is a great movie you could make about Formula One, but this wasn’t it. The worst thing was that the film hinted at more interesting stories then ignored them in favour of a generic sports-movie plot.
One Battle After Another (18/10/25) is the big contender for this year’s Oscars. While I enjoyed moments of it, I wasn’t particularly blown away and I wish I’d liked it more. It felt flabby and I hated the sound track.
Bugonia (24/11/25) was another cinema trip, and another film I’d not have seen without the Oscar buzz. I’ve never enjoyed a Lanthimos film, despite thinking I should. This one had an intense performance by Emma Stone and I’m not sure why she went to all that effort.
del Torro’s Frankenstein (30/11/26) was getting a lot of buzz at the end of the year. I’d have probably skipped it as an adaptation except for the Oscar buzz. Comparing this to Emerald Fennel’s “Wuthering Heights”, the Bronte adaptation did something interesting with the source text, whereas Frankenstein was too faithful.
I watched Marty Supreme(2/1/26) with Rosy at the cinema. It’s a brilliantly made film with some great performances but also felt slight. The film was guilty of showboating at times. I gave it 4 stars in my letterboxd review, which reflects how much I enjoyed it at the time – but it’s not lasted well in my memory.
Sentimental Value (11/1/26) was another film that I would not have seen except for its likelihood of being nominated. Another movie about toxic male genius. I found myself wishing that the subtext was text, and this had actual ghosts in.
The same week, I saw Hamnet (16/1/26), another film that I watched only for the list. This felt like a synthetic heritage-England sort of movie, with little to really say. Parts of it reminded me of Blackadder. I could tell how much everyone else in the cinema was loving this even as it left me cold. I’d like to read the book though.
Train Dreams (19/1/26) was on Netflix. This was a beautiful, slow movie about a man’s life, watching it all unfold in a couple of hours. What would my life be like as a sequence like this, condensed down to something so short? This was a fantastic film and I hope more people watch it.
I saw The Secret Agent last night and I’m still considering it. The film is clever and beautifully constructed, with some great performances. I would definitely not have seen this without the nomination, but I’m glad I did.
As far as the winner goes, my heart says Sinners, but my head says One Battle After Another, which seems to have all the momentum from the BAFTAs. But the eventual winner doesn’t matter so much. I’ve seen ten interesting movies, some of which I would not have seen without following the Oscars discussions. I’ll be doing this again next year.
In April, I’m running a writing workshop on horror microfiction. It’s been a long time since I’ve taught a workshop rather than simply facilitated a writing session. I’ve been thinking a lot about tiny stories over the years and it will be good to crystallise my thoughts on the topic – starting with some notes on this blog.
Why write microfiction
I think my love of microfiction comes from reading comic books, and how the captions would sometimes refer to other stories, firing up my imagination. A lot of the books I loved best as a teenager intentionally played with this.
I always found these hints more interesting than what was later set as canon. Franchise fiction will introduce mysterious characters and eventually fill in the backstories, and something is lost.
I think the same sort of references work in horror – the hints of something awful happening are often worse than what can be depicted onscreen. There’s a power to creating a gap for other people to fill in.
I can’t be sure that these gaps are something that everyone loves – maybe some people prefer stories to be defined and complete. But, for me, I like ambiguities and mysteries.
Baby Shoes
A lot of people have come up with theories about what a ‘story’ is. Generally, a story will include characters going through some sort of event, with a beginning, middle and end.
But this is not true of every story – for example, Baby Shoes. This is the archetypal tiny story, but it works as a piece of found text. The three two-word sentences reveal an event that has already happened – and the change in the story is in our understanding of what we are seeing.
For Sale – tells us this is some sort of advertisement.
Baby Shoes – introduces the characters by implication, a parent and a child.
Never Worn – a twist in the tale, leaving us to realise why these shoes are good-as-new.
This story is often attributed to Hemingway, but versions of it date back to 1906, and the attribution seems to have come from 1989 (both facts according to Wikipedia).
The most important thing about writing tiny stories is that they are stories rather than descriptions of a story. It’s easy to fall into this trap. Rosy has rejected quite a few advent calendar stories on that basis.
You can see this in a lot of collections of six word stories. A lot of them feel glib – there’s not enough space for the pathos these aim for.
You can only cut back a story a certain amount. You need some sort of change for a story, otherwise it becomes a description.
Future Plans?
I’ve always wanted to write a novel from fragments. It’s something I’ve played with, but never tried as seriously as I should have done. My professor for my MA, Nicholas Royle, asserted you could not make a novel from vignettes, but I am convinced that you can.
I think I’m going to make some prototypes then give this a proper try. I suspect very few people would read any novel I write but, at the moment, I’m more interested in questions of craft than audience.
I appeared on an episode of the Echologorrhea podcast that was published last week, Thomas Friedman’s 1,000 Hours of Staring, where I talked to Wrev and Saath about one of my favourite works of art.
I love Echologorrhea. The podcast opens with the following announcement: “This podcast is rough around the edges for a simple reason: we are amateurs; we make this in the spirit of samizdat”. Echologorrhea is about sharing excitement, not about joining the podcast industry.
I have several favourite works of art that I love intensely, including The Invisibles, Twin Peaks, and the Tate Modern’s Rothko room. And then there is Thomas Friedman’s 1000 Hours of Staring. I saw Friedman’s ‘sculpture’ back in 2012, at the Hayward’s Invisible exhibition. I wrote a little about the piece and the exhibition at the time: Thousand Hour Stare and The Art of the Unseen. I’ve only seen it that once. While the work is in Moma’s collection, it is not currently on display.
Friedman’s work appeared in a room where all the exhibits were ‘blank’ sheets of paper, which would be identical to a careless glance. Friedman’s particular artwork stood out to me and has haunted me ever since. Hopefully, I successfully communicate this in the episode. We also get into a broader discussion of what we love about art.
The second week of January, Rosy ran a David Bowie night at the Trades Club, marking ten years since his death. I’d imagined January as a difficult night to run a club night but it was busy. As well as a DJ playing Bowie, there were two bands, cabaret performances, and immersive elements. It even appeared in the Guardian’s round-up of memorial events, ‘A perplexing, astonishing finale’: world pays tribute to David Bowie a decade after his death:
For slightly less intellectual celebrations, club nights across the country will be hosting Bowie-themed nights over the weekend: one particularly immersive offering at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, promises a Ziggy Polaroid booth, tarot readings, laughing gnomes and bulging codpieces.
I was doing the tarot-reading for the evening with a Labyrinth-themed deck. It was the second time I read tarot cards in public, and quite challenging to be heard above the music, but I had fun.
Rosy’s night followed the same format as Trailer Trash, with acts coming on between the DJs, including a couple of dance performances by Rosy, Toria and Hayley. There was also an appearance by Coco DeVille, who we used to hang out with in Brighton back in the day. Rosy also set up an installation of a teenage bedroom in the corner.
I had a good time, even though I only had the energy to stay until midnight.
On Monday morning, Lou and I went walking in Crow’s Nest Woods where we found a sculpture:
I’ve seen a few similar pieces in the woods, but this is the largest. I know some of the others were made by Winston Plowes – but he’s also collaborated with people, so I don’t know exactly who made this. I love that art like this is that is unsigned.
My phone camera won’t give a good impression of the artwork, so I made a short video:
Finding things like this on my regular walking route is magical.
Here are a couple of other pieces I’ve found in the same woods – one from December:
And another from February last year (this is after it had been in place for a few days)
It’s good to see these sort of things in the countryside. I have hundreds of photos of graffiti and street art from living in Brighton. I miss that sort of creativity. Here are a couple of images shared by my friend Hannah, who took them in Brighton last week.
This month has been about trying to keep on top of things. And about rest – partly enforced, due to catching covid. I also visited Liverpool for the day, saw John Higgs talk about Lynchian in Halifax, and organised my first spoken word event since I-don’t-know-when.
The event was great fun. I was very nervous in the run-up, even though I told myself it didn’t matter how many people turned up. In the end, we had a great audience, most of whom joined us in the pub, and there were wonderful performances from Lou and Toria Garbutt. I’ve written more about the event elsewhere. I loved putting it on, and want to do other events in the near future.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as idle as I was during my covid convalescence. I tried to go back to work as soon as I could, but ended up taking three days off to recover fully. I’d not realised how fatigued covid would leave me, and it was a week or more before I was back to full strength. I still don’t feel like I can climb hills as well as I could beforehand. I wrote a separate blog post on getting covid, a late addition to my lockdown retreat series: Day 2105
The covid helped me drop a little more weight, with 1.8 pounds slipping off over February. I am still a long way off where I want to be, and only exercise will fix things properly. I despair at that – between writing and work, it’s hard to find spare time in my life. But I can also feel myself getting less flexible, so I need to take action.
My aim for writing in 2026 was to set up a flow of work. Most of February was spent finishing the Mycelium Parish News and preparing a piece for the spoken word night. That piece, The Haunting of Wuthering Heights was fun but I’m not sure how effective a use of time it was – I don’t think I’ll use it again anywhere. I attended both Wednesday Writers sessions for the month and enjoyed seeing everyone. I’ve also been experimenting with writing longhand, which I’ve missed. I sent two stories about tarot readers out on the mailing list, both originally written for Wednesday Writers: Cloudy Days and Transfers. But I want to be sharing new work more consistently.
I read a good few books, including a re-read of Wuthering Heights. I finally read Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman, which I found to be an underwhelming portal fantasy (I am however loving the sequel, Black House). Other highlights were Saraswati and On the Bullet Train with Emily Bronte. John Safran’s Squat was fun, but didn’t always feel plausible.
Rosie the Labrador claiming that she has never, ever been fed
Due to the long time off, I watched 18 movies during February. My favourite was probably Marie Antoinette, which I’d put off watching for years as it’s Olive’s favourite film and I worried I might not like it. Perfect Days was beautiful, and I’ve been enjoying receiving photos of the film’s location from Laurence’s visit to Japan. The recent Candyman sequel was a brilliant slasher flick. I loved “Wuthering Heights” – mostly for Emerald Fennell’s refusal to produce a faithful rendition of the book. We already have enough of those. I also loved how the marketing for Wuthering Heights made it a talking point – was Fennell vandalising a classic or reworking it?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the best way to pick films from my Letterboxd watchlist and I’ve settled on ordering this by popularity. I’d previously tried ordering by average rating, but that surfaced a lot of old and sometimes obscure films. Putting it in order of popularity tends to overlap with things other people I know have watched. Letterboxd is what I want from social media, in that it encourages interaction. But feature creep is already starting, with Letterboxd opening a streaming video store. It’s worth noting that Letterboxd’s popularity rating is, at heart, a closed algorithm, but one that does not currently have a hidden motive.
This is not the first time I’ve taken this photo
Speaking of social media, I finally closed the substack, as I realised I’d been holding on to it, and people were only going to keep subscribing and need moving to the current list. I’ve still not removed Whatsapp from my phone because there are a couple of useful lists on there. A friend describing this as ‘liking the taste of steak’ – we know these things are a trap, but we prefer living in the Matrix.
Work continues to be chaotic, with too much happening at once. One of the big problems with remote work is that you don’t have the dampening effect of physical space. People can’t see how busy you are, so you’re receiving constant notifications. You don’t have to walk between physical spaces for meetings, so they pile up on one another. On top of this, consultancy is inherently about having to choose between competing demands. I’ve been trying a process of mise-en-place to keep control, but this was overwhelmed after a couple of weeks of February. But I am going to keep on at it.
In Winter the sun disappears behind the valley before 1pm
I gave a talk at work on MCP using Spring AI. I don’t get much chance to work with GenAI tools at my current client, so I’m having to keep up in my spare time. The software industry feels very unsettled, with large numbers of redundancies being ascribed to AI. Personally, I think that’s spin about reducing headcount due to the sluggish economy. In the long-term, I’m confident that GenAI will be good for job prospects, but the short-term could be a very bumpy ride. As powerful as GenAI is, code was never the bottleneck for most companies, and I don’t think agentic tools will replace all roles.
A covid ghost sign in Liverpool
February was a good month. When I read back last year’s monthnotes at the end of 2025, I realised how stressed I’d been all year. I’m still not as calm as I’d like to be, but things are on the right track.
Liverpool Cathedral is a beautiful building and it’s a shame that it’s wasted on religion
There are so many things and places I’d love to see in America, but stories like this put me off travelling.
Alison Rumfitt is one of my favourite writers. She’s written two intense and problematic horror novels, Tell Me I’m Worthless and Brainwyrms. Her writing is precise, with flashes of experimentation. I want to re-read Brainwyrms for the sections about the internet as cosmic horror as much as I don’t want to re-read the scenes of degradation.
Tell Me I’m Worthless describes the encounter of two young women with Albion, a haunted house that stands as an explicit metaphor for modern England. This paragraph in particular stood out to me:
There’s a difference between a ghost story and a haunted house story. This feels so basic, but also so hard to articulate. A ghost story is about the thing that it tells you it is about: a ghost, an ephemeral thing from beyond the grave, trying to contact the living. A haunted house story is about more than that. It is about structure, architecture, and history, Like Jamaica Inn, a haunted house that isn’t haunted at all, but people said it was to cover up the truth of the matter. There aren’t any ghosts in the House. And yet it continues to be haunted despite this fact.
It’s been a very long time since I put on a spoken word event, but last weekend I organised a show at In a Land Gallery featuring performances from me, Toria Garbutt and Louise Halvardsson. (Rosy would have joined us, but was taken ill after her Derby show the night before).
Lou at Stoodley Pike
The day started with a hike to Todmorden, visiting Stoodley Pike on the way. I’ve been slack about hiking since the South Downs Way in June, so it was good to be out on the hills. In Todmorden, we bought some books from Lyall’s, ate ramen at the Ginger Tiger, then headed home so I could prepare my performance. (I should have done that days ago, but I’m more just-in-time than I used to be).
I did some short stories, including a new one about Wuthering Heights. I read another couple of longer pieces, A Bad Place to Stick Your Hand and meat. I’m alarmed that they are both almost 20 years old. I also read some microfictions, which seemed to go down well.
Toria performed a poem about growing up in Knottingley, to a backdrop of the current exhibition, which featured images of nearby Kellingley Colliery. Her short set ranged from heartbreaking to very funny. I love watching Toria perform.
I introduced Lou at the end of the first half so that the final part of the show could be completely devoted to her work. I’ve been friends with Lou for a long time (I wrote a post in 2012 about hiking around Mount Caburn with her). I originally knew Lou as a slam poet but her new work is experimental, featuring movement and sound poetry. The piece was based on her forthcoming Swedish collection and had been specially translated into English. It was a fun show, and very different to any other performance I’ve seen.
The best thing about the event was that most of the audience joined us in the pub afterwards. For me, that’s the best thing about In a Land – Bryony has built a lovely community. I knew some of the people who came to the night from recent writing workshops.
A table of Swedish treats
Running the event was hard work – and I fretted a lot about whether we’d get enough people in. But we filled all the chairs and had a great evening. I love that I helped to make something like this happen.
According to the Covid Calendar, it is March 2,112th 2020 – almost 6 years since the covid lockdowns. And, for the first time, I have a confirmed case of covid. I’d begun to wonder if I was somehow immune – I guess the best I can hope for now is ‘resistant’.
At the end of last week, I thought I had a cold, and casually went on with my life. I rested most of the weekend but, by Monday, my throat became painful. Whoever described it as ‘razor blade throat’ did a good job, and gave me a clue what had happened. The final confirmation came with two lines on a covid test. I tried to work on Monday, wanting to keep abreast of urgent tasks, but by lunchtime I submitted to not being well and needing to rest and recover.
I’m not the only person in the house – we have a friend staying too – so it’s been an old-fashioned quarantine for me, confined to the top floor. It’s not so bad – I’ve had delicious meals delivered, and so far nobody else has tested positive. I’ve been tired mostly – napping and catching up on my letterboxd watchlist.
It’s strange to finally get covid when it barely matters, particularly after all the fuss in 2020/21. Covid was such a huge event, and it sometimes feels like it never happened. Odd traces persist – like ghost signs in the streets, this article about queueing in pubs. Isolating with covid in 2026 feels a little like being a time traveller, trapped in 2020. At the start of March 2020, it seemed that things would have been very different because of the pandemic. It turned out to be business as usual, but slightly worse.
