Red Dog

@red-dog

Professional curmudgeon, lover of film, music, comics, politics, books, RPGs and just about everything else. He/him A website, of sorts:

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Red Dog@red-dog· 11d

No, me neither 🤷

Not even sure I know where to start with describing this

Red Dog@red-dog· 11d

My name..? 😜

Shot of an old gentleman on the phone from the classic Jr Hartley Yellow Pages TV ad

Red Dog@red-dog· Jul 13

Disappoint? Not in the slightest

Text from page 15 of Hookland Fragments:
If history is the black and white of books, folklore is its grey the bits written in blood red ink. Speaking through voices. the filter of magic and dead spirits, folklore is where ache for justice among the powerless lives. In it dwells the the anger of a wounded land, the widow's sorrow, the mother's hatred for the king who took her sons to war. It is and always has been the cultural margin sneered at by those who fear its feral power.
Untameable Eel-slippery. No empire has ever been able to control it. No amount of study will ever make it behave in a civilised, orderly fashion. Try to corner it into staying stil with learning and it will bare its fangs. Leap over you Spring heeled Jack style. Self-organising. Self-evolving. Folklore has never needed academia to survive. More importantly never needed political patronage to thrive.
Give it a traveller's fire, give it a pub or post office queue. Give it a playground. It spreads. It mutates. Standing outside of top-down power structures it is and always has been a haven for voices criticising the elite, the oppressors It is folklore's verv nature to resist. You can't burn the books of an oral tradition. You can't censor the stories parents tell children when tucking them into bed. No empire has found an effective system to control tales swapped across beer glasses, across tea cups. Empires, kingdoms, republics they all always fear what cannot be enclose repression and economised. Not even the Stasi, not even the Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate could call themselves the folklore police.

Red Dog@red-dog· Jul 12

Hookland Fragments by @hookland.bsky.social has just arrived, and already it feels like it's been here forever. Once it's on my shelves, it'll sit next to @lazaruscorporation.co.uk Rituals and Declarations, since to my mind at least, there can't be one without the other

The front cover of Hookland Fragments, Volume 1 by David Southwell. The cover illustration (a linocut in white against a black background by Maria Strutz entitled Bone Bear) depicts a large bear tossing a selection of long bones and a skull in the air, whilst at its feet lays a horses skull, reminiscent of a Mari Lywd

Red Dog@red-dog· Jul 12

Post your laptop stickers

Red Dog@red-dog· Jul 7

At least the militants didn't go hungry...

Daily Mail online headline:
Terror of Farage children as mob storms pub lunch: Leader brands anti-Ukip protesters as 'scum' after his family are forced to flee activists and breastfeed militants

Red Dog@red-dog· Jul 1

Tove Jansson summing up in a few short words of a story about a little girl and her grandmother exactly how we should treat each other when it comes to religion and belief

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Extract from the chapter 'The Pasture'
"My dear child," she said, "with the best will in the world I cannot start believing in the Devil at my age You can believe what you like, but you must learn to be tolerant."
"What does that mean?" asked the child sullenly.
"That means respecting other people's convictions." "What are convictions? Sophia screamed and stamped her foot.
"Letting others believe what they want to believe!' her grandmother shouted back, "I'll let you believe God damns people and you let me not."

Red Dog@red-dog· Jun 30

What kind of world are The Sun living in where £250k constitutes a lot of money for a house?

The Sun front page - Migrant Street: 83 asylum seekers moving into £250,000 newbuilds

Red Dog@red-dog· Jun 24

I think AI has driven the business world even madder than it already is - saw this on LinkedIn and can't believe the insane wrong-headedness of it.

LinkedIn post from a Sally Slater -

I interviewed someone last week.

Brilliant candidate. Thoughtful. Personable. Strong on almost every metric we care about.
But when we got to the exercise, there were no slides. No digital materials. And when we talked about Al - ChatGPT, Claude, anything - it was clear they'd simply never encountered it. Not evasive. Just honest. They'd never had a reason to.
Their CEO used Al. But kept it for themselves.
I didn't stop thinking about that conversation all weekend

Red Dog@red-dog· Jun 4

"If only we'd been allowed to be more racist, Henry Nowak wouldn't be dead" isn't really the take these people think it is, is it?

The Daily Telegraph front page - "Officers 'pressured' by diversity course"

The Times front page - "Stab victim arrest force 'pressured' by racism course"

Red Dog@red-dog· May 20

Come on Kieron, that's enough puns for the day

Red Dog@red-dog· May 18

We know everything connected to Simon Heffer is morally repugnant, but the mental gymnastics involved in blaming the people castigating racists *for* the actual racists is just mind-boggling

A quote from Simon Heffer:
Powell had been posthumously cancelled to a point where it was easier
to buy a copy of Mein Kampf
than of my biography of
him. Draw your own
conclusions about what that
says about our intellectual
life, our belief in freedom of
speech, and the society in
which we live. and about
how such a mindset has
contributed to the
provocation of those who feel the need to march with Tommy Robinson.

Red Dog@red-dog· May 18

British Political Spectrum Quiz Eco-Socialist Combines left economics with urgent environmentalism. Strongly progressive, broadly pacifist and in favour of radical democratic renewal. Sounds about right

Eco-Socialist

Combines left economics with urgent environmentalism. Strongly progressive, broadly pacifist and in favour of radical democratic renewal.

Red Dog@red-dog· May 15

Now playing - I blame @cottonmouthmcr.bsky.social

The Sisters of Mercy album First and Last and Always playing on Spotify

Red Dog@red-dog· May 3

Supposed to be a "gotcha" on the chattering classes, really just says Kemi knows lots of terrible people

Sunday Telegraph front page article-
Badenoch:
Anti-Semitism
has become
acceptable at
dinner parties

By Genevieve Holl-Allen
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

ANTI-SEMITISM has become accepta-
ble in polite dinner party conversations
under the Labour Government, Kemi
Badenoch has warned.

Red Dog@red-dog· May 2

Tony doesn't look like he's feeling it this morning

Red Dog@red-dog· Apr 27

I think the Telegraph wins the prize for the most truth-twisting headline on the WHCD incident - you might have been near(ish) Trump at the dinner Connor, but the "bolting" man was on a wholly different floor of the building

Daily Telegraph front page article headline - "I was yards away from the president as gunman bolted towards him"

Red Dog@red-dog· Apr 22

When the truth is staring you in the face, and you *still* can't do anything about it

The left faction that had to be marginalised in pursuit of electability will not admit that its prospectus was toxic. It attributes Labour’s advantages to unprovoked Tory implosion, and laments Starmer’s squandering of a commanding lead on a cautious manifesto for incremental change. In that view, the gates to power swung open spontaneously and a proper socialist could have strolled through unimpeded.

Red Dog@red-dog· Apr 11

This is the front of the queue, right? #Salute53

Red Dog@red-dog· Apr 11

Norman tub font with carved human face (with C17th lid) at St Mary's church, Stainburn, North Yorkshire

Red Dog@red-dog· Mar 30

Reminds me a little of the sculpture in the middle of Deepdene roundabout, which my family *never* tire of me shouting "Giant cock!" at whenever we go past

Giant metal sculpture of a cockerel, standing in the middle of a roundabout

Red Dog@red-dog· Mar 27

Picture of a dancing Tom Bombadil saying "Hey dol! Merry dol! Ring a dong dillo motherfuckers!"

Red Dog@red-dog· Mar 26

Show a book cover that had a huge impact on you as a kid.

Cover of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising

Red Dog@red-dog· Mar 26

Original post: mastodon.social/@grrlscienti...

Red Dog@red-dog· Mar 6

I've not read the article, but I'm assuming the answer is "Because I'm a whiny 'incel' who's believed all the nonsense pumped out by the manosphere"?

Masthead article on The Times - "Why men my age want wives to obey"

Red Dog@red-dog· Mar 4

If You see This, Post a Character that starts with the letter N. Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film

Shot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail - a book open with calligraphy type writing on the left hand page saying Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film, and a picture on the right hand side of a baby in oversized armour

Red Dog@red-dog· Mar 4

Red Dog@red-dog· Feb 27

I know everyone will be doing this, but do we really even need the Telegraph any more when we have these?

Fake Telegraph column generated by the Allister Heath generator - "The Gorton and Denton by-election is the most dangerous delusion since the dawn of the Soviet Union"

Fake Telegraph column generated by the Allister Heath generator - "The elite's fanatical obsession with the Gorton and Denton by-election borders on a religious borders on a religious cult"

Fake Telegraph column generated by the Allister Heath generator - "The creeping normalisation of the Gorton and Denton by-election is a tragedy for the British way of life"

Red Dog@red-dog· Feb 26

You're not wrong (with apologies to D&D fans)

Fake Allister Heath Telegraph column - "The awful truth about Dungeons and Dragons is now too monstrous to hide"

Red Dog@red-dog· Feb 26

OK, this might be the greatest thing I've ever seen (today) - like the "great" man himself, the headline makes no sense and is totally insane