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andylaneauthor.bsky.social
Author of over 40 books and many audio scripts. Ex-military scientific advisor. Father to one, informal foster-father to another nine. Bipolar Type II, acromegaly, asthma and gallstones sufferer. All-round decent bloke.
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It is not. Too obvious. But a female Russian character has just delivered a perfect Sarah Palin put down. "I can see Alaska from my house."

submitted 4 minutes ago • 0 comments

You're watching a recent horror movie. You see these things. What is your immediate reaction? Also, for bonus points, name the film.

submitted 15 minutes ago • 1 comment

I did one welcome our new aerated reptilian overlords...

submitted 18 minutes ago • 0 comments

Is it me? It's me, isn't it?

submitted 7 hours ago • 0 comments

Best and strongest pint of Guinness I've ever had.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Reminds me when I was 18 and at a pub with a young lady. I ordered a pint of Guinness & a white wine. The barman looked at me strangely, went away, and brought back a pint of Guinness. "And a white wine," I reminded him. He looked at the pint in confusion, then went away to get a white wine.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Ordered a tonic water and bitters from a barman at the pub I am in. As he went to fill the half-pint of tonic water up with bitter from a hand pump, I stopped him. "Angostura bitters," I said. He looked confused. Another patron said: "Small bottle. Just a few drops." Delay while he searched for it.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"Welcome to the House of Faun..."

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Looking good; reading great!

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

(Goes to 'Audo Drama' on mobile's SD card. Goes to folder labelled 'Stephen Gallagher'. Checks that bootleg MP3 is still there. Realises that nobody in 1979 knew what a mobile, an SD card or an MP3 were. Feels old. Cries a little.)

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

And I've met Christopher Priest twice. Lovely guy. The second time I met him I told him that a short story he'd written back in the 1970s gave me nightmares for years, and still makes me feel queasy.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

I'm hoping for a Rolls Royce car chase through the Chelsea Flower Show at the very least...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Bottom feeders.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I'm sitting right here. Not much work on at the moment.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

This is the way the world ends; not with a bang, but with a wimple...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Mmmmmm, strawberry... Touches of chocolate and ginger on the underside, I think.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

"So - you're telling me THIS is God?"

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Normally, "What size are they,?" is a reasonably simple question to answer...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Now this really *is* Trump Derangement Syndrome.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Tomorrow Never Dies also has the same plot as The Spy Who Lived Me and You Only Live Twice: stolen tech nearly starts a war; Bond teams up with someone from a rival intelligence agency.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

"But yes! A day return from Whitby is only £250 with his Senior Citizen's reduction!"

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Also, syringe. The resulting song might go down a bad route though...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Yay! Sunday afternoon watching!

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Agreed, although the source Fleming works bear little resemblance to the films in the case of Moonraker and no resemblance at all in the case of TSWLM.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

See also the 1977 novelisation of the BBC Dracula...

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

I'm taking it personally...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Not discounted in the UK, sadly.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Unprovoked apart from Iran's leadership saying that Israel is a "tumour" that needs to be eradicated (fact) and pushing forward a uranium enrichment programme at a level that can only be for a nuclear bomb programme (fact). Just saying.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

She may have a moral / ethical position on this issue which is at odds with her feminist leanings. People are not robots with preprogrammed responses. They are complicated. Just saying...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

It's a shame C&A went bust. We're you buying M&Ms, by any chance?

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

My uncle Stormy McStormface will be chuffed to bits...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

"Life is a lesson. You learn it when you're through." Limp Bizkits - 'Take A Look Around'.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

The Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer Robert Greene apparently died "after an excessive night involving Rhenish wine and pickled herring”. That's the way I plan to go. Either that or a surfeit of lampreys...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

"Do not jump off that bridge!"

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Ah, but Ketamine backwards is Enimatek, which is Sanskrit for Master. It's there in plain sight, people!

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Van Damme is the one on the right.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

I have to say, Crazy Uncle Donnie's birthday parade was quite impressive...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Wasn't it Doyle's brother who did the first ever illustration of Holmes, and pictured him with a beard?

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Maybe he had an extra shoulder on his chest...

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

What's your sign?

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

And why the Cybermen specifically want to draw attention to the navel is beyond me...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

You're right about Paget - I was trying to remember his name earlier but I couldn't bring it to mind. @philipardagh.bsky.social once upbraided me for claiming that it was Basil Rathbone who set the "image" of Holmes in people's minds.

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Good point, which I hadn't realised. Conan Doyle never mentioned a deerstalker - it was a flapped travelling cap, I think - and I don't believe the Inverness was specifically mentioned by Doyle.

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

I met Jeff Cummins, the cover artist, last year. He told me that for years after painting it he expected to be sued by the estate of Basil Rathbone for using his likeness...

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Incredible fun to write. And I'm amazed that it's still being talked about.

submitted 7 days ago • 4 comments

Former Tory Minister Jeremy Hunt in today's Times: "I have a research assistant and I have ChatGPT — I use them both. It makes writing a book a hell of a lot quicker." I don't know where to start.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Cutting-edge journalism here as the world slides towards chaos...

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

I'm continually amazed by the fact that some people proclaim loudly that they are Christians and then base their entire belief system on the Old Testament.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments