Finding inspiration in dead waterfowl

Everyone always says, ‘Take your notebook everywhere.’  An idea can hit you at any moment, so they say. Well as it turns out, they were right on the money.

I do my best thinking while I’m walking and I’m lucky enough to live close to the Thames… Well… luckier than some of the wild life anyway. In the space of four days I came across two dead geese and a fish floating face down in the water. So what did I do? Well pretty much what any writer would do in that situation: I took pictures and made a lot of notes…

Swann & Duckworthy (part one)

Luke Cage: another day, another binge-fest

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it: The Marvel/Netflix team is really nailing the TV superhero genre. Daredevil was great, Jessica Jones was fantastic, but Luke Cage is something else entirely. The winning formula hasn’t really changed: less power, more humour, more humanity; it trumps being able to sling a mountain into the sun any day of the week.

cage.jpg

Cage is much darker than Jessica Jones and hits about the same level as Daredevil, while managing to be a lot more vicious. It tackles gun crime, racism (the N-word is thrown about like confetti), inner-city decay, drugs … You’d think that cramming every urban problem into thirteen episodes would make the whole thing burst at the seams, but it works; my God it works.

Continue reading “Luke Cage: another day, another binge-fest”