Breakfast in the Ruins
Friends old and new join me in Derry and Toms roof gardens to discuss the work and influence of prolific British fantasist Michael Moorcock, as well as other bits of 60s and 70s genre fiction that came to me via my Grandad in the 80s and informed my world view. Books, music, role-playing games, wrestling in Featherstone Library and many other digressions await.
Listen on:
Episodes
Saturday Oct 31, 2020
Saturday Oct 31, 2020
It's Halloween, so Phil and I enjoy some spooky old fashioneds and engage with the horror of James Herbert's 1974 debut novel, The Rats!
It's got the lot. A creepy hero... out of order tramps... vicious critters... and an abundance of thigh references!
STAY SAFE!!!
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Finally, the Spheres align and Hussein and I manage, after ten months, to get it together and look at Phase Two of The Final Programme.
We talk about Mike's uncanny prescience, wrestling in Featherstone Library, and Hussein rags on sci-fi again. It's a fun time all round.
Also, GAC reaches the village of Treybach. Foxes may be abroad.
Monday Sep 28, 2020
Monday Sep 28, 2020
We're back, and this time Phil joins me at Derry and Toms to conclude our coverage of The Eternal Champion.
Turns out Erekosë is just a horny jock. Who knew?
We also find that if you're being peer pressured into genocide you just need a bath, dinner and an intervention... it's just so relatable!
Sunday Aug 23, 2020
Sunday Aug 23, 2020
We're back at Derry and Tom's and unfortunately so are the challenging porters.
REJOICE as we finally get around to covering Corum...
SIGH as we continue to fail to avoid weird beer...
DESPAIR as our energy levels dip in the second half...
GASP at chapter two of The Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly...
Sunday Aug 02, 2020
Sunday Aug 02, 2020
Phil, Loz and I celebrate an all too brief interlude in lockdown life to drink weird porters and muse upon Moorcock’s treatment at the hands of tabletop role-playing games.
Phil taunts us with her syrupy beer avoidance skills, two-man canoes get far too many mentions and Loz gatekeeps Moorcock RPG play (the rotter).
Also, The Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly debuts with chapter one. There are 5 more to come (and if I don’t get pelted with rottent tomatoes I may write more).
Sunday Jul 19, 2020
Sunday Jul 19, 2020
Tash returns from her exile in Sri Lanka and finally we get together after a four month Covid delay to finish The Jewel in the Skull. Stand by as we flatten the curve!
REEL at the variable sound quality as my Tascam once again has to do some heavy lifting.
MARVEL at the disagreements over the last few chapters.
HOWL at Tash's toilet allocation of an all new (to me) classification of a certain type of fantasy novel.
SHOEGAZE to the mellow sounds of Breakfast in the Ruins by the mighty Giantkind.
Monday Jul 13, 2020
Monday Jul 13, 2020
We're back.
The Eternal Champion continues on his crusade to defeat the enemies of humanity and further proves himself an absolute duffer with the ladies.
Phil reveals a penchant for watching extreme violence against Ewan McGregor and Channing Tatum.
I wring my hands at the horror of it all.
JOIN US!
Saturday May 30, 2020
Saturday May 30, 2020
We're back in Derry & Toms roof gardens to mull over 1970's The Eternal Champion, the novel debut of Erekosë/John Daker.
It's got everything. Bad pronunciation, silly names and nudity.
Phil returns to the co-host chair, we drink an old old-Fashioned or two and draw comparisons between Noonos and Grimsby, adding that ancient port-town to our list of mildly insulted settlements.
Thursday Mar 05, 2020
Thursday Mar 05, 2020
Loz is back as we conclude our coverage of the 1972 Moorcock novel Elric of Melniboné.
Join us as we are horrified by a challenging beer and Loz offends Scunthorpe (as well as narrowly avoiding a date with Dannus). As usual we struggle with pronunciation and saying The Ship That Sails Over Land and Water.
Sunday Feb 16, 2020
Sunday Feb 16, 2020
Natasha is back with me as we continue our deep dive into the first Hawkmoon novel, The Jewel in the Skull.
MARVEL at Tash's brutal takedown of mothers-in-law...
SIGH at the rambling non-sequiturs...
GASP at Tash's salty sailor talk...
WONDER at the gradual breakdown of recording discipline...
WEEP at the continual intrusion of traffic, crisp packets and leather furniture...
Breakfast in the Ruins
It had been a few years since I tried anything new hobby-wise and particularly anything t’interweb related beyond twitter and generally using it for all of the general reasons we use it (gifs, cat pics, buying things I don’t need etc).
However in recent years, whilst doing lengthy commutes, I found that podcasts had moved on somewhat from the type I’d been exposed to previously, with less of the ‘yuck yuck’ interactions between podcast hosts that felt the need to be artificially heightened, and more of a naturalistic and joyous approach to a specific subject matter that drew me in to feel part of the conversation.
Combined with this new found interest I’ve been needing a hobby and outlet for my creative energies, such that they are.
A few years back, for similar reasons, I started a blog (mentallicohullic.com), where I was able to have a good rant, but also link to the online articles I’d written for thequietus.com. I didn’t really keep that up with any regularity though, so it fell by the wayside, although it is still live.
Anyway, it struck me a while later that a sudden upsurge in interest amongst my friends in fantasy fiction, and particularly Michael Moorcock, had generated a number of conversations that I really enjoyed participating in. We were also having particular discussions about how to best model Moorcock in a table top role playing game. One night I started typing up some thoughts regarding my approach to it and, reading it back, it was written in a conversational style and for a split second the idea of a podcast themed around Michael Moorcock’s books and other associated art seemed appealing. A few sherries later I’d ordered a USB audio hub and a condenser microphone and the next day recorded a five minute podcast introduction as a proof of concept. I shared it with some like-minded friends and, following feedback, decided to give it a whirl.
Michael Moorcock as a subject seemed the natural choice, for reasons that may become apparent during the introductory episode. As you'll see as the show progresses, there's a reason why I call it 'Moorcock flavoured'.