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
Monday Oct 17, 2022
Monday Oct 17, 2022
Derek AKA Imrryr joins me in Derry and Toms to discuss this choice piece of 60s SF courtesy of Moorcock and Hilary Bailey, as well as his new(ish) The Black Corridor inspired album and his latest variation on his ongoing Elric-related project The Dreaming City III. Then Graham calls in from his weird shack* in the woods to add his tuppence ha'penny worth and his thoughts on collaborating with ＮΛＮD to interpret this novel as a musical suite.
Speculations on a grim future...
Musings on a grim present...
Bleak experimental electronica...
Politics...
We leave it all hanging out.
Imrryr's The Black Corridor cover art is by Mark Jarell
Check out ST 37's track The Black Corridor from their Glare album.
John's new book of poetry, When the Banshee Howls, is available for pre-order.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.
*Japanese RV
NOTE: This episode was originally uploaded with a sound error. This has been corrected.
Friday Sep 30, 2022
Friday Sep 30, 2022
Dave (AKA SÖNUS) is back in Derry and Toms to pick up the second and concluding part of our quest for The Mad God's Amulet.
Join us as we discover the greatest NWOBHM band to never exist... THE MUTANT WAR JAGUARS OF ASIACOMMUNISTA... and Lord Shark's Ostentatious Couch returns.
Things mentioned in the show include Gates of Londra - a must have if you dig your industrial black metal with a Moorcockian twist.
Imrryr's latest release The Dreaming City III is out now featuring Dave and Allister Thompson AKA The Gateless Gate.
Massive thanks to Dave Dempster for the Maegan Lemay poster. Check out her web and store page.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store. Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.
Monday Sep 05, 2022
Monday Sep 05, 2022
Ted AKA @tedankhamen joins me in Derry and Toms for the second leaf of our Summer diptych musing on Moorcock, gaming and whatever else enters our eyeline.
Some choice cuts in here including miniature bashing, Tolkien (again), a shock Strongbow appreciation story, chaosium-isms... but mostly some good, chewy thinking on modelling Moorcockian worlds and cosmology. I also bang my BoL drum again.
Be sure to have a good delve around Ted's blog Tomb of Tedankhamen.
Ted also mentioned Lasers and Feelings by John Harper. Lots more good stuff on his itch.io
You can check out the Tentacled Whisperer of Secrets Discord by making an offering to... THE TENTACLED WHISPERER... or just check out his profile. He's pretty lax on gatekeeping for an ancient deity of unspeakable power.
Steve's Stormbringer game recaps are on his blog.
Check out and subscribe to Jim Kirkland's newsletter and read his spoiler-free review of The Citadel of Forgotten Myths.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.
Saturday Aug 27, 2022
Saturday Aug 27, 2022
We're back in Derry and Toms to talk gaming again, this time with CLARKY THE CRUEL.
Dave gets shocked by the crap number of TV channels we had in the UK as kids, Clarky tells us about his sandboxing adventures beyond the ultraworld, and I get inspired. And we digress. Obviously.
You can find Clarky's Dissecting Worlds podcast archive and all of his game logs on his blog (including entires by yours truly describing the action from the perspective of post-apocalypse fiction powerhouse Roy Saveloy.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.
We also mention Jason's podcast, the Nerd's RPG Variety Cast.
Saturday Jul 30, 2022
Saturday Jul 30, 2022
After 40 years of obsessing over the Mayflower covers of Bob Haberfield, Dave and I get to wig out and talk to Ben Haberfield about his Dad's life, art and the gestating project to celebrate the breadth of his work in the form of two art books.
You can keep up with Ben's work at bobhaberfield.com and follow him on Instagram.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Phil returns to Derry & Toms as we visit Morecambe's (and perhaps the world's) premier second hand book vendor to select a candidate for the first ever Old Pier Bookshop Special.
We choose, or rather are chosen by, The Winds of Gath by EC Tubb - first in a 33 book series spanning three decades that charts the adventures of Earl Dumarest of Terra.
In honour of old school SF we drink old school beers. Well, I do. Phil drinks fancy wine. But we meet in the middle when the mysterious books of booze box appears for the first time in D&Ts.
JOIN US!
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
Chapter 13 of The Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly was scored by N Λ N D.
Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.
Friday Jun 17, 2022
Friday Jun 17, 2022
Dave AKA SÖNUS returns to Derry and Toms to dive into the fast-paced and very metal, yet weirdly just OK-ish first part of The Mad God's Amulet, second in the Hawkmoon sequence The History of the Runestaff.
As always, digressions await the unwary traveller as well as ostentatious coughing and just excellent pants.
JOIN US!
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Support the podcast by becoming a Patron.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
Chapter 12 of The Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly was scored by N Λ N D
Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden
Monday May 09, 2022
Monday May 09, 2022
Loz returns to Derry & Toms to revisit an old adversary, Michael Moorcock's The Fortress of the Pearl.
Join us and marvel at our declining energy.
Bridle, as Loz declares The Chronicle of the Black Sword a shit book and denigrates poetry.
Along the way we 'wake the chicken'. What does that even mean? How many names are there for trousers? Why would anyone smoke stout?
Listen as we mull over the answers.
(Spoiler - we don't know)
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Support the podcast by becoming a Patron.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
Chapter 11 of The Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly was scored by N Λ N D
Saturday Apr 16, 2022
Saturday Apr 16, 2022
Finally, we're back at Derry & Toms to take a look at the 1980 Moorcock collection My Experiences in the Third World War. Along the way Phil and I compare notes regarding our mindsets in the 1980s, laugh at the preposterous Controller and let fate decide on the Wandering Traumatic Nuclear War Film Table.
Also, on this occasion we might not offend a small town in the UK but potentially ALL of Canada. But seriously what DOES 'pie-dish of privilege and broken promises' really mean?
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Support the podcast by becoming a Patron.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.
CONTENT WARNING - there are discussions in this show regarding sexual violence and exploitation
Saturday Feb 05, 2022
Saturday Feb 05, 2022
Dave AKA SÖNUS is back in Derry & Toms to celebrate the release of his second cut - USURPER OF THE UNIVERSE - out now on Forbidden Place Records.
As it aligns nicely we also take a dive into the 1962 Moorcock story To Rescue Tanelorn and make some connections. Along the way we talk about some other guff.
JOIN US!
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Support the podcast by becoming a Patron.
Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his new store.
Our avatar is by Wyrmwalk. Follow him on Instagram.
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'.