The GardenDespatches from The Satyrs’ Forest

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Ten dead people

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A montage of said ten people

The ten dead people i would most want to have a discussion with over a cup of tea,1 in no particular order:

  • Jesus of Nazareth (c. 4 BCE–33 CE)
  • Emperor Julian (331–363)
  • Hildegard von Bingen (c. 1098–1179)
  • Nikolai Fyodorov (1829–1903)
  • Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920)
  • Willem ArondĂŠus (1894–1943)
  • Gerald Gardner (1884–1964)
  • Richard Nixon (1913–1994)
  • Dixy Lee Ray (1914–1994)
  • John C. Lilly (1915–2001)

Honourable mentions go to Arthur C. Clarke, Christopher Lee, Gemistus Plethon, and J. R. R. Tolkien.

…And three alive people who are historically interesting enough that they’ll likely join the ten above after they pass:

  • Miss Martindale (1937–)
  • Jim Morasco/Sevy Verna (the Toynbee Tiler)
  • Any one of the Pintupi Nine

Ranking the Twelve Angry Men

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12. Angry Man #7

As comic relief, he’s great, and should obviously be played by Tim Robinson in the inevitable event of a remake. As a person, fuuuuuck this guy. A life is hanging in the balance and you just want to watch some Yankee cricket? You fold under pressure, rather than actually reëvaluating your beliefs? Kill yourself, my man.

11. Angry Man #10

There is nothing but hate behind those eyes. A wretched soul who is rightfully told to sit down and shut up. #CancelAngryManNumberTen

10. Angry Man #2

Detestable for the same reason as Angry Man #7. A doormat with no opinions of his own whose soul is carried away with the current. But at least he’s affable.

9. Angry Man #6

The boringest Angry Man. Why is he here? We needed twelve of them, i guess.

8. Angry Man #3

The kind of man who turns on Fox News, sees his son send a post-ironic femboy meme in the family group chat, and immediately decides every transgender person should be rounded up. Not a dyed-in-the-wool bigot like Angry Man #10, but no nicer to be around. All we can do is pray that someone turns on the parental controls on his TV and switches him over to MSNBC.

7. Angry Man #12

He treats the case as frivolously as Angry Man #7, but you know what? I can’t help but like him. He just wants to show off his cereal box slogans and play noughts and crosses.

6. Angry Man #11

“Continental Europeans who moved to an Anglophone country” are God’s chosen people.

5. The Foreman

Poor fella’s just tryin’ ta dee his job and he’s stuck in the room with all these colourful characters. I can’t help but feel bad for him.

4. Angry Man #5

The most mysterious Angry Man. He’s of the same ethnicity as the descendant, and he knows how switch-blades work, but otherwise… who knows? What mysteries lie in his past? We’ll never find out, but he seems like a cool dude.

3. Angry Man #8

“You know, i would have voted for FDR a fifth time if i could.” The greatest bleeding-heart liberal in cinematic history. His heroism made a tear come out of my eye that then turned into a dove of peace and flew away. But just as admirable as those who lead the charge are those who can admit their faults — which leads us to…

2. Angry Man #4

Hell yes. Unlike Angry Men #3 and #10, #4 doesn’t vote “guilty” because of prejudice. He sincerely believes that the boy did it, and, once every argument is dismantled, he quietly accedes and admits defeat rather than loudly crashing out. Also spends the most time aura-farming out of any of the Angry Men.

1. Angry Man #9

The coolest old man in the universe. The Paddington Bear of the 12AMCU, able to disarm anyone with a hard stare. Somehow the only person in the room who knows how glasses work. 10/10 Angry Man-ing.

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume LI

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A mysterious colony of ĂŚthereally glowing, tendril-like organisms clinging to the bottom of a sheet of ice
Edwardsiella andrillĂŚ, a rare sea anemone discovered in 2013 that lives clinging onto the bottom of the Antarctic ice sheet.

I’m sure you’ve all seen WPlace.live by now, which has become an unexpected internet sensation, and it was on my list when i first found it (back when it seemed to be used only by Brazilians)… but, eh, it’s lost its luster. Too much spam, too much brigading. There was a nice period at the start where everyone in the Holy Land was keeping to their side of the Green Line. Tel Aviv, Nazareth, Gaza, Jerusalem, Bethlehem — all beautiful. Now it’s just a giant mess. Anyway! Links.

Crawler problems

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I don’t know whose dumbfuck crawler is responsible for this, but whoever it is, can you please calm down? I welcome robotic visitors1, but they don’t have to be so hyperactive. I promise you the data will still be there tomorrow.

An analytics chart showing a huge spike of visitors in the past day

Edit: The tidal wave has stopped, but i have started logging bots’ User-Agents just in case whatever that thing is comes back. I hope they’re happy with themselves.

Edit #2: Well, that was quick. They’re back… and they’re not even using a “bot” User-Agent to identify themselves! That’s just bad manners.

Edit #3: I’ve implemented a basic rate-limiting system with a limit fast enough that it won’t affect my biological readers. Fingers crossed.

Stuff i watched recently, August ’25

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A montage of the undermentioned films

Last time on “Stuff i watched recently”, i covered four thriller films. Today, we’re back to our normal farrago of assorted genres — and i must warn you, it’s been quite a while since i’ve seen some of these, starting with…

Mission: Impossible: The: Final: Reckoning (2025)

The first act of this presumably final entry in the Tom Cruise Tries to Kill Himself series consists of a clumsy, torpid recap of every attempted Cruisicide so far, interspersed with clips from past films1 and people talking up Tom Cruise as The Most Important Boy In The World. But, as soon as Tramell Tillman’s beautiful visage shines upon the Imax screen, we’re shocked back to life, and the ensuing setpiece — a palm-sweating scamper aboard a collapsing nuclear submarine — may well be the best, tensest, and invigoratingest this franchise has ever brought us. (7/10)

The Abyss (1989)

Never doubt James Cameron. (9/10)

Primal Fear (1996)

Fight Club, but boring. The most 1996 movie to ever 1996. It’s fine. (5/10)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Wes Craven dares to ask the unaskable: What if, in Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis wasn’t a complete imbecile who can’t even hold onto a knife for more than five seconds? Nancy Thompson enters into the pantheon of sensible horror protagonists by doing everything right, up to and including hiding a second instant coffee maker underneath her bed.

The special effects are the star of the show here, from spandex walls to bottomless tubs, lifting up some shonky performances (Johnny Depp acts circles around everyone else in every scene he’s in) and a truly abysmal ending. With a premise like that, it’s not hard to see why it became such a sensation. (6/10)

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

“Every species can smell its own extinction. The last ones left won’t have a pretty time with it. In ten years, maybe less, the human race will just be a bedtime story for their children. A myth, nothing more.”

John Carpenter knocks it out of the park again in this bizarre, prescient downwards spiral of metafictional cosmic horror. In an era of deepfakes, diffusion, and dripped-out popes, it can seem as though fiction and reality are merging. What happens when we as a society can no longer tell the difference? If you believe In the Mouth of Madness… it’s not going to be pretty. (10/10)

28 Years Later (2025)

“Hello, Alex. It’s Danny. The studio wants to make another 28 Days Later sequel. Any ideas?”

“Hm… What if we made it a touching coming-of-age story about coming to terms with the inevitability of death in a working-class North Eastern family?”

“What?”

“We can make it about Brexit too if you’d like. An island of strangers, and all that.”

“…”

“…”

“…I’ll get Young Fathers on the line.”

“Good, good. You’ve still got that pink Motorola Razr you shot the first one on, right?”

“Afraid not. I’ll have to use an iPhone instead.”

“Ah. Shame.”

“Shame.”

(8½/10)

Superman (2025)

The town crier came up to me and shouted, “Hear ye, hear ye! Superhero movies are good again!” So i gave James Gunn’s Superman a shot, and what do you know? He was right.

Mr Gunn kicks off his newborn cinematic universe by cannonballing straight into the deep end. The Superman experience is akin to starting a long-running comic at issue #387, in the best way possible. Superman has already been doing his thing for three years. Lex Luthor has a pocket dimension and Vladjamin Putinyahu has promised him his own personal settlement in Gazkraine.2 Mr Terrific is there. Who’s Mr Terrific? The greatest character ever, that’s who. Absolute cinema. (8/10)

🔄️🎮️ Celeste (2018)

I forgot my Itch.io password in the move over from Windows to Linux, so the recent Steam sale was my first time in ages playing the GOAT platformer. I’m proud to say i finally beat The Farewell (and got the moon berry) legit. Fuck that comb room. (10/10)

A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)

Fun little flick! Every town in Britain has its own Morell. (6/10)

📺️ Murderbot (2025)

Yeesh. I wanted to like this — “autistic robots” is a favourite trope of mine — but my sense of humour and its just did not get along. A great example of how every show on Apple TV+ just looks fake. (3/10)

Red State (2011)

There was a moment when i thought this was going to deliver the most singularly insane twist ending in cinematic history. It didn’t. So what we’re left with is a miserable film about horrible fundamentalists kidnapping horrible college students and going up against a horrible ATF agent. Kill me now. (2/10)

Shallow Grave (1994)

What a palate cleanser! Danny Boyle’s first film gives him the template he’d perfect with Trainspotting soon after. Thumping techno tunes, a perfect mix of comedy and tragedy, and Ewan McGregor’s boyish face. (Plus, an incongruously spacious sitcom apartment.) You simply must see this, if only for the novelty of Christopher Eccleston with a full head of hair. (9/10)

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

The vibes are immaculate; the story not so much. This is a lean two-hour-long 6/10 that’s begging to become a plump and juicy two-and-a-half-hour 9/10.

That said, when the Four are heading to space in their sleek pulp-futuristic retro rocket ship, and the Human Torch gets smitten with the Silver Surfer… there’s a lot i can overlook. A good half of these points are just down to swish art direction and a triumphant score: (6½/10)

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume L

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Wow. I’ve really done fifty of these, huh? (More than that, really — i didn’t start numbering them until i was already a good few in.) Well, uh… here’s to fifty more.

How my brain periodises history

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Periodisation, the splitting of history into neat ’n’ discrete temporal chunks, is a time-honoured matter of debate among historians. Where are the boundaries? Why are they where they are? Can periodisation even work in a global context?

Today, i will answer none of these questions, nor even attempt to seriously tackle the subject. For this is not a post about where the ages of man truly start and end. It is a post about how my brain reacts when it sees a year number and thinks “oh, yeah, that’s in… uh, that part of history”. What’s ancient? What’s mediæval? I dunno, but my subconscious sure does!

The Bronze Age(ish): c. 3500–776 BCE

A palace at Knossos, a Sumerian mosaic, an ancient Indian sculpture
Left to right: the Palace of Minos, King Ur-Pabilsag, the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro

The invention of writing is as good a time to start the clock on “history” as any, so circa 3500 BCE it is. It’s probably unfair to have a giant chunk of nearly three thousand years — as long as the entire rest of history — all by itself, split into nothing else, but when was the last time you saw an exact date in the negative four-figure range?

High Antiquity: 776 BCE–363 CE

A Mayan temple, the Parthenon, an army of statues
Left to right: the Temple of the Great Jaguar, the Parthenon, the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang

This is the good stuff. I’ve chosen to start the clock not at the founding of Rome but at the (probably semi-mythical) date of the first Olympics, because Ancient Greece has always been cooler than Ancient Rome. (I can’t take a language where ⟨v⟩ is pronounced /w/ seriously.)

Weird amorphous transitional period: 363–622

An ancient codex, a mosaic portrait, a great arch
Left to right: the Vienna Dioscurides, Emperor Justinian, the Arch of Ctesiphon

I think most people generally have a decent idea of where the boundary between the Middle Ages and the modern day lies — somewhere around the end of the fifteenth century — but the line between antiquity and mediæval times has always been fuzzier, and i’ve never been sure where to draw it. After Julian died in 363, his successor was the last to rule over the empire undivided, the classical pagan relative tolerance of “anything but” giving way to the mediæval Christian doctrine of “nothing except”. It’s hard for me to fully accept what historians call “late antiquity” as firmly set in either era, so here it sits as its own weird little thing.

The Middle Ages: 622–1492

Several insets from manuscripts
Left to right: an Aztec tlacochcalcatl, the Bayeux Tapestry, the Baghdad House of Wisdom

The rise of Islam as a conquering force cements in stone the end of any vestiges of the classical era; where Christians start their calendar at the birth of Jesus, Muslims have their epoch at the year that Muhammad and his followers fled Mecca for Medina, which seems a useful line in the sand.

The Colonial Age: 1492–1776

Columbus in the Americas, a painting, a manuscript illustration
Left to right: Columbus arrives in the Americas, The Night Watch, Akbar’s court

If ever there was a single date that parts The World Before and The World After, a horrible axis mundi on which history turns, Columbus’ arrival in America was it. Two parts of the world which had been isolated for millennia1 were suddenly, irreversibly welded together, bringing untold riches and untold destruction. So much was gained, and so much more was lost. Entire cultures were snuffed out in the pursuit of sugar, and from their ashes new ones grew. It’s hard to imagine what world we would live in without the Santa María.

The Industrial Age: 1776–1918

People hard at work in a factory, Napoleon rallying the troops, an emperor making a proclamation
Left to right: the industrial revolution, Napoleon returns from Elba, the Meiji restoration

That’s not “1776” as in the American revolution, or even “1776” as in Adam Smith, but “1776” as in the year James Watt sold his first steam engine. At the start of this era, Manchester was a modest town of perhaps no more than fifty thousand people. By its end, it had ballooned to a heaving industrial city of seven hundred thousand. That about sums it up: for all the wealth made by colonial plunder, this was the age where humanity truly began to prosper.

The Postmodern Age: 1918–present

Hitler making an announcement, a man on the moon, the first iPhone
Left to right: Hitler declares war on the U.S., Apollo 11, everything’s computer

My natural impulse was to start our current age of history at 1945: the end of the war, the start of decolonisation, the thundering beginning of the atomic age… but, thinking about it, it’s all about what feels like history. I’m not sure me and someone from ancient Greece would have much in common to talk about — nor someone from mediæval France, or even Victorian London. But around the 1920s, a switch flips. They have cars. They have fridges. They have films, and radios, and fascists. I get the sense that a Paris cabaret girl and i share a society, a common world and ethos, in a way that people from before the war just didn’t. You could pluck her out of history and place her down in 2025 and, though she may be shocked at first, she’d adjust within the week. The interwar period is, to me, the beginning of “now”.

Unblogged July

¡ Tagged as visits, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, Shildon, Beamish, Tynemouth, gigology, transport ¡ Leave a comment

I’ve done some fairly interesting things this month, and had planned to write posts for each of them — but, for whatever reason, none of them provided that particular spark to me. Maybe they just didn’t seem that interesting to explain to you, the reader, or maybe i didn’t know what to say about them except the obvious.

Nonetheless, it would be a shame for these events to pass into the annals of my journal without telling you about them. So! Here’s a brief summary of my unblogged July thus far.

Stephenson’s Rocket

I toddled off to Shildon to visit Locomotion, the local branch of the national railway museum. It’s the birthday of the railways, and thus boasts a disproportionate selection of anorak arcana — alas, you can’t go in the trains, but you get a pretty good look at the inside of Queen Alexandra’s royal train car, the erstwhile Birmingham maglev, and, most proudly, Stephenson’s Rocket.

Queen Alexandra’s royal train car The Birmingham maglev
An elaborately painted coat of arms
Locomotion also provides a lot to geek out about for any heraldry nerds.
A 1910s British street scene, recreated at Beamish A printed advert for a Large Pig

Beamish1 has been newly crowned Museum of the Year, so there was no better time to check it out. I hadn’t properly explored their new fifties town yet — the chippie and the old houses are wonderful, but the record store, crammed up the stairs, across an anachronistically modern mezzanine, and down a grey corridor, leaves much to be desired. Nitpicks about balcony design aside, it’s as great as ever, and, somehow, well worth the £33(!!!!!) asking price.

Finally, just yesterday, i went off to an Elbow concert hosted in a ruined mediæval priory by the sea. Belting out “One Day Like This” in the fading dusk light with five thousand other people standing on the same hallowed ground where monks tried to figure out where baby eels came from is a top-ten human experience.

Mx Tynehorne’s link roundup, volume XLIX

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