Ray Newman
@raynewman.bsky.social
He/him. From Bridgwater, in Bristol. Writer, editor, content designer. Ghost stories, films. No alt text, no repost. Not here for politics. Linktree: https://linktr.ee/raynewman Header: my book Intervals of Darkness https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DDR8X9QY
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Ray Newman
@raynewman.bsky.social
· Mar 22
Between them ‘Municipal Gothic’ and ‘Intervals of Darkness’ have 27 stories full of haunted buildings, haunted people, and working class weirdness. Obviously *I* think they're great – but so do strangers who owe me nothing!
👉 www.amazon.co.uk/Municipal-Go...
👉 www.amazon.co.uk/Intervals-Da...
👉 www.amazon.co.uk/Municipal-Go...
👉 www.amazon.co.uk/Intervals-Da...
Reposted by Ray Newman
This is my watercolour of the menhir of Champ Dolent (Field of Sorrow) in Brittany. According to legend the huge stone rose from the ground to separate two feuding brothers who were about to kill each other. The original artwork is now on sale on my Etsy shop: shorturl.at/HDzSI
#StandingStoneSunday
#StandingStoneSunday
January 4, 2026 at 9:09 AM
This is my watercolour of the menhir of Champ Dolent (Field of Sorrow) in Brittany. According to legend the huge stone rose from the ground to separate two feuding brothers who were about to kill each other. The original artwork is now on sale on my Etsy shop: shorturl.at/HDzSI
#StandingStoneSunday
#StandingStoneSunday
I am on this list. It's a very long list, and my name's only there once. But I am on this list.
ellendatlow.com/2026/01/03/f...
ellendatlow.com/2026/01/03/f...
Full list of BH #17 recommendations part 2
Hogan, Sean “Wassail,” Unquiet Slumbers. Holder, Nancy “The Captain’s Wife,” Where the Silent Ones Watch.Holi, Emily “Buttons,” Mother Knows Best.Hollingsworth, Matt “Zagreb,” Winter in the City.Ho…
ellendatlow.com
January 4, 2026 at 9:12 AM
I am on this list. It's a very long list, and my name's only there once. But I am on this list.
ellendatlow.com/2026/01/03/f...
ellendatlow.com/2026/01/03/f...
The boards covering the windows of the old Pizza Hut are too tempting for Jack with his holdall of spray cans. At 3:11 am, he stops painting, pauses. Is that 'Happy Birthday'? Beyond the plywood, children laugh. A lorry passes, throwing white noise from the road surface and, then, the party is over.
January 4, 2026 at 9:11 AM
The boards covering the windows of the old Pizza Hut are too tempting for Jack with his holdall of spray cans. At 3:11 am, he stops painting, pauses. Is that 'Happy Birthday'? Beyond the plywood, children laugh. A lorry passes, throwing white noise from the road surface and, then, the party is over.
[Anxiously trying to please both the people who followed me from the UX starter pack and those who followed from the Folklore one] What can we learn about sustainable service design from Stonehenge? 🧵
January 4, 2026 at 7:23 AM
[Anxiously trying to please both the people who followed me from the UX starter pack and those who followed from the Folklore one] What can we learn about sustainable service design from Stonehenge? 🧵
I just managed to complete my tax return on my phone, while sitting in bed drinking coffee. What a time to be alive! ☕
This is what happens when a service is allowed to develop and mature based on user feedback.
This is what happens when a service is allowed to develop and mature based on user feedback.
January 4, 2026 at 7:18 AM
I just managed to complete my tax return on my phone, while sitting in bed drinking coffee. What a time to be alive! ☕
This is what happens when a service is allowed to develop and mature based on user feedback.
This is what happens when a service is allowed to develop and mature based on user feedback.
Reposted by Ray Newman
even a man who is pure in heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright
January 4, 2026 at 4:34 AM
even a man who is pure in heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright
Reposted by Ray Newman
It's here: the annual round-up of my favorite folk horror media! As always, these are not strictly 2025 releases but rather the movies I watched for the first time (mostly) throughout the year. What were your favorites?
2025 Year in Review: The Best Folk Horror Movies (and One TV Show) I Watched
Last year was rough, to put it lightly. Like many of you, I struggled to claw my attention back from a barrage of anxieties on the personal, national, and global levels. My resolution to document w…
theharvestmaidsrevenge.com
January 3, 2026 at 11:26 PM
It's here: the annual round-up of my favorite folk horror media! As always, these are not strictly 2025 releases but rather the movies I watched for the first time (mostly) throughout the year. What were your favorites?
“This cassette was found in a thrift shop in Berlin on January 6th, 2017 and was purchased for 1€... The restored part of the tape contains a recording of a man's voice commenting on a court decision in East Germany following an incident that occurred in 1989.”
Found the coolest website that takes random found cassette tapes people submit and digitizes them. I’m listening to an NYC hip hop station from 1994: intertapes.net
Intertapes — Main
Obscure tape finds and their stories
intertapes.net
January 4, 2026 at 6:29 AM
“This cassette was found in a thrift shop in Berlin on January 6th, 2017 and was purchased for 1€... The restored part of the tape contains a recording of a man's voice commenting on a court decision in East Germany following an incident that occurred in 1989.”
Reposted by Ray Newman
Are there some more fantasy movies and books in the realm of NeverEnding Story, Phantom Tollbooth, or Labyrinth that I'm unaware of?
Fantasy stories that aren't about elves and dragons and other Tolkien-esque things?
Where all of the creatures and concepts and races are new and made up and weird?
Fantasy stories that aren't about elves and dragons and other Tolkien-esque things?
Where all of the creatures and concepts and races are new and made up and weird?
January 4, 2026 at 6:02 AM
Are there some more fantasy movies and books in the realm of NeverEnding Story, Phantom Tollbooth, or Labyrinth that I'm unaware of?
Fantasy stories that aren't about elves and dragons and other Tolkien-esque things?
Where all of the creatures and concepts and races are new and made up and weird?
Fantasy stories that aren't about elves and dragons and other Tolkien-esque things?
Where all of the creatures and concepts and races are new and made up and weird?
More lingering Covid signage. The big feet in particular are now so faded as to have become quite abstract.
January 3, 2026 at 11:20 AM
More lingering Covid signage. The big feet in particular are now so faded as to have become quite abstract.
Now watching: ‘Princess Mononoke’, dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1997, at the request of my not-obsessed-with-films partner. 🎥🎬
January 2, 2026 at 8:40 PM
Now watching: ‘Princess Mononoke’, dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 1997, at the request of my not-obsessed-with-films partner. 🎥🎬
Reposted by Ray Newman
One of the myths perpetuated by Shaffer, and this new adaptation, is that Mozart never crossed anything out. He did, and he restructured sections eg using symbols to denote repeats. In K491 he ended up drawing faces instead of asterisks (zoom in). I was so happy to get to see this score at the RCM ❤️
January 2, 2026 at 6:32 PM
One of the myths perpetuated by Shaffer, and this new adaptation, is that Mozart never crossed anything out. He did, and he restructured sections eg using symbols to denote repeats. In K491 he ended up drawing faces instead of asterisks (zoom in). I was so happy to get to see this score at the RCM ❤️
My loose aim for film viewing in 2026 is to watch anything but American films, because I find this graph from my Letterboxd stats a bit embarrassing.
January 2, 2026 at 4:42 PM
My loose aim for film viewing in 2026 is to watch anything but American films, because I find this graph from my Letterboxd stats a bit embarrassing.
Reposted by Ray Newman
Immersing myself in the work of Arnaldo Putzu again. He's rightfully famed for his film poster artwork, but as usual I've wandered deep into Look-in territory. Behold the majesty of this Grizzly Adams / Suzi Quatro / The Fonz montage, then quiver at the splendour of his blue Essex. Untouchable.
January 2, 2026 at 3:24 PM
Immersing myself in the work of Arnaldo Putzu again. He's rightfully famed for his film poster artwork, but as usual I've wandered deep into Look-in territory. Behold the majesty of this Grizzly Adams / Suzi Quatro / The Fonz montage, then quiver at the splendour of his blue Essex. Untouchable.
Reposted by Ray Newman
One of the things that always keeps genealogy interesting is the mirror steps where you can see a movement in society at large with your family. In this case the drift towards industrialised urban centres. My dad’s family are very London. Concentrated around the Bishopsgate and Spitalfields area.
January 2, 2026 at 3:22 PM
One of the things that always keeps genealogy interesting is the mirror steps where you can see a movement in society at large with your family. In this case the drift towards industrialised urban centres. My dad’s family are very London. Concentrated around the Bishopsgate and Spitalfields area.
Reposted by Ray Newman
I can't imagine why anyone would assume that the bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong, yo-he-ho, and ta-ta theories were naive and irrelevant.
![In 1861, historical linguist Max Müller published a list of speculative theories concerning the origins of spoken language:[34]
Bow-wow. The bow-wow, or cuckoo, theory, which Müller attributed to the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, saw early words as imitations of the cries of beasts and birds.
Pooh-pooh. The pooh-pooh theory saw the first words as emotional interjections and exclamations triggered by pain, pleasure, surprise, etc.
Ding-dong. Müller suggested what he called the ding-dong theory, which states that all things have a vibrating natural resonance, echoed somehow by humans in their earliest words.
Yo-he-ho. The yo-he-ho theory claims that language emerged from collective rhythmic labor; that is, the attempt to synchronize muscular efforts resulting in sounds such as heave alternating with sounds such as ho.
Ta-ta. The ta-ta theory did not feature in Max Müller's list, having been proposed in 1930 by Sir Richard Paget.[35] According to the ta-ta theory, humans made the earliest words by tongue movements that mimicked manual gestures, rendering them audible.
Most scholars today consider all such theories not so much wrong—they occasionally offer peripheral insights—as naïve and irrelevant.[36][37] The problem with these theories is that they rest on the assumption that once early humans had discovered a workable mechanism for linking sounds with meanings, language would automatically have evolved.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5wmwbibbyym6nmkmz7b6yyoj/bafkreie4kukdd4w6stbvf77kvplyzp5h7wjw7qffwzksjgo437gfodwpjq@jpeg)
January 2, 2026 at 3:29 PM
I can't imagine why anyone would assume that the bow-wow, pooh-pooh, ding-dong, yo-he-ho, and ta-ta theories were naive and irrelevant.
Reposted by Ray Newman
For the BFI, 10 great films from 1926 www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-gre...
10 great films of 1926
As we hurtle into 2026, take a 10-film trip back in time to celebrate these 100th anniversaries.
www.bfi.org.uk
January 2, 2026 at 12:33 PM
For the BFI, 10 great films from 1926 www.bfi.org.uk/lists/10-gre...
Reposted by Ray Newman
Made another bockety little Jill McDonald style party puffin: no idea what for but that’s the joy of it.
Absolutely stink at sewing but I hope this no pressure making for pure pleasure might improve my non-existent skills & I truly do love the mental peace of pottering away at these felt fripperies
Absolutely stink at sewing but I hope this no pressure making for pure pleasure might improve my non-existent skills & I truly do love the mental peace of pottering away at these felt fripperies
January 2, 2026 at 12:02 PM
Made another bockety little Jill McDonald style party puffin: no idea what for but that’s the joy of it.
Absolutely stink at sewing but I hope this no pressure making for pure pleasure might improve my non-existent skills & I truly do love the mental peace of pottering away at these felt fripperies
Absolutely stink at sewing but I hope this no pressure making for pure pleasure might improve my non-existent skills & I truly do love the mental peace of pottering away at these felt fripperies
Reposted by Ray Newman
By the kebab van on the edge of the business park the Deliveroo drivers are making a fire from fallen branches to keep warm. Welcome to the future, 2026 style
December 31, 2025 at 7:31 PM
By the kebab van on the edge of the business park the Deliveroo drivers are making a fire from fallen branches to keep warm. Welcome to the future, 2026 style
I do think that, collectively, we should be challenging ourselves on 'usual suspects syndrome'. Of the four podcast episodes I recorded last year (two about design, two about films) I was a first-time guest on three, and was grateful to be invited.
Some v disingenuous stuff floating around about podcasts in my feed this morning. Exactly the same dodgy reasoning and justification often surfaces for why literature festivals up and down the land all feature the same guest speakers from a very narrow pool of 'usual suspects'.
January 2, 2026 at 10:25 AM
I do think that, collectively, we should be challenging ourselves on 'usual suspects syndrome'. Of the four podcast episodes I recorded last year (two about design, two about films) I was a first-time guest on three, and was grateful to be invited.
Lots of interesting podcast chat today. You might think you could solve the problem below by putting out a call for guests: "Who wants to be on my podcast?" That would have plenty of benefits, from fresh voices to increasing inclusion. However...
Also also: re the “mates on each other’s pods” thing, the most time consuming part of podcasting after editing is guest booking. So, again, without funding, podcasts will repeat guests and choose people with free time (who don’t need paying) which is mates.
January 2, 2026 at 9:57 AM
Lots of interesting podcast chat today. You might think you could solve the problem below by putting out a call for guests: "Who wants to be on my podcast?" That would have plenty of benefits, from fresh voices to increasing inclusion. However...
Reposted by Ray Newman
Think about this a lot.
Editing takes time. Costs money. Most podcasts don’t earn any money. So most podcasts don’t edit. And so leaving all the irrelevant stuff in has been normalised in a way it never has been on radio, which is funded and for that money expects concision in return.
Editing takes time. Costs money. Most podcasts don’t earn any money. So most podcasts don’t edit. And so leaving all the irrelevant stuff in has been normalised in a way it never has been on radio, which is funded and for that money expects concision in return.
So much truth. And controversial view: for me one of the key differences between radio programmes and podcasts is that radio programmes rarely make me shout GET THE FUCK ON WITH IT I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAID EARLIER IN THE PUB I WASN’T THERE
podcasts
January 2, 2026 at 9:48 AM
Think about this a lot.
Editing takes time. Costs money. Most podcasts don’t earn any money. So most podcasts don’t edit. And so leaving all the irrelevant stuff in has been normalised in a way it never has been on radio, which is funded and for that money expects concision in return.
Editing takes time. Costs money. Most podcasts don’t earn any money. So most podcasts don’t edit. And so leaving all the irrelevant stuff in has been normalised in a way it never has been on radio, which is funded and for that money expects concision in return.
Reposted by Ray Newman
In Agadoo did Kubla Khan
Push pineapples, shake the tree
Push pineapples, shake the tree
January 1, 2026 at 5:37 PM
In Agadoo did Kubla Khan
Push pineapples, shake the tree
Push pineapples, shake the tree
Reposted by Ray Newman
#LetterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #FilmSky #MovieSky #Films #Movies Currently backfilling Letterboxd with stuff watched in 2023-2025 but these were the last four film/shows watched before 2026 showed up on the doorstep and demanded to be let in. My profile on Letterboxd: boxd.it/6V3z
January 2, 2026 at 8:58 AM
#LetterboxdFriday #lastfourwatched #FilmSky #MovieSky #Films #Movies Currently backfilling Letterboxd with stuff watched in 2023-2025 but these were the last four film/shows watched before 2026 showed up on the doorstep and demanded to be let in. My profile on Letterboxd: boxd.it/6V3z