Ed Fortune
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edfortune.com
Ed Fortune
@edfortune.com
3.4K followers 1K following 1.7K posts
Journalist/Columnist for Starburst Magazine, print & online.

Popculture media type, covering books, games,TV, films,theatre & tech.

Podcaster, D&D person, that sort of thing.

He/Him. Edinburgh.
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Can you guess who hosted this party at #worldfantasycon in #Brighton? (Thank you to @titanbooks.bsky.social ).
November 1, 2025 at 3:14 PM
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Hobb's Transport. Good old fashioned English name Hobb. Nothing sinister at all.
A model of the Wicker Man, from the movie the wicker man. Approximately the right size for certain train sets or miniature games.
September 30, 2025 at 10:50 AM
edfortune.com
Call me over-cautious, but the UK Gov seems very keen to sell data to third-party groups for profit. Given that the likes of Wes Streeting is chummy with authoritarian data oligarch Peter Thiel, the ID card thing feels like a data grab.

We won't get ID cards, but we will lose personal data anyway.
Post from David Allen Green, which says 'Bless those who think the Home Office can succesfully carry out a huge IT procurement exercise for digital ID cards for implementation before the next general election.' Green has closed retweets to reduce noise, but welcomes people contacting him on this platform to discuss.
September 26, 2025 at 3:27 PM
edfortune.com
So the mascot for the is Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026 is Finnie, a unicorn with a traffic cone for a horn.

Honestly that's a lot of fun.
Mascot costume; a sporty child reimagined as a humanoid horse. It has a unicron horn, but it's a traffice cone. It's called Finnie, a unicorn with a traffic cone for a horn. Mascot for Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026
July 23, 2025 at 12:02 PM
edfortune.com
And if so, is Typhoo or PG Tips okay? Out of Yorkshire. How do you take it?
A snake monster - it has arms and is armed with a sword, but is mostly snake. This creature can be found in D&D and other TTRPGs and has a specific name, which is being used a pun in this context.
June 25, 2025 at 8:28 AM
edfortune.com
Happy Birthday Alan Turing
The Alan Turing Memorial, situated in Sackville Gardens in Manchester, England. (Just outside Manchester's gay village.) It is a bronze sculpture in memory of Alan Turing, a pioneer of modern computing. Alan is sitting on bench. The memorial is covered in flowers, as it is his birthday today.
June 23, 2025 at 8:56 AM
edfortune.com
The Roman Fort in South Shields? Being a bio-hazard? I mean I know tourists litter, but come on...

(It's a promo-projection thing for 28 Years Later )
Roman Fort (reconstruction) and Roman ruins, from the English town of South Shields. A red bio-hazard symbol is projected onto the fort.
June 17, 2025 at 8:46 AM
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June 8, 2025 at 4:43 PM
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I wrote a thing for UK Games Expo's 2025 Programme.
May 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
edfortune.com
Given that Disney are having success with single name Star Wars series (Ashoka, Andor), I can't wait to see Paodok'Draba'Takat Sap'De'Rekti Nik'Linke'Ti' Ki'Vef'Nik'NeSevef'Li'Kek
May 16, 2025 at 8:03 AM
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Good Morning!
String of text in a font known to a limited number of people. The obscurity is relevant to the post, which does mean this ALT description isn't very helpful, sorry.
April 28, 2025 at 7:58 AM
edfortune.com
Next year's Eastercon (the long-running UK Science Fiction convention) will be called Iridescence 2026. It will be at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel, 3-6 April 2026.

Guests of Honour include: @rjbarker.bsky.social , @emmanewman.bsky.social & @drkarenlord.bsky.social
The Iridescence 2026, which is a orange and yellow phoenix on a blue background.
April 20, 2025 at 11:09 AM
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#DoctorWho
April 19, 2025 at 4:20 PM
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Ah the fourth wall.
Grant Morrison Meeting the character Animal Man.
April 19, 2025 at 1:48 PM
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A reminder that JK Rowling's Edinburgh home hosts a digusting, stinky, laylandi bush. The bulk of the cost of trimming is borne by the public purse. It takes days to do, causing traffic chaos.

It should have been completely removed years ago, but the billionaire sociopath gets special treatment.
Tailbacks of traffic being caused by the current ongoing work. SCOTS parents have been left fuming after queues of traffic and delays left their children late for school - due to J.K. Rowling's hedge being trimmed. The Harry Potter author has had the road adjacent to her 17th century home in Barnton, Edinburgh restricted this week whilst work is carried out on her towering Leylandii hedge. The 58-year-old billionaire has had four-way temporary traffic lights installed outside her £2.2m home with sections of the road closed to allow for a cherry picker to work on the shrubbery. Ongoing work to the 30-foot bushes this morning (WED) is the third day of arborists working at the home in the plush area of the capital, with works expected until the end of the week.
April 16, 2025 at 12:44 PM
edfortune.com
Ah, the cross-over the fans demanded.
A screenshot from a recent BBC trailer promoting Doctor Who. The Doctor and companion have been translated into Hey Dugee, a pre-school childrens animation. Duggee, a big friendly dog and the leader of the Squirrel Club. Duggee reads a book while children play (these children are depicted as animals). The TARDIS (a blue police box), is present, as is The Doctor (as a bear) and the new companion (as a beaver?)
April 6, 2025 at 10:14 AM
edfortune.com
Got to write about the New York Fringe ( @frigidnewyork.bsky.social ) for Starburst Magazine ( @starburst.bsky.social ). Check out our top tips for the NYC Fringe here.

www.starburstmagazine.com/features/sta...
Flyer for the New York City Fringe. The picture is of a giant penguin, hanging off a skyscraper, King Kong style. The image is a little art deco. It contains dates for the fringe April 2 - 20.
April 2, 2025 at 6:05 PM
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March 10, 2025 at 10:36 AM
edfortune.com
Oh it's one of the baddies from the 80's Sci-Fi TV show Ulysses 31 . Big hit in Japan, the UK and France. Bit of an obscure monster though.
March 8, 2025 at 3:21 PM
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This
March 7, 2025 at 2:41 PM
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From The Simpsons - "Lisa's Wedding." - First aired March 19, 1995.
Moe: Oh, a British boy. You know we saved your ass in World War II.
Hugh: Yeah, well we saved your ass in World War III.
Moe: That's true.
Screen shot of 'The Simpsons - Lisa's Wedding'. Hugh and Homer are at Moe's Tavern. We can see an elderly Moe (with an eyepatch), the side of Homer's head and the back of Hugh's head. (Hugh is Lisa's fiance, an English Man based broadly on a young Hugh Grant.)
March 3, 2025 at 6:34 PM
edfortune.com
You may think this is a screenshot of the pig stacking game, but it's actually a photo of the Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington in Glasgow.
Screenshot of pig and junk stacking video game. One pig has a traffic cone on it's head.
February 27, 2025 at 11:10 AM
edfortune.com
I got both of these on the same day, from Windows in Newcastle. Yeah, I wasn't a complicated kid.
February 23, 2025 at 1:15 PM
edfortune.com
The London Lovecraft Festival returns for it's 5th year at the Drayton Arms, during the 16th and 17th of February. Full story via @starburst.bsky.social

www.starburstmagazine.com/london-lovec...
Pink Tentacles on a Black Background. Tentacles grab a microphone. Title reads The Fifth London Lovecraft Festival. Event Details. With the horrors of a cold, damp, dark and stormy January fading, we march into February prepared to face fresh monstrous horrors, in the form of the returning London Lovecraft Festival. Taking over the Drayton Arms Theatre in South Kensington on the 16th and 17th of February, this is the fifth outing for what has become a favourite event amongst fans of all things Lovecraft and theatre. Starburst has attended previous iterations of the festival and had a fantastic, mind-scrambling time, immersing ourselves in the entertainment on offer. For 2025, the Festival launches at 2pm on the afternoon of Sunday, February 16th, with the interactive ‘Painting Pickman’s Model’. Director Leo Doulton, who was an Associate Director of immersive horror piece, The Key of Dreams, will lead attendees through a process of creating art, whilst discussing what makes a monster, and, we are promised, other topics that will be of interest to the audience. Described as ‘A Life Drawing Class with a difference’, we’d expect participants to be captivated by the tale Doulton will undoubtedly weave. See website for more
February 3, 2025 at 9:52 PM
edfortune.com
Rowling has never truly engaged with wider fandom, only ever trading in her own brand, and has never been a source of knowledge for SF & Fantasy beyond her own work. Her ignorance knows no bounds.

And yes, winners at the 2024 Worldcon Ceremony did name check Gaiman, and not in a nice way.
Twitter post from Robert Galbraith/ JKR, claiming that the SF community (which she calle the literary crowd) have been silent on Gaiman. A post above this points out that they've been quite vocal in their condemnation of Neil Gaiman, and she wouldn't know. TLDR: JK Rowling took her head out of the trough of mind-rotting substances today to post on twitter and talk utter bum water. Again.
January 14, 2025 at 11:16 AM