Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

340 followers 240 following 520 posts

In the bureau, typewriters quiet
Confetti falls from every window
Throwing hats up in the air
A city perfect in every detail

He/him

Posts Replies Media Videos

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Ah, the internet.

A BBC news story: “Curacao become smallest nation to qualify for World Cup”

A just-updated Wikipedia entry for Curaçao: “On 18 November 2025, Curaçao became the first liqueur ever to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.”

November 19, 2025 at 7:46 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

OUTRAGEOUS.

[sort-of spoiler for today’s NYT Spelling Bee; in the absence of a spoiler label here, have labelled as graphic content, which it kind of is]

A screenshot of the New York Times’s Spelling Bee, showing the word “Marillion” as not recognised.

July 21, 2025 at 7:37 AM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Epigraphs for a book I’ll write at some point

“We should work toward a universal linked information system, in which generality and portability are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities. The aim would be to allow a place to be found for any information or reference which one felt was important, and a way of finding it afterwards."
- Tim Berners-Lee, "Information Management: A Proposal"

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
- H P Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

July 11, 2025 at 1:51 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Saw this podcast title and wondered if he’s Team Edward or Team Jacob

Podcast titled “Dem Paralysis & McConnell’s Twilight Era”

February 11, 2025 at 5:11 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Post your favourite #doctorwho . Wrong answers only.

January 14, 2025 at 8:48 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

From the Faber Book of Diaries (Ed Simon Brett) for 24 October. CW: dental trauma, file under “thankful for modern medicine”.

24 October 1785 The Tooth-Ach so very bad all night and the same this Morn' that I sent for John Reeves the Farrier who lives at the Hart and often draws Teeth for People, to draw one for me. He returned with my Man about i 1 o'clock this Morning and he pulled it out for me the first Pull, but it was a monstrous Crash and more so, it being one of the Eye Teeth, it had but one Fang but that was very long. I gave Johnny Reeves for drawing it O. 2. 6. A great pain in the Jaw Bone continued all Day and Night but nothing so bad as the Tooth Ach. The Reverend James Woodforde

October 24, 2024 at 1:14 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Well, that fits.

A podcast app showing an episode on Jean-Paul Sartre: 'Being and Nothingness' as “Not Found”

September 6, 2024 at 7:59 AM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Lol. It’s not like anything’s happened since then.

The ABC/538 election forecast page, saying: As of July 21 at 2 p.m. Eastern, President Joe Biden has suspended his campaign for the 2024 Democratic Party nomination for president. We will publish an election forecast including the new presumptive Democratic nominee, when such nominee is announced.” And then, in big red letters, “Forecast suspended”.

August 23, 2024 at 1:18 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

I mean, here in two sentences (reviewing a less-good late Fritz Leiber novel), she gives a convincing explanation for the decline in quality of superhero sequels, why Doctor Who should never have touched the Timeless Child mythos, etc etc.

In books as well as T.V., series tend to decay after their templates satisfactorily establish who’s who and what’s what. I wonder if the very early ‘‘Adept’s Gambit’’ was not the last of -the Fafhrd-Mouser stories in which something really happened humanly, that is, in which somebody actually changed.

August 3, 2024 at 5:24 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Reading old Joanna Russ reviews from 1979, as one does, and, basically, inject this stuff into my veins. (The compression of argument! The range of knowledge! The fierceness of engagement! The jokes!)

Another pastiche, youthfully energetic and rather appealing, is Steven Utley’s and Howard Waldrop’s ‘“Black as the Pit from Pole to Pole,”’ which gives Frankenstein’s creature further adventures and a beautiful, blind lady to fall in love with. Without the charm of the borrowings, however (Lovecraft, Henley, Poe, Melville, Symmes, (Mary) Shelley, Edgar Rice Bur- roughs and doubtless others I miss- ed), the story would not make it, and although it’s genuinely enjoy- able to watch the Malaprop Kids excitedly rummaging through The Classics, somebody should’ve warned them against putting ‘‘erst- while’’ and ‘‘displacement activity’’ in the same sentence (except in straight parody) and that ‘‘arcing’’ and ‘‘stomped’’ are not words. There are other screamers, my favorite being ‘‘willing to cope with the basin’s large predators on a moment-to-moment basis.”’ There is also an Expository Lump on p. 91 that should’ve been given to the brontosaur (on p. 82) to eat.

August 3, 2024 at 5:21 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Reading a Robert Aickman story I hadn’t previously (Hand in Glove) and this bit may be Peak Aickman.

"There's something wrong," said Millicent. "There's something very wrong with almost every-thing."
They ploughed back through the coarse grass to the brick path up to the porch. The owls seemed indeed to have retired once more to their carnivorous bothies.

July 27, 2024 at 4:25 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Trying to complete my shelf of jonathanstrahan.bsky.social ‘s fine Year’s Bests and, uh, I really hope this Amazon listing is accurate?

A listing for a 2010-published Year’s Best SFF anthology, claiming the book is in Middle English.

May 19, 2024 at 6:07 PM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

I did not have “Taylor Swift fans find out about my favourite obscure band” on today’s bingo card:

Lyric from “Guilty as Sin”:

Drowning in the Blue Nile
He sent me "Downtown Lights"
I hadn't heard it in a while

April 19, 2024 at 6:21 AM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

Never not reading this in the voice of Yoda

POETRY FOUNDATION Spring and Fall BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS to a young child Márgarét, áre you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

February 5, 2024 at 5:56 AM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

This estimate of climate change-caused deaths (by @carlson.bsky.social ) seems….kind of important? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A screenshot of the full text of the Nature Medicine commentary "After millions of preventable deaths, climate change must be treated like a health emergency." (The full text doesn't fit in the alt text, I'm sorry)

January 30, 2024 at 11:43 AM

Graham Sleight

@grahamsleight.bsky.social

First morning in NYC, after a rough flight. Followed the prompt of @hels.bsky.social in the New Yorker and tried the breakfast sandwich at Court Street Grocers. A very very very good decision.