Round the Herne

 My reading of the fifth stave of Charles Dickens' classic tale "A Christmas Carol". In which the horrifying spectre of the Ghost of Christmas yet To Come appears before Scrooge and torments him with visions of the future (including one of the most evocative scenes in the book, Old Joe's business premises).

 My reading of the second stave of Charles Dickens 1843 classic "A Christmas Carol". In this chapter, Scrooge encounters the Ghost of Christmas Past and relieves the highs and lows of his earlier life.

 My reading of the first stave of Charles Dickens' 1843 classic story "A Christmas Carol", I hope to get the other four staves recorded and up before the 25th rolls around. Seasons greetings ones and all.

 To celebrate Halloween 2025, here's a recording of Shane Leslie's 1931 short story (or, really, two stories glued together) about spooky goings on. The weather is looking a bit high risk for anyone contemplating a besom ride later tonight.

  A story for Halloween about awakening the Beast Within and the dangers of having an insatiable appetite for revenge (it's a hard path to run back from). It's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for...

 It was International Dog Day recently (who on earth actually decides these things?) and I was going to record a story, but work got in the way. So here is a belated account, my version of the final Labour of Herakles where he must acquire the giant dog Cerberus and bring him to the court of his mealy-mouthed cousin King Eurystheus. For the literary among you this is a katabasis tale (the journey into Hades) followed by an anabasis one (the return to the living). I'm sure you are glad to know that.

 My reading of H P Lovecraft's 1922 short story "Celephais" which warns the reader about the seductive danger of fantasy and daydreaming, luring people away from engaging in the world around them. Unusually for Lovecraft, there are no real squeamish horrors eating people's brains or turning their souls into earrings - however, the creeping madness is ever present.

  My recording of H P Lovecraft's (1920) short story " Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family", a tale which suggests that it is sometimes better not to delve too deeply into one's genealogy. This story is from the same collection that I have previously recorded other Lovecraft tales from.

 Earlier this month we had the third annual Suffolk Jungian Symposium at West Suffolk College. My contribution to the day was a talk applying Jungian principles to Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (which also has plenty to say about the human psyche in general and not just as a bit of pretentious lit-crit. The recording of the original event did not come out at all well, so this is a slightly more rambling version of the same thing.

 This is my recording if a 1918 short story, "Courage", by the talented but now rather neglected Irish author Forrest Reid. It is the tale of a lonely boy's sojourn in the Irish countryside and what happens when he explores an abandoned house. I find Reid's style very engaging and may well record other stories by him in the future, try and boost his profile to current audiences a little bit. Much of his work deals with supernatural and mythical themes.

 This is my reading of the 1921 short horror story "The Picture in the House" by H P Lovecraft. It is another of the stories from the book gifted me at Yule by a good friend - I have already recorded a few of the shorter samples. The recording is a bit odd due to my recovering from a throat infection. Apologies to any American listeners for the dreadful attempt at a backwoods accent - I've never been tot he States so have no real idea (outside of the movies) what the regional accents are like. Lovecraft writes heavily accented dialogue, which is quite fun to read aloud.

 I gave this talk at a college event in December 2024, recording it now on the off-chance that it might eb of interest to some followers on YouTube or this Blog. The talk interprets some of the ghost stories written by E F Benson, Saki, M R James, and Forrest Reid in the light of sexuality and social isolation. If nothing else, I rather hope that this talk will inspire listeners to want to read the works of the respective authors.

  My reading (a first draft, I will re-record this as an audio when my throat has recovered) of Lovecraft's short story "He" (1925). The way he describes New York in this story, as a place made very alien to him, is largely how I feel when making very infrequent visits to London. The idea of a metropolis being built over formerly sacred (or unhallowed) sites is a familiar one and this keys in with ideas I have been exploring in Folklore Studies - the academic examination of folktales. One particular idea has been drawing my attention, that of ostension. Aside from its more regular meaning (of presenting something to the attention of others), in folklore terms ostension is how either reality imitates folklore (such as when people try and do something they have heard about in a folktale or urban myth - like going down the sewers to hunt alligators) or when they deliberately create a new tale such as starting rumours about some dilapidated house being haunted and then others...

  My reading of Lovecraft's short story "The Outsider" (1926), apologies for the throat - still not quite recovered from this virus. The twist in the tale is, perhaps, a little predictable but it's still a fun tale to read with its torrid turn of phrase. I can see the influences of this story on one of my favourite authors, Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes, who often wrote about the underworld of strange beings. Once my throat is back to normal I might record some of these stories as straight audios without the video element.

 Happy 2025 to my followers (both of you). This is m y reading (apologies for the rasping throat, recovering from a mild infection) of H P Lovecraft's florid tale of "The Hound" (1924). The book was a Yuletide gift from a close friend who knows my literary tastes. The two central characters of this tale (St John and the unnamed narrator) put me in mind of the wealthy adolescent murderers Loeb and Leopold who abducted and killed a child to prove their own intellectual superiority in 1924. That said, this story was written a couple of years before the crime took place, so they were clearly not the inspiration for Lovecraft - though maybe he had met people very much like them within his social circles. When my throats recovers, I might record a few more of the shorter stories.

  A second experiment with my new microphone, creating an audio recording (I know it's Halloween, but thought people would be relieved not to have the horror of my face). My recording of Saki's short story "The She-Wolf". For those of a nervous disposition, it owes more to Jeeves & Wooster than it does to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If anyone has preference for audio vs video, some feedback would be useful. I'll record an original audio within the next couple of days. The She-Wolf

  My reading of Harlan Ellison's dark short story "Hitler Painted Roses", which appeared in his anthology Strange Wine (1978). It has a rather bleak view of the Afterlife and our fates. Thought this would be a suitable entry for the Halloween season. This is a trial use of my new microphone and a different format for storytelling - so people can just listen and don't need to look at my face! If this seems to be a popular format, I will record more stories as just audio without any visual element. It's all new ground for me, so see how it plays out. The intro/exit music and artwork was created by my friend Jay Chooi who understands these things (I certainly don't!).

 A Greek myth about the invention of the aulos (two-reeded flute) and the subsequent fate of the satyr Marsyas, whom the Romans considered to be a great exponent of, possibly even inventor of, parrhesia (free speech). This myth, a bit like the one involving Apollo and Pan, can also be understood as a clash of musical cultures: the high classical lyre music of Apollo, versus the bawdy, rural, flute music of the satyrs (and to some extent the labouring classes). The fate of Marsyas is a tad grim, but (if you want to put a more positive spin on it) think of it as being akin to a snake sloughing to become a fresh, new form.  

 This is a reflection on Carl Jung's ideas around the Shadow Archetype which will be discussed in the January meeting of the Suffolk Jungian Circle, though it may be of interest to others outside that group. The Shadow is the repressed and unwanted side of the individual and also the collective society, which has a cultural perspective on what is unwanted - because it is regarded (rightly or wrongly) as dangerous, shameful, wicked, obscene, too painful to contemplate etc.  I have made recordings about this before, but I thought I would expand ideas for the purposes of the January online discussion.

My reading of the eighth chapter of Edith Nesbitt's (1904) children's adventure story "The Phoenix and the Carpet". The children found themselves swamped with moggies - and their attempts at feeding them make a large problem so much worse. Many people will probably sympathise with the children in this regards - as Cordelia said to Lear, "We are not the first who, with best meaning have incurred the worst". In other news, I have cooked a small mountain of food and now find myself faced with the annual tide of absolute bilge on the TV. The one small exception to this was the Ghost Story for Christmas (actually aired yesterday, but didn't see it till today). The talented Mr Gatiss has once again produced a slice of Victorian Gothic, with an adaptation of a Conan Doyle story about a shambling Egyptian mummy (arguably the first time such a thing ever appeared in fiction) and some malign magic. I shall watch again when I have a more peaceful environment to wat...