Movies viewed this year so far, in no particular order:

Shutter Island, Inception (x2), Toy Story 3, 2012, The Wrestler, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Sherlock Holmes, Shrek Forever After, The Age of Stupid, The Reader, The Taking of Pelham 123 (new version), Duplicity, The Boat That Rocked, Zombieland, The Princess and the Frog, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Fantastic Mr Fox, Paranormal Activity, 24 Hour Party People, Adventureland, District 9, 500 Days of Summer, Triangle, Mesrine Parts 1 and 2, A Perfect Getaway, Antichrist, The Hangover, Flawless, Night at the Museum 2, Moon, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Drag Me To Hell, Monsters Vs Aliens, The Damned United, State of Play, Revolutionary Road, Brandy for the Parson, Friday the 13th parts 1-7, Miller’s Crossing, Coogan’s Bluff, Donkey Punch, The Killers, Psycho IV, Kick-Ass, Avatar, A Christmas Carol, Iron Man 2, Seven Samurai, A Day at the Races, Go West, The Big Store, A Night at the Opera, A Night in Casablanca, At the Circus.

And re-watched: The Man Who Wasn’t There, Rear Window, How to Steal a Million, Paint Your Wagon, The Gauntlet, No Country For Old Men, Fargo, Raising Arizona, Contact, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, The Fearless Vampire Hunters, The Dark Knight, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? Zodiac, Creepshow, 10,000 BC.

And a few more I’ve forgotten.

Just heard from my editor in the US, Lou Anders, that he’s bought the Kingdom of the Serpent sequence – Jack of Ravens, The Burning Man and Destroyer of Worlds – to be published shortly by Pyr.

For American readers, those books will finish off the massive story that began with World’s End in the Age of Misrule, a trilogy of trilogies covering more than two thousand years of human history, three worlds – this world, the Otherworld and the world beyond death – and our greatest mythologies.

Maybe I’ll stop getting all those emails now.

If you’re interested in the technology I use to help with my writing – novels and screenplays – I’ve written a short piece here.

You’ll all find contributions from Mark Charan Newton, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Nick Harkaway and more.

“The parasite, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, appears to take over the minds of infected ants.

On arrival the ants are compelled to bite hard on a major vein of the leaf before dying. The “death grip” leaves the ant in a perfect position for the fungus to grow and release its infectious spores.”

A thousand authors begin a new story…

I’m on Stargate producer Joe Mallozzi’s blog talking about my short story in the just-released superhero anthology, Masked.

And a Writing For TV panel at the alt.fiction literature festival with me, Rob Shearman, Stephen Volk and Bill Boyes has just been made available as a podcast.”

Kemper Norton tells me First Season, the long sold-out compilation of rural psychedelia, is now available as a free download.

You can get it here.