You don’t want to seem like a nutter when you’re on public radio. So when the host asks me – as they always do – where do you get your ideas from, I steer clear of the truthful answer: “psychic connections through the aether” or “hypnagogic messages dictated by our mysterious overlords“. I usually mutter something about stumbling across an interesting fact. Always go for the boring option. It keeps you out of the coats with no arms.

But we can speak honestly here. We all know about the mysterious connections in life. The stuff that goes on behind all those scientific processes. The weird, inexplicable occurrences lurking in the corners of day-to-day existence. The gods and imps and fairies and demons that we like to call other things because, you know, that whole coats with no arms thing…

When I say “the universe speaks to me”, I mean it speaks to all writers, all musicians, all artists. We each tend to put a different face on it, but it’s the same voice. So where do my gods and fairies and demons lurk?

In pubs with stone and timber and glowering locals and beer with strange names. In deep rural life which city folk think is backward, but is wild and dangerous and so removed it might as well be another planet. In bands that you might stumble across in the back rooms of pubs and never hear from again. In stone circles, crumbling ruins, lonely pools, old houses. Across those city liminal zones – industrial estates under sodium at 3am, empty, broken-windowed factories and wasteground with rainbow-streaked puddles. In black-faced, mirror-glassed morris men and biker gangs. In snatches of music heard after midnight. In moots and meets and markets held under moonlight. These are the places where stories are born. These are the locations where my writing gods live.

And for a specific example, here’s one of the inspirations for Age of Misrule…

The Dancing Did remain one of my favourite bands, a quarter of a century after they split up. Characterised as “neo rustic pagan bop” or “a cross between The Clash and Steeleye Span”, you can find out more about them here.

Their album, And Did Those Feet, is little-known but essential, particularly if you like fantasy or any of those things I listed above. The lyrics are clever, witty and poetic and deal with ancient things encroaching on the modern world – listen to ‘The Wolves of Worcestershire‘ or ‘Charnel Boy‘. A remixed version with a booklet and additional tracks is available from Cherry Red.

The Dancing Did’s thematic equivalent today may well be Cornish collective Kemper Norton though the music is very, very different. I came across them through the regular ravings of Warren Ellis, another fan. More inspiration. I bet they never imagined they’d be dragging a story about Elizabethan spies and Faerie into the light…

A new survey of the Stonehenge landscape reveals the ancient monument once had two encircling hedges that may have been planted to keep secret whatever rituals took place among the stones.

Archaeologist and Stonehenge expert Mike Pitts wonders if the hedges might have been to shelter the watchers from the power of the stones, as much as to ward off the observers’ “impious” gaze. The full story is revealed in British Archaeology magazine.

A new study of the stones themselves, meanwhile, confirms that the majority of bluestones came from hundreds of miles away, in the Preseli Hills in West Wales. However, doubts still remain over the origin of the largest bluestone, the Altar Stone – its composition reveals it cannot be from the Preseli region.

A “second Stonehenge” has been discovered, next to the River Avon and allegedly linked by a processional route to the “actual” Stonehenge. Archaeologists say this newly discovered circle was composed of Welsh bluestones.

The recent discovery is bringing about a major re-think of the entire site. (Thanks to CharlieFarlie of the forum for the link.)

Last week, UK newspaper The Guardian had a series of supplements detailing Great British Walks. The one which appeared on day five will be of particular interest to readers of this blog as it focuses on Lost Worlds and Legends-themed walks.

Several of the trails are linked to sites featured heavily in Age of Misrule - Stonehenge, Loch Ness, Thomas the Rhymer’s Hills, Tintagel – and are a great way to soak up the atmosphere and discover more about these evocative places.

You can buy the whole set of walks supplements for a tenner here.

The Government has announced plans for a new £25 million visitor centre at Stonehenge.

Finally.

The entire ritual site around Stonehenge is pretty much an atrocity, and a mockery of its World Heritage Site status. Moving the visitor centre a mile and a half away is one small step to redressing the shockingly poor stewardship of such an important site, but the site is still criss-crossed with noisy roads and ruined at night by light pollution.

I don’t blame English Heritage – they do a good job under difficult circumstances. I do blame successive British governments. The next step should be to get rid of the roads, if necessary through long tunnels, which would then give the entire site some of the gravity and majesty it deserves.

The usual Government argument is that the cost would be prohibitive. Perhaps they should have used some of the billions spent sending Iraq back into the Stone Age for no discernible reason.

People prize what they don’t understand at least as much as what they do.

Read page 3 for a mad Puritan worldview you probably thought died out 200 years ago, and page 4 for the nuts.

We’re going to be getting a lot more 2012 apocalypse meanderings in the weeks and months to come…

Michael Bott writes to tell me about a new dvd, Standing With Stones. It’s a personal journey starting at Ballowall Barrow in Cornwall and taking in more than a hundred megalithic sites across England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, finishing at The Tomb of the Eagles on South Ronaldsay, Orkney.

Michael is a film-maker of some experience, and his partner in this project, Rupert Soskin, has been an expedition leader to various sites around the world, including a trip to the Colombian jungles to visit the Kogi Indians.

The original plan was to turn this into a TV series, but when that didn’t happen Michael and Rupert decided they were so in love with the project they wanted to produce it themselves. Filming began in November 2006 for four months, and the edit was completed in November.

Michael says, “In brief: we both have a love for standing stones and all things megalithic. This was a journey of a lifetime and we had the best time ever!”

I haven’t seen the dvd so I can’t recommend it, but you can check it out and order it at www.standingwithstones.com.

The film will get its premiere at Chipping Norton Theatre, Oxfordshire, on April 15th in aid of the Rollrights Trust. Rupert and Michael will be attending. Tickets are £10.00 from the theatre box office Tel: 01608 642350.

“Archaeologists say they have found a huge ancient settlement used by the people who built Stonehenge.”

Developments at Stonehenge are proving more fascinating with each year. It appears to be unfolding in the shape of an enormous ritual site like the one at nearby Avebury. There’s still a great deal of work going on there so expect a few more text books to be ripped up in the coming months…

“THE NEWTON stone is a small, rather unassuming pillar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. On one side is faded, ancient writing, on the other a curling snake and cylindrical patterning. Many would say that it is a typical example of a Scottish standing stone.”

One, shall we say, creative opinion, for the meaning behind the designs is detailed here. The truth, of course, is being defined in The Kingdom of the Serpent.

Just wanted to direct your attention to Heart of Albion Press as Breakfast raised them in one of the comments below.

Heart of Albion publishes books on many of the things referenced in my stories – from standing stones to fairy lore – and are well worth checking out if you want to investigate some of the background to my work.