Daniel Keast

Very short and very silly. I have a real soft spot for Rincewind, and the early Discworld books.

I found the different perspectives on power interesting.

A book detailing how our food has been systematically replaced by food-like products.

This is an easy read that draws a narrative through the whole of human history. Unfortunately, it’s full of opinion written as fact, things being bent out of shape to fit in with an idea, and, I think, quite a lot of inaccuracies.

This book feels like a long essay, it’s about how and why an uncompetitive introvert finds meaning in running every day. He ran almost every day for around 25 years at the time of writing, having run a marathon every year.

Tintagel Castle is a ruin in the town of Tintagel in Cornwall. The 12th century book Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in its version of the legends, says that it is the place King Arthur was conceived.

This is the October pick for the Exeter Dystopian novels book club.

Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft is a fascinating place. It’s right on the harbour of Boscastle.

This is a simple banana bread recipe, I stole it from BBC Good Food. I increased the amount of bananas, and I don’t bother with the icing on top though since I think that makes it a bit too sweet.

A quick and simple dinner or tea.

I finished Klonoa today, I played it on the Switch as a part of the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series collection.

Wonderful Dizzy was released in 2020 for the ZX Spectrum. It is the eighth game in the Dizzy series, the first original one since Crystal Kingdom Dizzy in 1992. It’s based on the Wizard of Oz, and was made by The Oliver Twins.

This is roughly a Jamie Oliver recipe, I found it too watery when finished and boiled some of the liquid off at the end. The amount of rosemary and beef is adjusted based on the sizes of packets available to me. I feel like recipes for stews should be a rough guide rather than anything precise.

TJ’s Cavern Capers is a ZX Spectrum game from the end of last year by Gaz Marshall, you can download it here. It’s dedicated to some YouTuber that I hadn’t heard of, perhaps I’ll go check some of his videos. It’s a simple single screen collection platformer like Manic Miner. There are 20 levels in which you need to collect all of the flashing items and avoid the monsters. The controls are responsive and you have a very high jump, it reminds me a little of Batman on the Game Boy in that way. I thought it was a fun way to spend an hour or so.

The Goblin is a new ZX Spectrum game by Hicks, you can download it here. You play a little goblin jailer trying to return escaped demons to their cells. You don’t have any weapons though, and have to use the power of your belches after you’ve drunk some beer.