Found satire

Accidental News of the World commentary, from Care of Wooden Floors, page 94:

Brooks ran in the gutters, seeking lower elevations.

Away

The Unknown Fields expedition just touched down in Kiev. I expect to be mostly offline for the next couple of weeks, so don't expect speedy responses to emails, but I'll tweet, add pictures to Flickr and perhaps even blog as and when I can. See you on the other side.

3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Launch

The Unknown Fields expedition to Chernobyl and Baikonur - fulcrum of my promised book Toxic Tourism - is steadily clearing its no/no-go checks and trundling towards the launchpad. The official launch will be on Monday with a frankly blockbusting public forum at the AA on Bedford Square, London. The line-up is simply incredible, extending beyond the participants in the expedition to include everyone from artist Paul Duffield to UFO folklorist Mark Pilkington - plus poets, sound artists, filmmakers, it really promises to be a really fascinating day. (Liam Young, Unknown Fields co-mastermind with Kate Davies, is also the creator of Thrilling Wonder Stories, so he knows how to put on an amazing day-long event.)

I'm also in the line-up, introducing my work and talking a little about my intentions and aspirations for Toxic Tourism. To give you a taster, I will be dealing with the lure of forbidden places and wildernesses, why places like Chernobyl, Aral and Baikonur tug at the imagination, and the ultimate in getting away from it all: excursions into a posthuman, postapocalyptic world.

So, please come along.

The photo at the top of this post shows the AA's 2009 summer pavilion, and is from my Flickr photostream.