Jonny Nexus

Jonny’s blog – life, writing, rants

Didn’t Trayvon Martin Have The Right To Stand His Ground?

To those who believe that George Zimmerman is innocent… Imagine that everything happened pretty much as Zimmerman claimed it did, with one difference: he wasn’t able to get off a shot and as a result Trayvon Martin beat him to death. You’d say that Martin was guilty of murder right? You’d say that if you…

Jul 14, 2013
Going Viral: A Visualisation

As discussed previously, last week an article of mine about Monopoly went viral. The article is on the Critical Miss website (www.criticalmiss.com), but since that’s now merely a subdomain of my main Jonny Nexus site, visits to it appear in the overall site’s webstats. For the first time since the whole kerfuffle hit, I’ve just…

Jun 6, 2013
The True Story Behind “The Campaign for Real Monopoly”

Seven years ago, as part of the penultimate issue of my gaming web fanzine Critical Miss, I wrote a short filler article about an interesting fact I’d discovered about the board game Monopoly (which was that if you land on a property but opt not to buy it, it gets auctioned off by the bank). Critical…

Jun 4, 2013
There Is No Such Thing As 0207!

It’s been several years now since the 020 code was introduced in London, and yet I still see people putting the code 0207 (or 0208) in their phone numbers, on signs, business cards, web pages, email sigs, and so on. So here, again, is the quick primer to the way that London’s phone numbers have…

Mar 12, 2013
A BorisBus Spotted In The Wild

There’s been quite a bit of controversy about Transport for London’s New Bus For London (or as the press and public have inevitably christened it, the “BorisBus”). People say that it’s an expensive vanity project for Boris Johnson that puts nostalgia above practicality and which wastes money that could better be spent on existing off-the-shelf…

Mar 10, 2013
The New Hero Kickstarter Edition Is Out

It’s been a little while since Stone Skin Press kickstarted the New Hero, their short story anthology featuring my Pete Stone story, a fair while since the cover was revealed, and an even longer time since I revealed my part in it. Now, finally, the Kickstarter edition is out, and I’m very, very chuffed. My Kickstarter…

Mar 8, 2013
Alas Vegas: A Seventh Holy Relic?

Ocean’s Eleven directed by David Lynch. Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas by way of Dante’s Inferno. The Hangover meets The Prisoner. A new style of RPG by James Wallis, named by Robin D. Laws as ‘the godfather of indie-game design’, with art from this year’s winner of the World Fantasy Award, John Coulthart. Long…

Feb 17, 2013
Her Name Was Reeva Steenkamp

To the editors, journalists, proprietors and readers of the Sun and the Daily Star. She was not “The Blade Runner’s Lover”. Her name was Reeva Steenkamp. She was a law school graduate, an activist for women’s rights, a model, and an aspiring TV presenter. Her tragic death deserved to be marked with dignity, not treated…

Feb 15, 2013
An Evening With Brighton’s Beach Hut Writers

I was just about to write that yesterday evening, I found myself at the Waterstones in Brighton to witness the launch event of Beach Hut Writers, a new Brighton based authors’ group. But I won’t, because to do so would be to use the lazy, throw-away language that – among other things – the authors…

Nov 30, 2012
Why I Hate Calling The Virgin Media Call Centre

Yesterday evening our Virgin Media cable TV stopped working, displaying a, “Sorry, this channel isn’t available right now. If it keeps happening call us on 150 from your Virgin Media home phone or 0845 454 1111.” error message for every single channel. I didn’t bother calling them, partly because these problems often clear themselves up…

Sep 4, 2012