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Tag: tv

big world cafe

Published June 10, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Paul Thek.

For no good reason, I woke up today thinking about BIG WORLD CAFE, a music tv show that ran for… 1989. One year. Their idea was, if we can get you in by telling you New Order are playing, then we can also show you the Bhundu Boys and Erotic Dissidents and The Jungle Brothers.

Here’s Diamanda Galas playing live on Big World Cafe. Just typing big world cafe into YouTube will surface a surprising number of digitised VHS tapes of the show.

Related: https://warrenellis.ltd/mc/a-foggy-telepathic-lockdown/

Accessions:

PROTO, Laura Spinney (UK) (US+)

Star. Stjarna. Stare. Thousands of miles apart, people look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see.

Listen to these English, Icelandic and Iranic words and you can hear echoes of one of the most extraordinary journeys in humanity’s past. All three of these languages – and hundreds more – share a single ancient ancestor.

Five millennia ago, in a mysterious Big Bang of its own, this proto tongue exploded, forming new worlds as it spread east and west. Today, nearly half of humanity speaks an Indo-European language. How did this happen?

READING: CUTS BOTH WAYS, Ed James (UK) (US+), THE PASSAGE OF POWER: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON Vol 4, Robert A Caro (UK) (US+)

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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Spring Arise: 7mar26

Published March 7, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Julia Dault

Things are sprouting in the garden, WAY ahead of schedule and WAY before I’m ready. The garden’s going to be a bombsite again this year.

I am (momentarily) back in gear and doing All The Things. It will, of course, not last.

TODAY:

OPERATIONS: I have to get seven pages out of the house by 5pm and finish tomorrow’s newsletter
READING: THE BOOK OF COMMENTARY / UNQUIET GARDEN OF THE SOUL, Alexander Kluge (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:

(I saw Julia Brussel play, last week)


LAST WATCHED: RICHARD II, 1971 tv production, Ian McKellen, Timothy West, and I swear that was Stephen Greif. And David Calder!

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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10jan26

Published January 10, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Didn’t write anything at all here yesterday, because I was stuck in admin stuff and, honestly, I just haven’t gotten going yet this year. Disgusted with myself, I’ve decided that 2026 starts today.

TODAY:

  • GODZILLA MINUS ZERO is set for November of this year. I watched the black and white version of GODZILLA MINUS ONE and enjoyed it quite a bit. Although, given that I’m peculiar, I think I liked SHIN GODZILLA a little better.
  • AI is accelerating a “collapse” of trust online, which suggests someone noticed the horse had bolted a year too late.
  • Female-only wasp species has “an unusual reproductive strategy called thelytokous parthenogenesis, in which females lay unfertilized eggs that produce only more females. This means that even a single egg hitching a ride on firewood or a car can start a new infestation. No males have ever been found.”

OPERATIONS: right now, trying to land tomorrow’s newsletter, which hasn’t gone as planned, because see above about having blown the first ten days of the year.
STATUS: inbox is at 112 and it’s a mess I need to clean up this weekend.
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:


LAST WATCHED: rewatching SMILEY’S PEOPLE on iPlayer

THINKING ABOUT: Roterfaden notebooks. I don’t need one. I still go and look once a week anyway.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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telemetry 15dec25

Published December 15, 2025 by Warren Ellis

pharmacopeia

Watched two episodes of LANDMAN, which were actually pretty good. I have a lot of time for Taylor Sheridan. YELLOWSTONE never quite landed with me, though I appreciate its craft and also that a part finally fits Kelly Reilly’s weird energy, but LANDMAN hits right for me, and the scripting is fascinating. Also seeing Colm Feore climbing inside a new skin was nice.

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18nov25

Published November 18, 2025 by Warren Ellis

ooh fuck me it’s chilly out there

TODAY:

OPERATIONS: I am a little bit caught up, so today I am planning ahead a little, converting an outline and developing some other stuff.
STATUS: 8hrs 6m sleep, inbox 80 – most of which are work emails I need to keep front and centre, tickets and notes to self. Formatting a cheap SD card with hammers so I can load recently purchased music on to it for the mp3 player.
READING: finished THE FALL, Albert Camus (UK) (US+).
LISTENING: THE SHUTOV ASSEMBLY, Brian Eno
LAST WATCHED: MEN OF THE MANOSPHERE (BBC)

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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morning computer satellite pollution

Published April 22, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Joshua Rozells captures satellite pollution.

“There were satellite trails visible in almost every single photo,” he wrote on Instagram. “Instead of trying to get rid of them for a star trail, I decided to put the satellite trails together into a single image to show how polluted the night sky is becoming.”

‘The Vision’ is a genuine curiosity and, thanks to the creative talent assembled on both sides of the camera, a beguiling one. It was made for the BBC’s Screen Two strand (1985-98) by David Thompson, Norman Stone and William Nicholson, the producer-director-writer team which cut its teeth on documentaries for the Corporation’s religious broadcasting department before moving into drama with Martin Luther, Heritic (tx. 8/11/1983) and the award-winning Shadowlands (tx. 22/11/1985). In 1986 Thompson thought of a story about rightwing Christian fundamentalists setting up a satellite television network in Europe, with the aim of winning a perceived battle for the hearts, minds and political direction of the continent.

Stars Dirk Bogarde, Lee Remick, Helena Bonham Carter. BBC television. What an amazing thing.

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

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9apr25

Published April 9, 2025 by Warren Ellis

I was saying to my friend last night, “at least it’s sunny!” Not today. The real-feel is barely 3 Celsius, and all the heaters in the house are back on.

Today I am thinking about the end of social media as a growth tool, particularly for people who write, and how I’m pretty sure nobody thought the world would be eaten by what is basically public access cable. There was a great show here in the 1990s called MANHATTAN CABLE, presented by Laurie Pike, that compiled clips from New York public access television.

And damn if I haven’t found an episode on YouTube:

Which in the embed says it’s age-restricted, shit!

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THE THICK OF IT: The Complete Collection

Published March 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Birthday gift. I am delighted. I am also well aware that my daughter will attempt to steal it when she comes home next.

I haven’t rewatched it in several years, and I wonder how it has aged. YES MINISTER and YES PRIME MINISTER remain curiously ageless in their essences.

THE THICK OF IT: The Complete Collection (UK) (US+)

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Status, week of 4nov24

Published November 4, 2024 by Warren Ellis

The next seven weeks are full bore.

OPERATIONS: Catching up on printing off my Kindle highlights and pasting them into the notebook before I get into the day. This is part of my process – things get lost in the churn of the online highlights-capture, and I review my notebooks regularly, so this is a good way to maintain a hold on the things that struck me in the books I read.
STATUS: Across email, Signal and WhatsApp all week. Wondering how long I can stay up tomorrow night (the US Election).


READING: THE EMPUSIUM (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: NEW MUSIC SHOW
LAST WATCHED: Kosminsky remembers Wolf Hall (BBC TV, iPlayer)

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter. Now: THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast. Forthcoming 2024: DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, FELL: FERAL CITY new printing. 2025: THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition

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Ennio Morricone’s SPACE 1999

Published July 5, 2024 by Warren Ellis

“Space 1999’s first season was part financed by Rai Television. 3 episodes were edited together into a movie and screened in Italy. Barry Gray’s theme was dropped and replaced by this theme by Ennio Morricone of “A Fistful of Dollars” etc. fame.”

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