Yearly Archives: 2025

The Emperor and Me

by Big Bearded Bookseller | Leave a comment

The Emperor

The Emperor

Today’s single card draw was The Emperor, in yesterday’s single draw card I drew The Emperor, I also drew it 3 days ago and it was also my daily draw yesterday morning. The draws were all made on the same deck, the Sacred Rose Tarot which I’ve had since the early 80s and was my second deck.

So it knows me and I know it.

It made me wonder why there has been such a cluster of one of the Major Arcana in such a short period and I’ve been thinking all day on this.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on all the projects I’m involved with right now and wondering if they are ‘worth it’, if there is any value in it and why am I doing these projects.

The other part of this thinking is that who wants to hear what I have to say in all these areas and am I fooling myself in putting myself out there.

Yes, The Emperor talks about the ambition I have for my projects, about my ability to plan and organise, but most of all I feel that what these regular visits are trying to tell me is to put away my negative and worried thoughts and step up to the plate and believe in my ability to achieve using the skills and knowledge I’ve built over the years.

To do this I have to set clear goals, set priorities, and plan out what I need to do to achieve forward movement in. these project, and again, believe in myself.

(and I’ve just realised that The Emperor is also my birth card)

Cockney vs Zombies (2012)

by Big Bearded Bookseller | Leave a comment

Cockney vs Zombies (2012)

Cockney vs Zombies (2012)

Film two of #Junesploitation and this wasn’t my first choice but I think Sean of the Dead would have been way too obvious.

Though this did have a similar scene to the pub scene and the guts being picked out of the belly of a character.

Loved the vulture right at the start, let you know the level of seriousness this was going to be taken at, though the title should have been enough.

Geezers, a heist, knees up, guns, and high-speed zimmer frame exploits, this had it all, even Chas and Dave.

It even had a few Carry On moments harking back to the time most of the older actors were making most of their work.

Full of Cockney stalwarts and British up and coming, I really hope everyone was having as much fun as they seemed to.

As would be expected with a film like this the effects weren’t top notch but were good enough to carry the film all the way through.

A laugh from start to end if you’re able to go into it looking for an hour and a half of fun as that’s all this was, a nice little escape.

Cockneys vs Zombies | August 2, 2013 (United States) 5.9
Director: Matthias HoeneSummary:
Source: imdb.com

Watch Me When I Kill (1977)

by Big Bearded Bookseller | Leave a comment

Watch Me When I Kill (1977)

Watch Me When I Kill (1977)

This is my first watch in this year’s Junesploitation extravaganza!

A lot of face action going on in this twisty post-war Italian thriller, lot’s of close ups of actors emoting loudly toward the camera.

Pretty standard thriller with a couple of juicy red herrings to throw you off the trail.

Absolutely loved the taxi driver and main character shooting off in a taxi from the scene of a crime rather than staying and helping the police but then there wouldn’t have been much of a film if they hadn’t.

The Tango during the opening credits!

It wasn’t a straightforward film, especially with some of the subtitling, but it was an OK enough watch especially for a schlock film from the 70s, and those clothes brought back nightmares!

Couldn’t link the film to the title though, there was no ‘Peeping Tom’ vibe at all.

Showed Italy as a bit of a dump, all greys and muted tones, even the clothes were muted.

Another of those abrupt as hell endings which left a lot in the air really.

 

Watch Me When I Kill | September 3, 1982 (United States) 5.9
Director: Antonio BidoSummary:
Source: imdb.com

Tarot and Me

by Big Bearded Bookseller | Leave a comment

Three Hares

Three Hares

My time with tarot started in the early 80s in a Goth-phase when someone bought me the Thoth deck for my 18th birthday, I liked it but it never really seemed to fit.

Three years later I was reading tarot on The Mound during the Edinburgh Festival using the Thoth deck when a friend came with a new deck and told me that she felt this was much more me. This was the Sacred Rose Tarot and I’ve used this deck on and off since 1985 now and I feel a really good, deep connection with it.

During that period I was also reading palms, runes, astrology charts, and I-Ching, though over the years I’ve only really kept on the tarot as it seemed the most popular with family, friends, and the occasional client.

I’ve been using The Sacred Rose Tarot deck for over 38 years now and feel I really know it but I wanted to experiment with a few other decks and we all know how that goes… let’s start a new collection!

I’ll be writing about returning to my old witchy ways and exploring this pathway, there will be bits about everything that comes across my mind but it will mainly be tarot. There will be readings, explorations of different decks, book and deck reviews, and more.

First thing I’ll be doing is collecting old posts from other blogs and getting these all set up here.

You can also commission me for a reading on Ko-Fi, and watch here and my Bluesky for when I do a single card draw for myself.

Roll of £20 Notes

by Big Bearded Bookseller | Leave a comment

Card Storage

Card Storage

I’m going to tell a story about something that happened when I gave up MTG for the last time, but I’m going to catch up with the gaming week first.

I’m still finding it a challenge returning to any sort of gaming rhythm after so long away from it all and a lot of disappointments I’ve felt with Games Workshop over the last few years and have decided to move on from all Warhammer games and concentrate on micro-RPGs, board games, and some card games.

I’ve done a bit of sorting out in the shed though and have got the gaming bits separated into two large categories. One pile are the games I’m keeping, the other (much bigger) pile are the sprues that are going to be stripped to populate the shop on Ebay.

But on with the story.

This case is about 42x48cm, though the ones I had were slightly longer and could hold many more cards than these.

The first time I played Magic the Gathering was at the end of Ice Age and started really casually but it really ticked all my collecting boxes.

I then started playing quite competitively at around Invasion, going to regular tournaments and all the qualifiers, winning loads of cards and always having to have the latest tech and best decks and this meant I had thousands of cards.

A lot of them at high value, very high value as I played all formats. I had twenty of these large boxes, plus many folders, deck boxes, and other bits of storage.

Then I suddenly lost interest in the game all together and could really do with a bit of cash, so I started listing everything I had then listed it on eBay and after a few false starts it sold for a LOT of money to a gentleman from Norway.

We discussed sending it across and he realised that it would be easier and cheaper for him to bring his son with him and get the ferry to Newcastle, it would also be quicker.

We arranged to meet at the petrol station at the Durham services, so I packed up the car and with my partner we set off.

We got to the services and met the buyer, we then started to transfer the boxes across to the boot of his car. Once we had finished this I was handed rolls of £20 notes, loads of rolls, a satisfying amount of rolls.

As we were driving back with a back seat covered in these rolls of £20 notes my partner noted that all our activity would have been recorded on CCTV and that it would probably have looked extremely dodgy.

Thankfully we never had a visit from the Durham Constabulary wondering why I was selling loads of guns/rifles to a Norwegian.

Page 1 of 10
1 2 3 … 10