Al Hatch
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alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Al Hatch
@alhatchauthor.bsky.social
300 followers 1.1K following 230 posts
Slice of life novel "Meltdown Expected" coming soon. Set over 3 decades from 80s, about punk rock, coding, philosophy, radicalisation, love, weakness, growing up. Also write poetry, songs and non-fiction. #actuallyaustistic #leftist #lgbtq ally UK he/him
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alhatchauthor.bsky.social
TFW your train booking website gets overexcited about a business trip
Screenshot from website that says "tick. Success! You're going to BIRMINGHAM NEW STREET" This is just a rail station in central England not known for anything desirable.
November 4, 2025 at 12:26 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Go home, Gemini, you're drunk.
(The answer, as I found separately, was 1992)
Screenshot of a Google Search for "when did 28th feb fall on a saturday" The results underneath show AI Overview: The year 1990 had a Saturday on February 28th. This was the last Saturday of that month, and several sources confirm February 1990 fell on the days of the week as shown in the Calendarr and Time and Date calendars. 1990 : Calendarr and Time and Date confirm that February 28, 1990, was a Wednesday. Therefore, a day of the week for February 28, 1990, would be a Saturday. This is a day of the week for February 28, 1990. On This Day also confirms this date as being in 1990.
October 15, 2025 at 8:11 AM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
How much do we hate this?
Let us count the ways...
Banner ad on Amazon website that reads "Prime Big Deal Days starts tomorrow" (sic)
October 6, 2025 at 9:15 AM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
I knew her when she looked like this
8 bit pixel art of a brunette woman
October 5, 2025 at 2:17 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
My money's on Helen Mirren.
Guardian headline... 'Professional actor' behind attacks that closed Danish airports, defence minister says
September 25, 2025 at 3:12 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Here's another. Elvis Costello, about Margaret Thatcher.
Well I hope I don't die too soon I pray the lord my soul to save Oh I'll be a good boy, I'm trying so hard to behave Because there's one thing I know, I'd like to live Long enough to savor That's when they finally put you in the ground I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down
September 20, 2025 at 9:44 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
What the, and I can't overstate this, everloving fuck?
September 4, 2025 at 5:09 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Me and da boy napping.
September 4, 2025 at 12:15 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Just me and my buddy in bed...
#dogs
September 3, 2025 at 9:05 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Hanson were far from an overnight success. Their debut single AAABop was a flop.

12 singles later however...
September 3, 2025 at 10:12 AM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Happy for you.
We reach 22 years this December.
Wedding photo. I'm in a black velvet jacket and silver waistcoat, red tie. She's in a white dress with lace sleeves and the cake is a pile of Christmas presents.
September 2, 2025 at 8:08 AM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
And a snip of 1985... Dan has written a computer game...
#amwriting #writingcommunity
I feel stupid. I'm with my Dad at the Newcastle office of Keepsoft, talking about SimTown. It's not going well. "We've been playing the game, Daniel." begins the big guy with the moustache and tweed suit who is obviously the boss, Eric Bushell. He looks grim. "One question. How do you win?" I pause and dry swallow. Tweed suit has asked the question I dreaded right out of the gate and I look around nervously for inspiration. His office is a curious blend of dusty bookshelves and modern equipment: old law books signalling the building's former use jostle with technical manuals, monitors and printers. Framed enlargements of Keepsoft computer game cover art – I can see "Defendoids", "Sub-Aqua Quest" and "Legend of Camelot" – seem self-consciously absurd between alarmingly aslant bookcases. On the corner of each artwork sits the company logo, a cartoon of the Keep, the central tower which is all that remains of the city’s medieval castle. My sole memory of our school trip there was learning the spiral staircases descend anti-clockwise, so that defenders could use their sword-arm to repel ascending invaders. Apparently everyone was right-handed in the 12th Century. Multicoloured cables writhe on a threadbare carpet such that crossing the room is a death-defying experience. Ersatz lavender hangs in the air, but neither the recent air-freshener spritz nor Tweed’s strong tea aroma can overpower a century-old-building-mildew smell. And yet this is a multi-million-pound software publishing house. I guess nerds, even highly successful business-nerds, have a pretty narrow range of priorities. I swallow for the fifth time. "Er, well… you don’t. Win, I mean. You can play forever if you're any good." "Forever?", this question comes in with a barely-disguised sneer from the other guy, who introduces himself as "Psycho" but I've seen his picture in Your Spectrum Magazine, he is Simon Coutts, programmer of "Ghouls" and "Legend of Camelot"...
August 29, 2025 at 12:00 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
A slice of "Meltdown Expected" chapter 2. It's 1984 in the new town of Cramlington, ten miles north of Newcastle. There really is a leisure centre called "Concordia" and I really did have a Raleigh Grifter!
#amwriting #writingcommunity
"It's for Yoo-Hoo", sings Carl, imitating a stupid British Telecom advert off the telly. "Get on your bike and I'll meet you at Concordia, geeky boy" Caitlin giggles. We’ve been going out for six months now, but I still catch my breath at the sound of her voice, as if while we’ve been apart I wasn't quite breathing properly, and her voice is CPR. "On it, swotty girl," I reply, and head down to the shed to drag out my battered old Raleigh Grifter. Designed just before BMX bikes came out, the Grifter is like a motocross bike but if it was made of solid lead. It looks for all the world like a BMX, but tricks are impossible on the bugger because it's the weight of a small cow. It works just fine to get a 14 year old from A to B, however, once you get the damn thing going, so I head off to the new, pretentiously named leisure centre to play some video games and of course, hang out with my girl.
August 29, 2025 at 11:54 AM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Ran 3.6k this morning in the howling wind. I'm awake now!
August 29, 2025 at 9:57 AM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Strava amuses me. I post a normal run around the neighbourhood, and my friend be like...
Screenshot from Strava. Text reads Zwift Volcano Climb in Watopia. Image is a low quality CGI graphic of a cyclist heading towards an active volcano.
August 24, 2025 at 8:46 AM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Casper says hi. He wants a scratch.
August 22, 2025 at 9:22 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Tell me your age with a book you read as a teenager, on or shortly after its release...
#booksky
Cover of Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
August 22, 2025 at 9:12 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
#poem #poetry Here's one I wrote 3 years ago about a school crush...
Paradox - a poem

Feedback welcome. Still growing as a writer here. Could use some help :)
after the party we went back to yours your parents went to bed we stayed up watching a terrible movie if this was america i’d call you my crush but that falls short as a report of the hungering, chest-clawing necessity of your closeness saturating my soul that spring you were my everything yet didn’t know it Mathematical diagram. A plot on cartesian axes of a Fourier series that approximates a square wave i sat next to you in further maths for the best three hours of the week we worked together on blissful equations proved cauchy’s theorem in an ecstasy of inductive reasoning found fourier transforms in a high of harmonic analysis probed epimenedes paradox, although this line is false grappled with multiple infinities your marks on the page below mine making the discrete continuous transforming my square wave smooth proving my wanting boundless i want maths to go further you say you want it too then ever more paradoxical you claim to be always lying are you now? that was maths class and now we’re alone in your family home “hold me” you declare and i fall our forms harmonic my desire boundless our lips continuous as epimenedes self-refers i define myself in you but later in class we are discreet we are heading to discrete universities so you reason we must remain unbound i cannot refute your conjecture but will hold fast and forever the union of our infinities you were my first paradox and i never want to solve you See first image ALT text for whole poem See first image for whole poem
August 22, 2025 at 7:58 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #Chandeliers #writingcommunity
"I wanna swing from the Chandelier" Sang Sia. Last night found me that deep in a bottle. My hazy companions, observed over brimful stemware surely enjoyed my witty colloquy. The yarns I twined to rapt consideration. Laugh, oh how they laughed at me. With me. Of course I meant with me. Oh the fun we had. I swear I had fun. I must have done, the wine's all gone. The chandelier's tilted. My friends departed. Oh the tales we told. The tales I told. Myself about, the night I swung from the chandelier.
August 22, 2025 at 7:50 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
#amreading How to Build a Girl by @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social and loving it. Maybe this will help me write female characters better. But perhaps not better female characters. 😁
#booksky #writerscommunity
Cover of How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran, featuring a yellow background and young woman with red hair and a black hat, possibly a bowler hat, grinning. Maybe Bernie Feldstein from the film. "Now a Major Feature Film" it says at the top.
August 22, 2025 at 6:57 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Sorry about the text inside an image, here is another snippet, a few years later...
#amwriting #writingcommunity
If you like this I am looking for beta readers, and an agent! Forgive me I'm new to this writing lark, aged 50-something :)
“Books aren’t ideas though, they are a means to communicate an idea but not the idea itself”. “Books are how an idea spreads. At least in a world without television. And in 451 the television is state-controlled. There are no means of free expression. No theatre, no music that isn’t policed.” I smile and tilt my head towards the video jukebox screen in the corner of the Fat Cat pub, where I’ve spotted across Nat’s right shoulder a close up of Big Ben against a cerulean sky heralding the official video for London Calling. The percussive urgency of its opening bars fill the room and Nat rolls her eyes in mock disapproval, but I know it’s one of her favourites too, not least when covered by Antifa, as my punk band is now known. Nat and Luke had eventually worn me down on that one, pointing out that Antifaschistische Aktion is hard to fit on a poster and even harder to explain over the phone to venue owners. “Only books survive,” I continue, “and must be burned to retain the status quo.” “Dude, I read 451 already”, laughs Nat. “My point is that ideas spring from the minds of intellectuals. Can be passed by word of mouth. Bradbury’s fixation on books misses the point that Orwell made with the Party’s invention of Newspeak, that words are the thing. Kill words, not books, if you want to prevent the spread of ideas.” “Now war is declared, and battle come down,” Strummer growls from the pub’s BOSE woofers. The Clash are performing the song with frenetic menace in washed-out greyscale gloom on an industrial barge on the Thames at dusk, underlining the song’s apocalyptic bleakness. We pause to soak up the genius for a moment. While she is watching the Clash video, I sneak a look at her 25-year-old fabulousness. More text on my substack or website soon.
August 21, 2025 at 7:21 PM
alhatchauthor.bsky.social
Snippet from my forthcoming novel "Meltdown Expected"
#amwriting #writingcommunity
We’ve set up in the music room of Ranmoor House, the Sheffield University hall of residence built in the late 70s on the model of a Swedish open prison. It has high ceilings with exposed cable trays and blonde wood on all floors and walls. The music room is designed for small events, rigged with a PA and some cheap instruments including a basic drum kit. The room smells of stale cider and not a little weed already: the summer deep clean has been undone by the freshers’ welcome event just two nights ago. I’m here to audition guitarists for an as-yet unnamed house band, having placed an ad on the noticeboard when I arrived last week: “Post-punk protest band hiring lead guitar, infl. Clash, Ramones, Iggy Pop, Pistols, Killing Joke. Own instrument required. Must hate Thatcher”. We already have a drummer called Norm, who has the biggest biceps we’ve ever seen – “I bench 120” he once told us, to blank stares all round – and a bassist called Adi who is studying Music Production at the Polytechnic, but gets into our house band on a technicality: he’s Norm’s mate from school in Leicester and as well as his Steinberger Bass he owns several Marshall amps which we can’t do without. I’m the singer and rhythm guitarist but had never progressed beyond strumming, and a Clash-inspired protest band needs a nerve-shredding axe-man. Mick Jones to my Joe Strummer. We’re waiting for a guy called Luke who answered the ad with a note in my pigeonhole this morning but he’s already half an hour late. Remainder of content available on my substack soon.
August 21, 2025 at 5:05 PM