Simon Petrie (he/him)
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fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Simon Petrie (he/him)
@fomalhaut451.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.1K following 1.2K posts
Writer of short books w. long titles, eg 'I Have No Legs And I Must Manspread'. Hemulen. Titan tragic. Cisgender. Pakeha in Oz. He/him.
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fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Picture of the staff who operate this bluesky account
Still image of Moomintroll, probably taken from the first Japanese anime TV show. Moomin, shown from chest up, has a thoughtful eyes-downcast expression and is folding or unfolding a small switchblade knife. The caption above the image reads 'When you almost lose your shit but then you remember you're too pretty to go to prison'.
December 7, 2025 at 12:52 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
If you see this, repost this with your model of positive masculinity
Screenshot from a November 2021 news article - I forget the source - for which the headline reads "Spanish bishop, 52, who quit clergy to be with erotic-fiction writing sexologist lover, 38, is accused of being 'possessed' as he finds new job exporting pig semen". Photos below the headline show the bishop on the left, in clerical garb, and the writer on the right, with the image background suggesting she is either sitting in a bookshop or in a library. An inset image shows, I presume, the cover for one of her books, but it's too small to be able read the title and anyway I don't read Spanish.
December 6, 2025 at 10:09 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Peter Wyngarde was never in King Crimson
A 1960s-ear British schoolboy, in a Northampton Grammar School 6th Form photo, bearing a resemblance to Peter Wyngarde
December 5, 2025 at 6:39 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
screenshot of the Lucille Bluth / Arrested Development 'It's one banana, Michael' meme image. The text on the image reads "It's one samosa, Michael. What could it cost, ten hit points?"
November 30, 2025 at 7:47 PM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
this is probably about as polite as I can be on the subject
The Bugs Bunny "I wish all... a very" meme image, white text on a black background, with Bugs looking uncharacteristically debonair in a tuxedo, or possibly a dinner jacket - I don't know my cartoon formalwear. The slogan has been completed to read "I wish all book-thieving organisations a very delete your code"
November 24, 2025 at 7:01 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Copyright page train. This is from 'Wayfaring Stranger', my novella release last year.

I have to say, the 'British English spelling' declaration on Elise's page is a good touch, and one which I think I'll be adopting for the next one. (I'd be tempted to add 'Deal with it', but probably best not.)
Screenshot of the copyright text from my book 'Wayfaring Stranger', published last year. Text reads: This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. (This next paragraph is in bold) While protections against the wholesale scraping or harvesting of creative content, for training purposes for so-called ‘generative artificial intelligence’ or ‘large language models’, remain insecure and poorly-defined, this work will not be made available in any electronic format and will accordingly remain print-only. Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro / Candara Cover illustration by James Morrison National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Wayfaring Stranger / Simon Petrie. ISBN: 9780648383673 (pbk.) Subjects: Science fiction, Australian. Other Authors / Contributors: Morrison, James, editor. Morrison, James, cover art. Dewey Number: A823.4
November 16, 2025 at 5:57 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Convincing you to read my short-fiction collection by the first sentence. Share yours if you want.

(The collection is I Have No Legs And I Must Manspread. This is from the start of the first piece, Introduction/Autofiction)
Screenshot of the first sentences from the introduction of my short-fiction collection I Have No Legs And I Must Manspread. The screenshotted text reads: "If there was a deathmatch, somehow, between the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the five stages of grief, who would win? Well, the five stages of grief, obviously, because they’re real. But let’s say it was a battle royale, continuing until only one combatant survived, who would that be? Bargaining, depression, acceptance, they have their place but they’d be useless in a fight. It’d come down, ultimately, to anger brawling with denial. Anger would start strong but would burn itself out too quickly. Look around. Denial’s the one with staying power. You know I’m right."
November 12, 2025 at 6:46 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
A 'two red buttons' meme cartoon, where the guy in the lower panel is sweating anxiously at the enormity of the choice he faces. In the top panel, his finger is hovering between the buttons, which are labelled 'granary' and 'razors'. The signature at the base of the cartoon reads 'Jake Clark Tumblr'; I assume he's the original artist.
November 10, 2025 at 4:51 PM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
The play is by Adam Browne and David Tredinnick, based on one of Adam's short stories from yonks back. It's like Waiting for Godot, but wetter.
I did the layout on the sumptuously illustrated book of the screenplay (shown below, & available thru the show); I'm pleased with how it came together.
Cover image for 'The Book of Bladderwrack: The Ship's Big Steaming Log', by 'Saltpetre Cragshank' and others, with the title text in lurid blue and lurid yellow on a trio of lurid magenta bands which segment the image behind: an Adam Browne illustration showing, in a motley of grey-green, orange and black and white, the figurehead of the pirate ship Vivisectress!, once a scourge of the sea and now more a scourge of the seafloor, though still somehow lifebearing. The play is wonderfully unhinged and I have tried to make the accompanying book (for I did the layout and arranged the publication) correspondingly uproarious.
November 9, 2025 at 9:40 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Currently reading this. Quiet, incandescent, enraging. Highly recommended.
Cover image of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's debut novel, 'Money To Burn', translated by Caroline Waight. The book explores the purportedly not-accidental fires on the 'Scandinavian Star' passenger ferry, in an incident which in April 1990 led to the deaths of over 150 passengers and crew, human bycatch of a claimed insurance scam. I am reading the hardback, and it is bloody good.
November 9, 2025 at 8:16 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
something something for something something
Zohran-style placard bearing the slogan 'UNEXPECTEDLY DEMOLISHED for A HYPERSPACE BYPASS'
November 9, 2025 at 5:34 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Who's your favourite Jedi? (Wrong answers only)

Not sure which is the Jedi and which the padawan
screen grab from the KLF's 'Justified and Ancient' video clip, showing the two KLF guitarists in burgundy-coloured hooded capes, faces obscured and prominent single horns proptruding from each guitarist's forehead
October 18, 2025 at 12:16 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
"I was married, but I'm not married anymore. Women don't like the vehicle."
Stock photo image of the popemobile in transit, with pope seated within
October 16, 2025 at 9:05 PM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
graphic design is my passion
Colour photo of a printed sign, supported by two white metal poles, on a garden verge. The sign, in coloured text on a black background, reads: IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE CALLING THE WASHING MACHINE THE WASHING MACHINE IS OVERLY GENERIC SO INSTEAD WE CALL IT THE DISHWASHER FOR CLOTHES
October 16, 2025 at 7:48 PM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Because I am The World's Worst™ at self-promotion, I've done nothing – nothing! – about my new short-fiction collection, 'I Have No Legs And I Must Manspread', a motley of whimsy and hard SF, out since Tuesday. It's paperback-only and should be available for order more or less anywhere.
Cover artwork, by James Morrison, for the book 'I Have No Legs And I Must Manspread' by Simon Petrie. The photorealistic cover image shows a human-sized, well, I would call it more or less a cross between a pinkish wrinkly-skinned garlic bulb and a slug were such a thing genetically feasible, sitting on a wooden bench beside a perhaps thirties-ish casually dressed woman who has looked up from the newspaper she is reading to give this garlic-bulb/slug hybrid thing a glare which is not exactly possessed of a charitable disposition, but then I suppose glares usually aren't anyway. From what's visible in the background, they're in maybe an upscale mall or a suspiciously clean looking railway station or something. The slug thing, which has a prominent but seemingly toothless overbite if that helps you picture it, is studiously avoiding eye contact by the time-honoured tactic of staring at the ceiling. I should perhaps reassure prospective readers that the book itself does not include any misshapen-garlic-bulb sluglike creatures, unless one snuck in while I wasn't looking, which frankly I wouldn't have thought possible.
September 26, 2025 at 5:56 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Diego Luna, best known for his role as Jack Lira in Milk
screenshot of Diego Luna - Cassian Andor in 'Rogue One' and the series 'Andor' - in his supporting role in the 2008 Harvey Milk biopic 'Milk'
September 4, 2025 at 10:39 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Betteridge's Law's pulse rises, its eyes gleam. "Come at me, bro," it snarls, as the latest headline climbs over the ropes into the ring
Screenshot of a Guardian headline: "Could an anicent cow's tooth unlock the origins of Stonehenge?'
August 21, 2025 at 5:15 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Also, the disambiguation subhead on Wikipedia's 'AA battery' article goes places
Screenshot of the disambiguation subheading from Wikipedia's 'AA battery' article. Text reads: "This article is about the type of electric cell. For the military weapon, see 'anti-aircraft warfare'.
July 9, 2025 at 8:34 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Today's extract, which rhymes in disturbing ways with certain recent reprehensible actions, is from 'A Message from the President', Punch, 1982.
scan of one paragraph from a 'Punch' satirical piece, titled 'A Message From The President', published in 1982 sometime. Text reads: 'Just a very limited, just a really, yo know very very limited, you would hardly, like maybe Venice, Jesus Christ it is sinking anyway, how much could it, or gimme the map, what is this Manchester, it's a dot, a dot, did my new jug come yet?'
June 22, 2025 at 4:26 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
that's never a polar bear
Screenshot of Guardian article headlined 'Experience: I fought off a polar bear with a saucepan', above a photo of someone who is plainly not a polar bear, even if they are wielding a saucepan. (Photo is apparently of Ken Padlow, a middle-aged veteran of polar bear combat)
May 16, 2025 at 5:26 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie.

Highlander 2
A still photo from Highlander 2, one of the most MST3K-able movies ever, showing Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery wondering just what they did to deserve this.
May 5, 2025 at 11:01 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
from the Grauniad Auspol liveblog this morning: much Freudian, very slip
Screenshot from Guardian post-election liveblog, 4 May 2025. Text reads: It is “more likely than not” Keith Wolahan will lose his seat, the incumbent Liberal MP for Menzies says, but he is not willing to concede deceit “just yet”.
May 4, 2025 at 1:16 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
If you see this, post your getaway vehicle
Illustration showing the flying amphibious houseboat The Oshun Oxtra, as drawn by Tove Jansson and featured in her book The Exploits of Moominpappa (more recently titled Moominpappa's Memoirs)
May 3, 2025 at 10:19 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
🎵 WHAT IF YOU WERE STARVING TO DEATH 🎶 AND THE ONLY FOOD YOU HAD WAS ME? 🎵 WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THE CANNIBAL QUESTION? 🎶 WOULD YOUR ANSWER BE PERFECTLY FREE? 🎵 OH YOUR MOMMA TOLD YOU NEVER 🎶 TO EAT YOUR FRIENDS WITH YOUR FINGERS AND HANDS 🎵 BUT I SAY YOU WANT TO EAT WHAT YOU WILL 🎶
Still photo from The Sound Of Music, showing Julie Andrews playing an acoustic guitar and indoctrinating moppets with a song. Lyrics are from Grace Slick's song 'Silver Spoon', off the album 'Sunfighter'. Skeet character limit doesn't permit adding the chorus's last line: SHOVE IT IN YOUR MOUTH ANYWAY THAT YOU CAN
May 3, 2025 at 7:39 AM
fomalhaut451.bsky.social
🎵WHILE NAT KING COLE SINGS 'WELCOMETO MY WORLD' 🎶 YOU REQUEST SOME SONG YOU HATE MY SENTIMENTAL FOOL 🎵 AND IT'S THE FORCE OF HABIT 🎶 IF IT MOVES THEN YOU FUCK IT 🎵 IF IT DOESN'T MOVE YOU STAB IT 🎶
Photo: Julie Andrews sings to children (a still from 'The Sound of Music')
May 3, 2025 at 12:17 AM