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- Hallucinated Bicycles
Hallucinated Bicycles
Orbital Operations for 24 May 2026
Warren Ellis
May 24, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
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Hello from out here on the Thames Delta, which is currently bright and hot and early-summery. Which usually means that this time next week there will be hailstones. But, right now, I’m in my summer linens and a wide-brimmed black straw hat, the mancub has informed me that he lives in the garden now, and I have a case of summer ale in the post.
In this letter:
Reset
Watch watch
The News
COLLIDE 01.14
Things to know
Deliberate Disconnection
Graveyard Gallery
Reading
Relay
Your weekly prep for a creative life in a weird world from Warren Ellis, an author from England who writes books and stories, graphic novels and television. Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here for free.
THE WORLD SERVICE
RESET
I have been mostly out of juice for the last week. The last couple of months of bullshit just tapped me out, I think. And the other night, after an iOS update, just for the hell of it, I checked Screen Time. And it hit an average of something over six hours a day. Now, that is partly expected, because Minnie the cat has a habit of sitting on me and pinning my left hand, so only the right hand is available, therefore I end up reading on my phone. And I’ve been having to write material on my phone too, for the same hairy reason. But also this is fucking appalling.
On top of that, I’ve been a Fitbit user on and off for going on fifteen years, but Google, who bought Fitbit a few years back, have replaced the Fitbit app with something called Google Health. Which wants you to call it “Coach,” because it’s a AI chatbot now, which hides all the data you want your Fitbit to surface and hallucinates constantly. I went for a brief walk to the shops and stopped for a coffee. I finally got the app to sync four hours later and it asked me how my spinning class went. Trust me, I don’t walk that fucking fast. And there it is in the grey print between AI summaries: “AI responses may contain mistakes.” No kidding.
It’s a particular kind of bullshit to wake up to a world where your heart and sleep tracker became a mad robot that hallucinates bicycles.
I’m done.
The last couple of months have been a disaster anyway, and my focus is shot. But my god. Last year Kieran Press-Reynolds was on Pitchfork explaining to people how to find music without Spotify. We’re all fried now. A guy who’s invested billions into AI apparently can’t explain what it’s for. Google already broke its own flagship product with AI summaries, and that’s getting a lot worse.
I am bunkering the fuck down.
OPERATIONS
WATCH WATCH
I’ve been bad. I’ve done the worst thing in the world. I’ve been on eBay.
The Camel Trophy was an international driving competition sponsored by Camel Cigarettes between 1980 and 2000. And every time they did one, they released a watch to commemorate it. This one is from the 1990s, apparently - not the original strap, sadly, but I’m not really concerned about that. The case is basically a chunk of bronze. It’s not a huge watch, but it has that field-watch easy legibility and it’s a proper weight on the wrist.
The brown strap, of course, means I have to match it with something, because I don’t wear brown/sand/camel/beige clothes, so I wear a brown leather bracelet and a couple of brown wooden bracelets on the other wrist, a pendant on a brown leather thong, and a brown 1990s Sergio Cerruti Roma leather belt I may have just bought myself on eBay ahem. Never forget Gene Wilder’s rule from his notes on the first draft of the Willy Wonka costume:
Also a light blue felt hat-band to match with the same light blue fluffy bow tie shows a man who knows how to compliment his blue eyes.
To match the shoes with the jacket is fey. To match the shoes with the hat is taste.
While we wouldn’t necessarily use the word “fey” today, his general point stands. And we try to cultivate taste.
And this is a Swiss watch from the 1950s, with a hand-painted dial, that still works perfectly. I can’t find a lot about Incarna, a company that vanished decades ago, save for that their watches were apparently considered “affordable.” This cost me a tenner, it’s at least seventy years old, and that is a Swiss watch that is still ticking away flawlessly.
Just a couple of cheap curiosities. But they give me pleasure, which is the main point. And also: they don’t call themselves “Coach” and insist I’m on a bicycle.
The News, with Lordess Foudre
COLLIDE: Jerome Eyquem + Warren Ellis: 01.04
Jerome Eyquem is an artist and writer: here are his releases on GlobalComix.
ORBITAL
END TIMES
Ben Percy has been putting out a monthly “post apocalyptic newspaper” with contributions by Stephen King called THE END TIMES. It is really good. Now a collected edition is available for pre-order, and it is frankly a steal at thirty Yanqui dollar.
Interview with Ben about the project.
Julian Simpson’s new audio drama series is already funded. And the stretch-goal additions are mad, and most of them have been met. God knows what else he’s going to do. It still has almost a month to go, so go and take a look now.
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Chris Corcoran at the Jazz Centre
Isidora Edwards and Luigi Marino at Konsztrukting Soundz
possibly not the most attractive picture of a mango sorbet you ever saw, but I made this myself from a pot of overripe mango chunks, used no sugar, and it was amazing
DELIBERATE DISCONNECTION: A Year In The Wild with Rain DeGrey
Artist, writer and educator Rain DeGrey moved to the wilderness after a lifetime in California and this is the record of her discovery of the land and the seasons. This is her newsletter.
Todd Blackwood’s Graveyard Gallery
Todd Blackwood is the creator of NOSFERATU: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL. See more of his art on his IG.
If you want to work together this year, or if you’re doing something creative you want more people to know about, or if you think there’s something Orbital Operations should be covering, hit reply to this newsletter to shoot a note to the office.
OPS
READING
Another idea newly influential in analytic circles at this time originated with Brian Jenkins, an expert at the Rand Corporation in California, who had studied art history and was steeped in the radical artistic production of the 1960s. He argued that the use of violence in terrorism was not ‘mindless’ but carefully designed to communicate a message to specific audiences: terrorism as theatre.
...To prove their commitment, new arrivals were asked to stand next to a block of plastic explosive as it was detonated in order to demonstrate their total trust in the instructors, who assured them that there was no risk of harm if the blast was not confined, directed or loaded with shrapnel. This terrifying initiation was the start of a deliberate process of breaking down previous values and loyalties the better to build the type of fighters that Haddad wanted. Such rituals, the carefully controlled behaviour and the sheer isolation of the camp created a hothouse atmosphere equivalent to that of the West German communes that had incubated the RAF or the mountain retreats in Japan that had led to such extreme radicalisation there.
Take the populist Narodnik movement—romantic socialists who believed Russia would be redeemed by its noble peasantry. In 1874, Jewish and Christian Narodniks abandoned the cities for the countryside, where these mostly middle-class kids imagined they could incite a peasant uprising. The peasants promptly reported them to the police.
GOT MORE TIME?
LTD
I keep a digital writer’s notebook and you’re invited to read over my shoulder. Currently, I do one post a day, with maybe an additional note in the evening to log stuff. The daily note is like a more condensed yet more confused version of this newsletter. You might like it.
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PLAYLIST
RELAY 24may26
One from the vaults.
Links are visible when you hover over each track in the list. Start the first track and it will autoplay through the list.
I’m using Buy Music Club - it sits within Bandcamp’s protocol of allowing two free plays of any track on the service.
And that’s me. Next week, we’re going all in. See you then, I hope. Be good to yourself. And wear sunscreen.
W
I’m represented by Angela Cheng Caplan at the Cheng Caplan Company, David Hale Smith at Inkwell Management and Joel VanderKloot at VanderKloot Law. Please add
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