We’re setting the table for the year ahead in Ghost Stories, and to do so we’ll be following a number of threads that may or may not have much to do with each other. Key to this one is the UK’s relationship with the US, which we use to explore how unnerving it feels to be alive in the Hermit Kingdom in the last days, its mind blown out by redundant upper management and a deep state that no longer has any purpose. We mainline the DMT released from the dying spider’s brain, exploring Keir Starmer as the Last Man, dreams in the imperial core, surveillance, terrorism, the dregs of empire, classified US-UK programs like GHOSTHUNTER and APPARITION, temporal dislocation, and long-dead spree killers haunting the Yorkshire moors.