(1) THE VOTES FOR COUNT BINFACE HAVE BEEN COUNTED. “Count Binface gets almost 10,000 votes in Clacton by-election” – BBC says he came in second. 

Count Binface has enjoyed his best-ever election performance after receiving almost 10,000 votes and finishing second to Nigel Farage at the Clacton by-election.

The self-styled intergalactic space warrior said he was “more popular” when standing against Farage compared to Andy Burnham, after he picked up 95 votes when challenging the now-prime minister in Makerfield in June.

Count Binface received 9,455 votes compared to Farage’s 22,239. His 26.9% share of the vote is thought to be the highest ever for a novelty candidate.

He became the leading rival to Farage after the main UK parties boycotted the by-election triggered by the Reform UK leader, amid questions over his finances.

Farage had branded Count Binface the “candidate of the establishment” after claiming supporters of other parties had canvassed for him.

The contest in the Essex constituency saw a record 34 candidates for a Westminster Parliament election, although Farage did not attend the announcement of the result in person, denying Count Binface and others a chance to line-up alongside him in the Clacton Leisure Centre.

This led Count Binface to declare he was “the winning candidate in the room”.

Reform UK said Essex Police had advised Farage not to attend the count “due to a credible threat against him”.

The BBC has been told the force did not advise any candidate that they should not attend the count.

Count Binface is the satirical alter ego of comedian Jon Harvey, who has specialised in satire and been involved with BBC comedy shows, including The Thick of It and Have I Got News For You….

…The Clacton result was the first time that Count Binface has retained the £500 deposit candidates are required to make to validate their nomination. It is repaid if a candidate polls more than 5% of the total number of valid votes cast in the constituency….

(2) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to break away from StokerCon for BBQ with Jamal Hodge on Episode 289 of the Eating the Fantastic podcast.

My third Eating the Fantastic conversation during the 2026 StokerCon was with the award-winning writer of horror poetry and prose Jamal Hodge mere hours after his Bram Stoker Award win of the previous night.

That isn’t the only award recognition Hodge has received along his writing journey, for he’s also an Elgin Award winner, a Dwarf Stars Award winner and a Rhysling Award finalist. His collections include The Dark Between the Twilight, which earned him his first Bram Stoker Award nomination, as well as Everything Endless, written with previous guest of this podcast Linda Addison, which is what resulted in this year’s win.

His creative life isn’t limited to the page, for he’s also a multi-award-winning filmmaker who’s a sitting Board Member of Harlem Film House and Axs Lab. His films have been an official selection in over 100 Film Festivals, and have won more than 50 awards including The Vanguard Award (Best of The Fest) at the Hip Hop Film Festival (2020), Best Director at The Chelsea Film Festival (2020) and Best Director at GenreBlast (2020). He co‑produced the Academy Award‑nominated documentary Armed Only With a Camera: The Life & Death of Brent Renaud, and is producing the upcoming animated feature Pierre the Pigeon Hawk. He also directed the first season of the Discovery ID series Primal Instinct.

His upcoming books include I’m Not a Good Person, I’m a New Yorker from Crystal Lake Publishing in Sept 2026, plus Shards of Gotham: New York City Through the Looking Glass from Ruadán Books in June 2027.

We discussed how winning a Stoker Award the previous night altered his ambitions, why Linda Addison is his favorite collaborator, how most things we think of as choices aren’t, why he prefers Batman to Spider-Man, the reason the environment in his stories is not your friend, the way the living are controlled by the dead, how he always starts a project thinking it’s one thing only to discover it’s something else, what Mega Man has to do with him becoming a better writer, his favorite short story of all time, how 1984 made him realize what writing could do, the way poetry healed him, plus much more.

(3) XPRIZE FILM COMPETITION. “Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neal Stephenson, Mira Lane, Rod Roddenberry to Judge XPRIZE Sci-Fi Film Competition” reports Variety.

XPRIZE announced the judges for its sci-fi film competition, which aims to inspire optimistic adaptations of a technology-enabled future.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neal Stephenson, Mira Lane and Rod Roddenberry will preside over the competition. The panel will help select the grand prize winner, who will be named at Moonshots Live on Sept. 25 in Los Angeles.

The Future Vision XPRIZE competition invites global filmmakers and creators to submit three-minute trailers or short films that depict hopeful future visions. Submissions close Aug. 15.

The grand prize is $2.5 million in production funding to develop the concept, as well as $100K cash. Four runner-ups will receive $100K each, and 10 finalists will receive $10K….

(4) CZECH IT OUT. A Deep Look by Dave Hook delves into “’FROM THE LAND OF ROBOTS AND GOLEMS: Chronicles of Czech Science Fiction, vol. 5, 21st century Czech speculative fiction’, Julie Nováková editor, 2025 Nová vlna”. Here’s his short take. The long analysis is at the link.

The Short: I attended at least one gathering and several panels relating to science fiction in the Czech Republic at the 2025 Seattle Worldcon. I obtained and read FROM THE LAND OF ROBOTS AND GOLEMS: Chronicle of Czech Science Fiction, vol. 5, 21st century Czech speculative fiction, Julie Nováková editor, 2025 Nová vlna. It includes an Introduction by Julie Nováková, ten works of short fiction (including three published in English for the first time here), two novel excerpts (translated for the first time here), an Authors and Translators essay which is quite helpful, and brief author/story note paragraphs for each story. It’s 278 pages and available in trade paperback from the publisher. My favorites were the great “The Thanatos Mode”, a short story by Tom Hadrava, and “A Flaw In The Works”, a novelette by Julie Nováková. My overall, average rating is 3.63/5, or “Very good”. Recommended.

(5) NEW YORK CITY EXHIBIT. EV Grieve advises, “You have 2 days to see Jon Langford’s ‘Insignificance’”.  Photos at the link. Jon is the brother of David Langford.

A three-day exhibition featuring the work of artist and musician Jon Langford is up through tomorrow at 14BC Gallery, 626 E. 14th St. between Avenue B and Avenue C.

Titled “Insignificance,” the show is on view today from 3-7 p.m. and tomorrow from 1-7 p.m….

(6) MURAKAMI MEETS TERPSICHORE. [Item by Steven French.] Bringing Murakami alive through the medium of dance: “’Murakami saw his book come alive!’: the Japanese company bringing the author’s science fiction masterpiece to the stage” reports the Guardian.

Tatsuya Fujiwara is no stranger to London’s Barbican theatre. It was here nearly 30 years ago that one of Japan’s biggest film stars, now 44, made his stage debut. He was just 15, plucked out of an audition of more than 5,000 hopeful youngsters by the revered theatre director Yukio Ninagawa for his play Shintoku-Maru. It kickstarted Fujiwara’s career, and three years later he landed a role in the cult dystopian film Battle Royale, going on to star in hit TV dramas and blockbuster films, all the while continuing to perform in Ninagawa’s acclaimed productions.

Now, Fujiwara returns to where it all began, to perform in a stage adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s science fiction novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The story alternates between two seemingly unrelated narratives: a cyberpunk thriller set in Tokyo, and a surreal fantasy that unfolds within a mysterious walled town. Directed by the French choreographer Philippe Decouflé, the play premiered in Tokyo in January, toured Japan until March, then Singapore in April. After the Barbican run this autumn, the tour will wrap up in Paris.

“When performing in Japan, you become accustomed to your own audience,” says Fujiwara. “You develop a feel for what reaches them and how they receive you. The moment you cross a border, that certainty disappears.”…

(7) SINCE WHEN IS 800 BOOKS A LOT? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] “Woman Divides Internet with Creative Storage Solution After Amassing Collection of More Than 800 Books” reports People.

…Her unconventional storage system began in 2024, when she moved back home during a gap year after graduating from college. By then, her books had outgrown her shelves, and selling or donating some titles wasn’t enough to solve the problem.

“That’s when I realized I had all this unused space beneath my bed and thought, why not turn it into book storage?” Monroy says.

The bed itself was never intended to house hundreds of books. Monroy says she bought the full-size platform bed from Wayfair years earlier and never modified it; it simply happened to have enough space underneath to accommodate her collection.

Getting hundreds of books into the space took a few hours. To keep the setup from becoming an impossible-to-navigate maze, Monroy also created a spreadsheet.

“The organization makes it surprisingly easy to find a specific book,” she explains. “The books are grouped by series, genre, and author, and I also keep a spreadsheet that tracks which pile each book is in, so I know exactly where to look when I want a particular title.”…

Harlan Ellison used to store his comics collection under his bed – except he had someone build a multi-level platform that looked like a red-painted ziggarut and was about halfway to the ceiling.

(8) ANIMATION EMMYS. “’Primal,’ ‘Eyes of Wakanda,’ ‘The Mighty Nein’ and ‘Star Wars: Visions’ Win Juried Animation Emmy Awards” – Animation Magazine has the story.

The TV Academy has revealed the juried award winners in animation for the upcoming 78th Emmy Awards. The awards, which are screened by a panel of professionals in the appropriate peer groups (animation, costume design, emerging media, and motion and title design) will be presented on Saturday, Sept. 5, and Sunday, Sept. 6 at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live. An edited version of these first two nights will air on Saturday, Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. on FXX.

The 2026 Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation Emmys winners are:

• Eyes of Wakanda • Into the Lion’s Den [Disney+, Marvel Animation]
  Uzoma Dunkwu, Character Design
• Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal • Kingdom of Sorrow [Adult Swim, Cartoon Network Studios
  David Krantz, Storyboards
• Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal • Vengeance of Death [Adult Swim, Cartoon Network Studios]
  Scott Wills, Art Direction
• The Mighty Nein • Mote of Possibility [Prime Video, Amazon MGM Studios, Titmouse Studios, Critical Role Productions]
  Howard Chen, Background Design
• Star Wars: Visions • The Duel: Payback [Disney+, Kamikaze Douga, ANIMA, Lucasfilm Ltd.]
  Takashi Okazaki, Character Designer

No juried Emmy will be awarded in the Outstanding Motion Design category this year.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

August 14, 1965 — Brannon Braga, 61.

Brannon Braga was, not at the same time or always, the writer, producer and creator of the Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, The Orville, as well as writer of First Contact, Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis films.

Those four films he’s written. Is that more than anyone else? I could look it up, but I figure I’d ask the great pool of Trek fans here instead. 

Confession time — I’ve still not watched The Orville. Now that it’s been canceled, shall I go ahead and watch all of it? Opinions please. 

He has written more episodes of the many Trek series than anyone, many of course co- written. I really don’t think he’ll be writing any more as his last scripts were for Enterprise.

He was responsible for the Next Generation series finale “All Good Things…” which won him a Hugo Award at Intersection for excellence in SF writing, along with Ronald D. Moore. 

He was nominated at LoneStarCon2 for Star Trek: First Contact for the screenplay along with Ronald D. Moore, and the story by Rick Berman and Ronald D. Moore; Torcon 3 saw him pick up two nominations for Enterprise stories — first for the “Carbon Creek” story along with Rick Berman and Dan O’Shannon, and the wonderful “A Night in The Sick Bay” with Rick Berman.

(Digression. Ok, I like Enterprise a lot. For me, everything there worked. And the Mirror Universe finale worked for me though it got a lot of criticism.) 

Aussiecon 4 saw him pick up only his non-Trek related Hugo nomination or Award. It was for writing FlashForward’s “No More Good Days” with David S. Goyer. 

There’s a great quote by him after he stopped being Roddenberry’s replacement as head of the Trek franchise: “It’s not an easy task. On the other hand, I have nothing to be ashamed about. We created 624 hours of television and four feature films, and I think we did a hell of a job. I’m amazed that we managed to get 18 years of the kind of work that everyone involved managed to contribute to, and it’s certainly more than anyone could have asked for.” — Star Trek Magazine

(10) COMICS SECTION.

• Carpe Diem needs you to know a Latin tag.
• Close to Home markets to a king.
• Eek! needs a better focus group.
• Rubes meets a frontier witch.
• Strange Brew helps out the community.
• Tom the Dancing Bug is a whole comics page in itself.

(11) THE DEMOLISHED ROBOT. [Item by Daniel Dern.] “How a Smart Recycling Robot Dismantles Old Devices” at IEEE Spectrum.

…There are over 4 million industrial robots in use worldwide, according to the International Federation of Robotics. And researchers predict that number will grow to over 16 million by 2030, as manufacturing rapidly increases. But what’s going to happen when they start breaking down? A new system designed by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in Karlsruhe, Germany, can predict the defect in a broken product and disassemble it while protecting valuable parts from damage. To continue robotic development sustainably, the industry should prepare for the dismantling, recycling, and rebuilding of our robotic systems.

The system consists of a predictive algorithm that guesses how a product is broken, along with robotic manipulators that actually take the broken product apart. At every stage of the process, the system checks to see if the results align with its predictions, and updates its methods if necessary….

Not quite a Clifford Simak-level ‘bot, but still interesting.

(But)(asks Dern): What if two of these robots try disassembling each other?

What if they escape, and start disassembling things at random?

What if they start trying to disassemble people?

What if they keep parts and build more robots for their own use, community, army, etc.?

What could possibly go wrong?

(12) KGB. Ellen Datlow has posted photos from the Fantastic Fiction at KGB readings of August 12, 2026 at Flickr.

(13) TWIST AND SHOUT. “Oreo unveils 3 new limited flavors, invites fans to vote on favorite” – USA Today tells what to expect.

The cookie brand revealed exclusively to USA TODAY on Thursday, Aug. 13, that it is launching three new limited-edition cookie flavors at once and letting fans vote for their favorite one. The winning flavor will be brought back in 2027, the company said in a news release.

The three new flavors include:

• Oreo Banana Pudding Cookies: Feature layers of sweet banana and vanilla pudding in a deliciously delectable dual-layered creme, sandwiched between vanilla wafer cookies.
• Oreo Deep Fried Cookies: Feature iconic golden-fried, doughy flavor baked into the cookie itself with fried dough-flavored cookies wrapping layers of dark chocolate and fried dough-flavored creme.
• Oreo Chicken & Waffles Cookies: Feature a signature waffle texture and embossment and dual-layered creme, both infused with sweet and savory flavor notes for a fried chicken and maple syrup flavor in every bite.

(14) OPENS TODAY. “The End of Oak Street | Official Trailer”.

After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings. Starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, THE END OF OAK STREET also stars Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. The film is written and directed by David Robert Mitchell and produced by J.J. Abrams, Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, David Robert Mitchell, Matt Jackson and Tommy Harper. The executive producers are Chris Bender, Jake Weiner, Joanne Lee and Leeann Stonebreaker. Mitchell’s team behind the camera includes director of photography Michael Gioulakis, production designer Maya Shimoguchi, editor John Axelrad, composer Michael Giacchino and costume designer Erin Benach. Warner Bros. Pictures Presents A Bad Robot Production, A Jackson Pictures Production, A David Robert Mitchell Film: THE END OF OAK STREET. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, only in theaters and IMAXÒ in North America on August 14, 2026, and internationally beginning 12 August 2026.

[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Steven French, Scott Edelman, Daniel Dern, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]