Yestreen, fairly latish, my ebook reader froze and did not respond to soft reset - i.e. it would begin to start up and then hang again. Had to do a hard reset and it seems to be working again, but how annoying is that happening when you're in the middle of a compelling book? (Find there is a software update which I shall implement.)

Also in the ' ( Read more... )

No, really, dithering is not an Olympic sport, even if you would undoubtedly qualify for a gold medal... (The Euston Station Dithering Event, points given for degree of inconvenience caused to regular commuters.)

***

Work uncluttering, preparatory to office move. Which is actually not too bad, given that I can't yet start on projected major listing ( Read more... )

Oxytocin B orl moar complyk8ed.
Ed Yong in Slate gives a resounding cod-thrashing to Paul 'Gimme A Hug' Zak.

And how spooky is this:
Why does any of this matter? Because the hype around oxytocin hurts and exploits vulnerable people. The hormone’s reputed ability to fix social ills has drawn the attention of parents whose children have autism, ( Read more... )

Yet more about the Undiscovered Gems of Stella Gibbons' non-Cold Comfort Farm novels. In which (yet again) we get the impression that the author of the article may at least have glanced through Westwood (or possibly just read last week's Guardian Review piece) but is getting their info on the others straight off the back cover. /Speaking as someone ( Read more... )

It is bad enough to have to get up on a Saturday to go to work; it is even worse to get up and find that We Have A Domestic Crisis, i.e. a leak from the front room radiator (yesterday we had the boiler service + radiator check).

This turned out to be less massive a crisis than it might have been (i.e. it was possible to turn the valve so that ( Read more... )

Proofs are done!!!

Didn't find a lot of problems - a few typos, misplaced commas, places where capitalisation should be put in or removed, etc etc.

Only two serious things: one place in which footnote had gone missing (and should have been picked up in copy-edit, methinks), and one in which I reworked a passage in line with suggestions from copy ( Read more... )

I haven't felt like I've been entirely firing on all cylinders since I got back from Minneapolis, what between the remnants of jetlag, the lingering effects of the cold, etc, but these 10 days or have not been unproductive.

Completion of joint chapter (this involved grinding out a snappy concluding paragraph as well as agreeing final text, checking ( Read more... )

Excellent news after my flaming bish over the proofs, failing to put in file in my hand luggage for correction during long spaces of travelling time. Email today from the volume editors saying that they have kicked up major stink with the publishers about how intrusive and incompetent the editing has been. As a result, the publishers are going to ( Read more... )

The good: yay! 24 week limit stands! IVF for lesbians/single mothers!

Also good: driving through some nice bits of London on the way here - The Golden Mile of Art Deco architecture on the Great West Road is a new one on me.

Expeditious checkin and passage through security etc.

The bad: driving through some drear/grotty bits of London on the way ( Read more... )

Have received proofs of an article which is being published in a special issue of a journal produced by The Evil Journal Publishing Empire.

They send, along with proofs and instructions about how to mark up the pdf with any corrections, a form with any queries they have for the author from their side.

Which includes in the relevant space (after ( Read more... )