( Guess what. )

( A quick review of Peace, by Gene Wolfe. )

Just a quick note that anyone who wishes to drop round this weekend to drink our wine and eat our food is more than welcome to do so. But please knock before breaking in.

To mark the planet having flung itself around the sun twenty-three times without launching me off into space to die cold and alone in the desolate nothing between the uncaring stars (or perhaps to be eaten by the dread elder beasts that lurk there), there will be a gathering in Cambridge on the 26th of August. There may be a barbecue of some sort: ( Read more... )

As Tim rightly points out, in order to know when your birthday is you have to depend on other people, and other people are idiots. But, on the spurious pretext of maintaining the likely fiction that I was born on August 1st, 1983 - and, more importantly apparently, to provide Hester with cover for her crazy Who-a-thon - some sort of party in August ( Read more... )

( Bored at work, foolishly reading internets. )

( A quick review of Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. )

I think that, if anyone hasn't seen it yet, this is worth a look ( Read more... )

( Answering Ashley’s questions )

Has anyone since the metaphysical poets (Donne etc.) written poetry on the subject of sex with the requisite mix of wit, passion and tenderness? Because at this point we can't do better than Leonard Cohen. No, seriously.