Thanks to everyone who came to yesterday's barbecue, or who intended to / would have liked to come and sent best wishes / apologies. It went really well and I had a great time, particularly with stunning people with the Dansette-equivalent plus iPod combo. It didn't rain, and the food mostly got eaten up (and a lot of booze was drunk). The musical ( Read more... )

I love my ipod and the way it surprises me sometimes with great music I don't even know is on there. This time it was a Postal Services song that mzdt passed on to me; had me digging the 'pod out of my back pocket and checking out the track details ( Read more... )

Got back late last night -- about 2:30 back at home, not asleep until at least 3 am. Surprisingly early to get up nevertheless -- 9:30 to take a pill and start LJing (reading and commenting), then to have a cup of tea, breakfast in bed, and finish off the last 150 pages or more of The Scar by China Mieville. (Very fine, very captivating -- couldn't ( Read more... )

This is billed as the latest 'hotter than Potter', and indeed it is playing in the same arena -- children with mystical/magical help/powers fighting against the ultimate evil that aims to destroy the world as we know it, starting from the ordinary and moving swiftly into the unexpected and unusual ( Read more... )

I am doing quite well on the length of my books-to-read list ( Read more... )

cleanskies and pdc were bemoaning the word of the day on Friday (20th June): bellwether. USians seem to treat it as probably a male sheep, other sources say it may or may not be male, may or may not be castrated, may or may not be at the front of the herd (or middle or back of the herd). For additional clarification/confusion, let's throw the OED's definition ( Read more... )

Yay! my friend in OUP USA has sent me a copy of Slayer SlangI went to pick up more contraception this lunchtime and came back with 6 months' worth of pills and a 10 year immunity to hepatitis A in a sort of two-for-the-price-of-one deal ( Read more... )

Got my parcel of books from Fantagraphics yesterday, and sat up a bit late with some of them. I read La Perdida book 3 while I ate supper, and Best of Drawn and Quarterly while I had seconds on supper. Then watched Spaced, with the big book of Dori Stories (a collection of all the published stories by Dori Seda) sat beside me in case of lulls. ( Read more... )

On the way back from the loo this morning, I spotted a random glove lying at the OXED post point. It looked disturbingly like a prop glove from a sci-fi childrens' book, with the knuckles and the glove back coated in a shiny hard iridescent material. I suppoose it's only a bike messenger glove, but it was a good start to the day...

In other news, tinyjo ( Read more... )

(I presume this is from the BBC, like their top 100 books list, but it wasn't attributed when I gacked it off various people including whotheheckami, and I can't be arsed to check... The ones I've read are in bold.)

( Science Fiction )