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Fnaar, fnaar
Been fixing some plumbing. Don’t ask.
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A League of One’s Own
In a feature-length episode of Rosemary and Thyme titled The Memory of Water, I wrote a scene in which one of the characters – a fully-qualified anaesthetist, and like everyone else in a ‘tec show a potential suspect – explains over coffee in her kitchen a number of suspicious-looking phials that she keeps in her…
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Autograph News
Issue 25 of Graham Groom’s Autograph News UK is now out, and here’s another snippet from my interview therein: I’ve got one last thing to say about autographs, and it’s a general point. Only ask if it means something. There are people out there who compulsively harvest signatures from people they neither know nor care…
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I Want it All, and I Want it Now
In today’s Independent on Sunday Andrew Johnson writes: “The Large Hadron Collider, which took 20 years to build and cost £3.6bn, will not be able to unravel the mysteries of the universe for at least another two months, scientists announced yesterday.” His tongue was in his cheek when he wrote it. I sincerely hope.
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Curse You, Candy-Coloured Clown
I had the weirdest dream last night. Dreamt I couldn’t sleep. Woke up knackered.
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That’s One Bad Horse
If you haven’t caught up with it yet, today’s the day to catch all three parts of Joss Whedon’s online musical Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, with Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day. It gets off to a slow start but it’s witty, glorious, and sweet. After tomorrow it’ll be taken down and you’ll…
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What the Filk
Got to share this… Every now and again I used to walk 200 yards up the lane to my village local where I’d meet with a bunch of fannish mates who, once a month and in a more central venue, constituted the core of the Preston SF Group. PSFG meetings were open to all; the…
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Characters that Stick
“Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you into a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon and his sympathy had no warp.” When I was fifteen, I thought that writing couldn’t get any better than John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. I thought that no ensemble could ever be sketched…
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Why Libraries Matter
According to The Guardian, several publishers are planning to put recommended age ranges on the covers of their children’s books. It strikes me as an earnest but dumb idea. How do you categorise Enid Blyton, whose continuing popularity depends on children whose reading age is racing ahead of their emotional maturity? How do you keep…
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Last ITV Viewer Located
Read the story here.