Firstly, Happy Birthday tanac . Secondly, I'm home again. We made it inside minutes before the thunderclaps and pouring rain, so I'm going to call that good timing. Figures are from memory and...my RMT on Friday, which should help a great deal. Even if it didn't, the trip was more than worth all the little inconveniences. More to come after some laundry, thinking time and wrist recovery

Nous sommes arrivé à Montréal. We intend to stay for about a week. Obviously, I have internet access, but I may not be checking much until I get back home. In peripherally related news, I passed by my...school, where I was in beloved French immersion from Grade 1 to Grade 3, and it looks like it is going to be demolished shortly. For a variety of reasons, this makes me a bit sad and wistful. Sigh

...time thoroughly awake, so make coffee at six and go to bed with ExMemSec (during pain, we sleep apart - that way he can get  sleep).  I expect him to be sleepy (he is), so I take new book with me: Farthing by papersky .  At nine, I drag myself out for more coffee, and to make bacon butties (Not Allowed, but I am Poorly).  At eleven thirty I give up wrestling with TimeMap , and go back...

I just finished reading a very good book in one sitting. It's called Farthing by Jo Walton and it was literally unputdownable. I tried twice but both times within 10 minutes I was back on the couch engrossed. Here's my Amazon review: Farthing is an alternate history novel of England, similar in timeframe to SS-GB but with one big difference: the English and Germans had come to terms in 1941...

Type of Book: Science Fiction, Alternate History, Murder Mystery Main Character(s): Lucy and David Kahn, Inspector Carmichael Amazon link: Farthing Farthing is an alternate history novel of England, similar in timeframe to SS-GB but with one big difference: the English and Germans had come to terms in 1942; the Continent had been left to Hitler and England to the English. In this novel, it's...

...5 pence    $   2.25 Penny = 1 pence      $   1.50 Half Penny (ha'penny)     $    .75 Three Farthing piece = 3/4 Pence   $   1.125 Farthing = 1/4 pence or a quarter penny   $    .375 twelfpenny - 1/12 of a penny (tw'penny)   ...

Lively discussion on papersky 's journal : http://papersky.livejournal.com/328991.h tml

But I am going to do a reading from my story published in Farthing on Wednesday January 31 at a pub called The Nell of Old Drury, Catherine Street, in front of the Theatre Royale in Drury Lane. From 7.30 onwards, upstairs. Well, it's me and other nice people, and it coincides with the publishing of number 5 of Farthing, and the fact that there are a seizable number of Brits in this issue. There...

Not only is my story After the Reformation: Interviews with the Grammarians (Selected Extracts) appearing this month in Farthing issue 5 (apparently due to be published on Friday 26th)... but I'll also be reading it aloud at an event in London on the 31st. Other Farthing writers, including Andrew J Wilson , Anna Feruglio Dal Dan, and Charlie Allery will also be reading their stories. The details...

I was reading Farthing in the Pret in New Bridge Street, right after coming off from work and eating a wonderful Pret croissant (the best in London that I know of) and drinking mocha, and I looked up when it was time to go and thought of David Khan's conviction that Englishmen are too decent to descend into fascism. I thought he was wrong, but I looked up at my London and couldn't concieve of it being...