Welcome to my perfumed garden

Your goodbye was dignified, graceful and moving.

( Twitter's (rather predictably) on fire... )

No doubt this one will run and run, but I have an appointment with Chuck and a very stiff drink

ETA: It's official. Cameron's PM. oh bugger.

The leader's in the debate is fascinating.

But as usual, Twitter rules for the laughs.

via Twitter.

Would you like a DVD released for The Goodies 40th anniversary? If so, plz to be signing the petition.

In other news, I would like to commend to you all, the Hot Cross Beer currently on special offer in Morrisons; spicy, intense, highly unusual and very, very yum.

Dara O'Briain is currently tweeting to Ed Byrne about some slashfic he's been sent featuring the two of them.


"Ed threw his cigarette down and stubbed it out with his foot, his eyes leaving Dara, just for a second. Only a second, though"

I'm not posting the link. It's really poorly written, loads of clumsy "Irish" references e.g. "Looking shyly up from his pint of Guinness..."



And I find myself wondering, who amongst you is responsible for this outrage against taste and decency? No one's going home till the culprit owns up.


@daraobriain and @edbyrnecomedian - if you're on Twitter and feel the need.

The Marmarati (Marmarati) is now following your tweets on Twitter.

Should I be afraid?

From Jason Arnopp via Twitter:

Muswell Hill, chewing gum art, turning the yuk into the astonishing.

I pass on some future awesomeness from Step-Hen Free. Praise Be The Tweet.

I'm trying to start a new novel but being mightily distracted by Twitterer @alun_vega sending minute by minute reports of watching the filming of Doctor Who. It's riveting, almost hypnotic...

Work on The New Novel delayed by indecision on which novel to actually write, a sequel to Entanglement or teh one about a stranded-alien-living-at-the-seaside one. Such a quandary-stroke-dilemma.

wot I found on the electric interwebs.

6 writers who accidentally crapped out masterpieces.

Why oh why does SF never get the Booker?

Well, they tell me it's Saturday. I suppose they could be lying but then, why would they bother, you know? But then the Met office said it would be sunny and they lie! for it is darkly grey and ominous and suspiciously warm.

A sleepless night after a tiring week has left me a well-knackered bunny. I had planned to use this day wisely and well in printing out the 3rd draft of Entanglement and doing that all-important 4th edit but I'm mildly scared I'll find that it's wall to wall shit now it's been sent to an agent and then worry. Why do that to myself, I cannot help but ask? Also the continuous interruptions - water meter man, post men, couriers, an itinerant hedge cutter - have done nothing to help my resolve to stare at the wall work on the book.

So, all of the above plus the aforementioned tiredness and my natural inklination to idleness leads me to endlessly peruse Twitter, t'internet and my current crop of reading, some self-chosen, some chosen for me (and for which I shall have to write reviews alas). For the bookly minded, these be:

Breath, Tim Winton. Surprisingly readable and really good.
Makers, Cory Doctorow. Frighteningly long.
Day After Night, Anita Diamant. A review copy and not my cup of tea at all ('Extraordinary true story', internment, Polish Zionist, Holocaust! run away, run away!!!) but I shall do my duty and hope (but not expect) to be pleasantly surprised.
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield. Been wanting to read this for ages but work keeps getting in the way.
Vineland, Pynchon. Ditto.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, Tom Ronson

Tea now, I think. I'm currently working my happy way through a box of Twining's Lemon Grove which I hadn't had before and is surprisingly delicious. It tastes of lemon Opal Fruits which can only be a Very good thing. New Californication on the box tonight, also a repeat of the Robbie Coltraine, John Sessions Boswell thingum.

In short, life is currently pleasing me in a sound and goodly way, I hope she is doing the same for you, too, my esteemed and doxilicious flist. Here, have a sprinkling of pink sugar-dusted, sparkly cherry-vanilla kisses. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Whatever Mark's using in the bath, it smells bloody awful.

ETA: Too good not to share (Caution, contains Dan Brown).

That the estimable Mr. Stephen Fry is in LA filming another episode of Bones.

Dear god, I wish he wouldn't. It's such a painful caricature, a Mary Poppins Englishman, the cultural-assassination  equivalent of blacking up and singing 'Mammy'. It makes me cringe, deed it does.

And where's the new series of QI? 6 months since they filmed it and I say, is this what we pay our license fee for? It's an outrage, it really is.