bohemiancoast

The last locked apps have now been unlocked; so if you were waiting to get the bundle, it's probably worth getting it now. As well as the 14 apps for $39, you can spam all your friends on Twitter and thereby get two more apps free including the stonking Delicious Library 2. (There is of course nothing stopping you creating a special Twitter account just for this -- but I think MacHeist is such a good deal I actually want to make sure all my Mac-using friends have got it). There's only a bit over 24 hours to go. NB: their server is getting a mite hammered at the moment.

I never, ever, do this. But elisem has a sort of project going, and I thought 'I can do that'. And just in case I'm wrong, I'm posting before reading any of the others.

( Nine Things About Oracles )

That would talk about, oh, all sorts of things, and what it is we do when we write, and the various ways in which things can be interpreted, and how bad we tend to be at examining our various preconceptions and beliefs.

And I concluded that it would do no good at all. But here's the thing. I'm clearly not reading enough excellent new sf and fantasy written by and about people whose cultural background is radically different from my own. (In case you don't know me, I am a white middle-class English mother who has unhealthy obsessions with traditional music and small shiny gadgets).

Recommend me some. Encourage others to.

OK chaps, we're all going to the Worldcon! Remind me what I should be nominating for the Hugos?

Marianne has worked out she can nominate The Graveyard Book. And the latest Twilight novel.

We had a cool, overcast day with no rain, which is nice. To recapitulate, my targets were (a) to finish, and (b) to at least jog a little. My stretch goals were to (c) Not be Dead Flat Last and (d) to break 20 minutes. (This is for a single lap of the outside pavements of St James's Park; 1.1 miles in total. The more serious runners did two laps.)

So, how did I do? I did quite a bit of jogging, and I was not last. My time was 18:08. It was good fun. We have a possible plan to do a 5k in the summer. Ish. First goal; to run for one more week (carrying on with my every-other-day training runs), and then buy running shoes.

I raised £45 for OGRA through my lovely LJ friends; thank you very much indeed. The four of us running from this team also raised a similar amount in the office. The sponsorship link is still active if anyone meant to sponsor me but forgot or didn't see it earlier.

So, Marianne was discharged from hospital, and we've all just finished up our pancakes, it being Pancake Day. I heard Steve Roud lecture recently, and he mentioned that the English have amazingly few food traditions (pancakes and Easter eggs being the main two). But pancakes are properly ancient.

She's currently holed up on the sofa watching The Complete Will O' Th' Wisp. She also has a question for you all --

Are there any other authors like Norman Hunter?

We went over to Evans Cycles at Spitalfields in search of a new bike for me (mine was stolen late last year). The shop purports to be the largest bike showroom in London. Today it had loads of bikes, nearly all on clearout, exactly one of which fitted me. I explained that I'd owned a small frame mountain bike to which we had added semi-slick tyres, and they happened to have exactly such a bike in stock. Completely rigid, which I like in principle and which keeps the weight and price down; it will obviously be harder off-road but by comparison felt absolutely fantastic on the test ride, even bearing in mind the pothole-encrusted nature of London streets.

It's weird; it looks like a special order for someone that was returned, and then hung around the warehouse for a bit before being knocked down to an outrageously low price. GT Zum 4.0 (probably in fact a 4.0 R which is I think the model number for the rigid version, but it's hard to tell, because I can't find any description of this bike with these components online), in a metallic grey. And I paid, oh, less than half my planned budget for a new bike.

I also needed a new helmet (they say you should change them every two years, and mine is about eight years old), so I celebrated the bargain bike by buying an insanely expensive helmet.

By the time I got home it was cold, dark and wet. So I will have to wait for another day to take it out.

No running today; rest day. Morris instead.

Does anyone have an mp3 of the Kipper Family's Seven Deadly Sins (or even a 30 second sample of it) that they can send me sometime in the next 40 minutes?

I don't know if this is old news, but I haven't seen it anywhere else. We've just had an email from Philip Turner, Harry's son, to let us know that Harry died on Sunday 11 January. He was 88.

Philip suggested that we -- and no doubt you -- would be interested to see the tribute page he is putting together.

Harry was one of my very favourite fan artists.