Apparently I have a book that is eligible to be nominated for the Nebula, for those with sfwa membership.
Apparently I am now a shameless self-promoter.
If it helps, I am in fact deeply ashamed and appalled that I dare to post this. But apparently it's the done thing.
It is quite a good book, though, I think.

Many Happy Returns to glass_mountain.

I shall be off to Wales in a few hours to the celebrations for richardrampant's birthday. Back on Sunday.

Happy Birthday and the best year possible to follow to miintikwa. You deserve lots and lots of good things in the year ahead.

I am up-to-date on cleaning, the reviews' column for Vector is done and I ahve the remains of a glass of red wine.
All to the good.
Skirt of the day: purple linen

http://www.emergencytea.co.uk/base.htm

Thank God someone's taking care of this, chaps.

Trevor and I went down to Taunton this morning - we haven't been to Musgrove Park for over a year, but the local hospital managed to fluff his last appointment and they directed him down to the main hospital instead. Anyway, he saw a very nice specialist, whom we haven't met before, who says that everything looks fine and they are very pleased. They're putting him onto 6 monthly appointments.

After this we went up into the Quantocks and took the dogs for a walk in the beech woods, which despite an increasingly high wind were still filled with leaves of that peculiarly intense gold that beech seems to conjure. We met three ravens, tumbling in the raving sky, and Lily put up a flock of pheasants (most!fun!evah!). Then we had lunch in the Blue Ball at the bottom of the hill, soon apparently to be celebrating its 400th Christmas, and in spite of oncoming rain, took the dogs briefly onto Kilve beach - high tide thundering in and the Welsh coast only dimly visible. We also picked a lot of field mushrooms (for the concerned, they are definitely field mushrooms, not anything nasty).

Via BoingBoing: Eleven Myths of De-Cluttering

Some of these I've never really run in to (e.g. #4 - that's what charity shops and eBay are for) but those ones are more than made up for by the ones that I do in spades.

I was in Wells today, and had to collect something that would, they said, be an hour. So I went into the cathedral - mainly, I must confess, to look for Xmas presents in the shop. There was an Armistice service on, and so I went to it - quite a number of people from local regiments and their families. It was a short, crisp service featuring the last post etc and ended 20 minutes later. However, from the point of view of an occultist, rather than a Christian (it may well be from a Christian point of view as well, but I can't say), these moments of silence possess a resonant power and serve to connect you to your country and your people in a way that other rituals often don't. The magical community of Britain used silence and prayer throughout the war (cf Dion Fortune's account of the magical battle of Britain), as a magical act.

My father fought in the Mediterranean theatre, across Egypt and Lebanon, ending up at Monte Cassino. My uncles and grandfather also served. We are not a military family: everyone was a conscript and my father does not have a high opinion of the British Army. He does, however, consider it to have been a just war, given Nazi atrocities, which is more than one can say for the ones we are now involved in.

There was a remarkable article in the Observer on Sunday about the conflict in Rwanda and the peace and reconciliation committees, about a society being rebuilt in the aftermath of a truly horrific civil conflict. I can't now find the link, so would be grateful if anyone can supply it. It detailed how people could live alongside the neighbours who had slaughtered many of the former's family members -a fragile, almost surreal peace, which I do not think I would be capable of sustaining, personally.

I can't remember at all where I was when the Berlin Wall came down but I do recall being somewhat surprised, as I spent a summer in Berlin in 1988. It was at a centre in Wannsee, studying (of all things) cad-cam systems, an area in which I took no further personal interest, and my participation had been organised by the AI department at Sussex - I think it was some spare Euro money and a whole bunch of students were sent over, from the US, and all over Europe. The only other girl on my part of the course looked exactly like Claudia Schiffer but had no conversation and all the boys gave up on her after a few days and hung out with me and the American lesbians on the Feminist History module instead, who were a lot of fun.

We were just down the road from Glienicke Bruecke, where, IIRC, they used to exchange prisoners. The garden wall backed onto the actual Wall and the wooded nights of Wannsee were occasionally broken by bursts of machine gun fire as the East German police roared up and down on motor bikes. We couldn't swim, as there was a large sign just off the lake shore that informed us that we were 'now leaving the American sector,' in several languages. I bought a pair of shorts that said the same thing.

We visited East Berlin, the first (though not the last) time I was to visit a Soviet country. I remember the 1950s shop windows and the little Trabants trundling around, a big difference from the Mercs and glossy boutiques of the western city. We also went to the galleries and clubs of Kreuzberg and did a lot of cultural stuff, including a memorably awful evening at the opera where some avant-garde Italian composer's latest work was premiered. He'd been to talk to us about it the night before, and no one understood a word of it (it was in English). At the actual performance, half the audience walked out in the interval. I remember the composer sitting with his head in his hands, while fur-clad German matrons stalked past him.

A great, if fractured, city. C and I went back some years later and it was completely changed. I hope the inhabitants on both sides consider it worth it, but I know for a fact that some people don't - missing the culture rather than the senseless levels of repression, I think.

With some regret, but less than I anticipated, I've decided to withdraw from NaNo for this year. I lost several days at the start due to being away and jet-lag, but the real killer seems to be that that this new book simply can't be written that way. I have the daily writing habit, but this book needs careful structuring and the fast-and-dirty approach isn't helping it. So I'm going back to my steady plod, giving myself time around the edges to work on the revision of Grass King and on the long-delayed Sekrit Projekt.
Apologies to those I'm letting down. I'm in awe of your diligence.

Over on witchcraft_shop Trevor has posted about this morning's mist, one of the first cold mists of this autumn. We walked the dogs out on the Levels - the Tor was invisible and the water meadows were waterlogged with the run-off from the flooded Brue.

We went over to Burnham last night for the firework display, which was somewhat belated due to a technical hitch - the poor fireworks team had obviously spent a shed load of money on a new computer system and at the last moment it failed to work. So they were obliged to lay a half mile of emergency bell wire down the beach. The results were suitably spectacular, however. Afterwards we went for Chinese food. I love the whole Bonfire season, the sea mists and smell of gunpowder - we used to visit Lewes when I lived in Brighton, which features blazing tar barrels run through the streets. Now, we just have carnival to go on Saturday, and then it's the run up to Christmas.

I am currently at fjm's cat-sitting Ms P.

Laptop Computer. n. A device that a Food Monkey uses to indicate an urgent desire for attention from a CAT.

Mug of Coffee. See 'laptop' but more so.

Feline CPR. Urgent efforts to resuscitate a Food Monkey presumed DEAD because it has gone back to bed after feeding CAT at 6.15 am.

This:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/05/angostura-bitters-shortage
is very disturbing.

I seem to be back home in Cambridge after the excursions and excitements of the last twelve days. The cats are cautiously pleased (although Mooncat is sulking, because desperance was only here briefly). The marquis is pleased and I am hugely pleased to be back with him.
I had a good time at WFC, and many many people were welcoming and friendly. klwilliams is a fine hostess and her new house is lovely: deborahjross went out of her way to take us to see redwoods and to meet her husband and cats and dog and see her wonderful garden. I got to meet a number of people I know and like here in person, which was splendid.
And I did buy a new skirt. I blame Chaz and Karen and stillsostrange. They made me do it...
And I wandered about the dealers' room and chatted to people, and went to a couple of parties (I'm not good at those and probably hung back and was awkward), and drank cocktails because they were cheaper than wine (groliffe, the bar in the Fairmont is still every bit as eye-wateringly expensive as we remember it from Conjose), and hung out with Amanda and Stephen and tried to lure them to come and live in the UK, and ate Afghan food (delicious), and disorganised but tasty Vietnamese food with the lovely Ellen and Delia and Chaz, and watched with amusement as Chaz charmed his way about the con collecting adoring fans with every word, and got into trouble due to my tweed miniskirt *yet again*, and had a lovely lunch with Nice Editor and aberwyn and lots of other stuff.
It was good, though I missed the marquis a lot.
And it's good to be back, too.
In other news: am shockingly behind on NaNoWriMo (less than 100 words.... Will be good next week), due to con and then to sleeping through much of yesterday.

Oh, yes: and the hotel nearly flooded. I was nowhere near Green Room, I swear, and neither was the leak (it was the swimming pool and it almost got the Dealers' Room. They had to get out Really Big Vaxs to cope).
Skirt of the day: blue flouncey.

Pictures from Sci-Fi London's Oktoberfest event at the Royal Greenwich Observatory the Friday before last. Full set here.

Whilst no Tory, I can only approve of a politician who directly tackles crime in the capital*. Maybe the Captain Britain team could set Boris up with a pair of tights and a phone booth? By day, mild mannered bumbling mayor of London. By night, iron-bar wielding crime fighter...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/03/boris-johnson-saves-franny-armstrong

*I also have a soft spot for anyone who uses the term 'oik.' Shows you what an Eton education can accomplish. Psmith would be proud.