A triptych

Bloody summer.
Bloody weather.
Bloody wet.

(no subject)

...the next, the very next time someone leans over me on a train and asks what I'm writing, I shall say "Gay bondage porn, actually," just to see what happens.

Hell, it might even be true.

This time, as it happens, I said, "The rape of Nanking, actually," which is about as true as it comes. If I will practise private activities in a public space - and apparently I will - then of course people are entitled to be curious; but the question is still an impertinence, and they are equally entitled to endure whatever degree of honesty I choose to bless them with.

When the enquirer is middle-aged, though, and just looks blank in a what's-that kind of way, there's really nothing one can do but wave a vague hand and say "Oh, never mind."

*is depressed at General Ignorance*

Livin' it up in Peterborough

So actually I had this really good day away. Took a train to Peterborough, which is the exact right length of journey to read Dislocations from cover to cover (yes, including my own story, thanks: I had to give a reading from it later, and besides, I haven't read it through since submission, so I was curious to know how it worked on the page); and then another on to Huntingdon, where m'friend Helen picked me up and took me to the house she shares with her husband, m'friend'n'publisher Ian Whates. Which house already housed Ian Watson (Ian! Watson!), so there was talking'n'such, 'n'wine'n'such, until we went back into Peterborough for pub-time before the gig. fjm and chilperic met us there, along with fjm's trainer and other people whose names and/or LJ handles I no longer remember, 'cos I'm crap like that; and then we went to the library for gigging.

This was the launch for 'Dislocations', and fastfwd was there to read from her story - joy! - along with me and Amanda Hemingway and Andy West (neither of whom have LJs, as far as I'm aware), and Ian Watson (Ian! Watson!) read from Ken McLeod's, and fun was had by all.

Then we repaired with a small-but-gorgeous audience to the L P Hartley Room - definitely another country - to eat foods and drink wines and be drunken, which is always good; and I sold a few copies of Phantoms at the Phil, which is always good too. And then there was a drive to an Indian buffet in the middle of absolutely nowhere, which was a bit bizarre; and we were the only people in and it was late but they let us eat regardless, which is always good also. And then back to Ian's and whisky and more talking, and so to bed.

And all morning much the same, without the whisky: coffee and croissants and talk, until Ian Watson (Ian! Watson!) gave me a lift to the train, and I came home.

(And in case anyone wonders about the exclamation marks, I should just point out again how impressable I am; and I have been reading Ian! Watson! since I was a teen, since he published a wonderful story called "On Cooking the First Hero in Spring", at which point I fell entirely in love with him because who could not? - and these days he talks to me, and gives me lifts, and I am sooo impressed with myself...)