Significant sums

I was back at the Lit & Phil yesterday evening, to find it transformed by warm red uplights in the gallery and fresh flowers everywhere. Also lovely young people in black, handing glasses of champagne and canapes; and equally lovely people who were on average not quite so young, in smart suits and posh frocks, high fig and high fettle.

The Lit & Phil is launching an appeal. In brief, we need a million quid to save the building, the institution and the books.

If any of you happens to have a million quid to spare, just drop me a line and I'll introduce you gladly. You'd save a lot of people a lot of time and trouble.

Failing that, we'll just have to glean the money in snatches, here and there. I cornered a Well-Known TV Comic (oh, all right: Alexander Armstrong) at the event last night to bully him into volunteering a benefit gig, only to find that he was way ahead of me and full of plans to hook in all his celebrity pals. Apparently I am not the only one to think of these things. Gosh golly.

But barring one person donating a million and/or a small host of benefits yielding thousands apiece, we could still do it if a million people just gave a quid each.

If you want to be in the forefront of the rush, here's your chance: there's a Paypal donation button right there on the front page of the website. Please? (I know there is some way to import the button into my post right here, but I don't know how to do that so you will have to click through. It's okay, it's not far; it doesn't take long. Drop us a couple of quid, and then you can bask all day in the knowledge of a good thing done.)

(Also, you could spread the word. Post the link. Help us find those million souls as generous as you...)

Oh joy, oh rapture

I am free. I am home. Home!

I was scheduled to be at this time just half an hour into a two-hour session with students; but the university had miscalculated my hours and overscheduled me. I am willing to show willing, but not that willing: not for two hours of unpaid contact time. So I have come home. I did walk past the pub and think "I could go in there and get a bottle of wine and take out the laptop and redeem this afternoon" - but no, I came home.

And am sitting here with a glass of wine and a vaguely vague expression on my mind. Don't quite know what to do with this unmetered time: I could get sloshed and veg out, or I could try to knock the novel on from its gear-slipping stuckness, or I could work on the Big SF Idea, or read my f-list and actually respond to a few of my friends, or do something to promote the Lit & Phil appeal, or...

I dunno. But I am free and home, and I do not have to go back to the university till next week. Or ever, if I win the lottery and allow it to change me, such that I go back on my word and break my contract and walk out on my friends and leave good people in the lurch and become selfish and indulge myself. Oh, please...?

A is for Acoloutha, Accismus, Anacoloutha, Acutezza...

It's just like poetry...

Courtesy of frumpo, here's the most comprehensive list of figures of speech that I have ever seen. You of course know all of this already, but for me - well, 'scuse me while I wallow. For me, this is like porn. Word-porn. Aganactesis! Anacoenosis! And I haven't even got out of the A's yet!!