My suggestions for the name of the royal baby:

1) Aragorn
2) Rumpelstiltskin
3) Kong, ready for when he becomes King
4) Elvis
5) They should invite sponsorship bids

I've just seen, on ffutures LJ, that Peter O'Donnell has died. He passed away on May 3rd at the age of 90.

http://www.mi6.co.uk/news/index.php?itemid=8545&t=mi6&s=news

He was the creator of the comic strip 'Garth', which I used to read many, many, years ago, but is more famous as the creator of 'Modesty Blaise'. She first appeared in a comic strip; it was superb (approximately 4.7 billion times better than Joss Whedon's incoherent drivel, and original artist Jim Holdaway and his successor Enrique Romero were as far above Georges Jeanty as Michaelangelo was above a blind cave-dwelling neotonous gilled amphibian) but it was when he started writing the stories as novels that he reached his greatest heights.

The first novel was initially written as the script for a movie. The finished film used only one line from O'Donnell's script and it was... utterly abysmal. The novel, however, was sublime. A masterpiece of the spy caper genre - far outclassing the Bond novels. Alas the dire movie tarnished Modesty's image and, although the novels did sell millions, they failed to achieve recognition as the matchless works of genius that they were.

Towards the end of the novel series they deteriorated a little, and the villains became slightly too similar, but even the weakest of them is better than the best of any other thriller writer (except possibly Gavin Lyall at his absolute peak).

It's probably my heroine-worship of Modesty that has led me to specialise in writing stories with strong female central characters. I know none of my creations can ever match her but, if you shoot at the stars, you'll still reach a decent height even if you fall short.

Rest in piece Peter O'Donnell; if there is a Heaven I hope you are there with Modesty and Willie, Sir Gerald, Jack Fraser, Weng, Steven and Dinah Collier, Lucifer, Lady Janet, and Little Krell.

I go away for a week tomorrow - CW and I are combining attending my daughter's Graduation ceremony with a holiday in York. There is Internet access, and I have a laptop, but whether or not I'll be on LiveJournal I don't know. I'm way behind on reading LJ anyway.

Recently my story 'Take Me To Your Leda' was nominated at the White Knight Awards
http://wka.moments-lost.org/nominees.php
Voting is now taking place - if anyone feels like voting for me I wouldn't say no.

Belated Happy Birthdays to redwulf50 and talesofsnape
Happy Birthday to married_n_mich
Finally managed to watch the first episode of ‘Being Human’; it’s very good, although much darker and less funny than I was expecting. I think I’ll wait until after the series finishes before thinking about doing any fic; there are too many things still unrevealed as yet. The night before last I accidentally saw a sitcom that I wasn’t familiar with, ‘Not Going Out’, and it had perhaps the funniest line of any show ever. Also a pun that was worthy of me. I doubt if I’ll watch it regularly but if it comes on when I’m not in bed or at work I won’t switch over.

No comments at all on the ‘Tabula Avatar’ chapter that I put up yesterday? Rather disappointing. If I wasn’t getting a steady stream of rapturous reviews for it at ‘Twisting the Hellmouth’ I’d get discouraged. As it is, however, I’ll keep writing and keep posting. I’m enjoying writing it – although the characters won’t be enjoying themselves. After sixty-odd chapters of Randy & Joan being bit-part players they finally got their chance to take centre stage, in this chapter and the last – and they won’t have liked it one little bit. Will True Love prevail and overcome all? The only way to find out is to read it. Meanwhile, in Faerûn, I’ve spent 5 chapters carefully assembling Chekhov’s Gun and establishing that it is aimed directly at Buffy, Sorkatani, and Xander; it’s a shame that I now have to work for 6 nights, and won’t be able to do any writing, because I’m rather eager to fire it...

The results of the TtH Crossover Awards should be announced today. I’m hoping for a victory for ‘Tabula Avatar’; although it is severely lacking in the Super!Xander department, a major handicap at TtH, and past form suggests it will come second in its class. curiouswombat’s ‘Return of the Key’ also suffers from the same lack of Super!Xander, but ‘Lord of the Rings’ crossovers rarely feature Xander so it might overcome that lack. We’ll find out soon. Of course now I’ve had a sudden idea for a Super!Xander/Galadriel fic designed to win in next year’s awards...

PS: TtH displays random recs when you visit the homepage. One just popped up that I have to comment on. I will never, under any circumstances, read a fic where the pairing is shown as 'Wiffy'. That's nothing to do with not liking femmeslash - it's just that that particular word conjures up an image of the pairing being Pepe Le Pew/Foul Ole Ron.

Belated happy birthday to bookfanatic; happy birthday (and welcome back!) to waywardchilde.

My daughter, who is studying History at York University, received an Amazon delivery of a book ‘Heresies in the High Middle Ages’. This led to a conversation between us about the Cathars and then about the Hussites. In discussing the Hussites she came up with the concept of a Hussite uprising amongst the Daleks.

“De-fen-est-rate! De-fen-est-rate! You will be de-fen-est-rated!”

Belated Happy Birthday (and I hope you feel better soon) to confusedkayt.

What I did on my first night off
I didn’t get much writing done last night. One short ‘Tabula Avatar’ scene in which Buffy slams Talabrae up against a wall and shouts at her, a little choreography of the forthcoming bloodbath fight scene in the Dr. Horrible fic, and some preparatory work for Warren’s involuntary (and catastrophic) excursion into the ‘Tabula Avatar’ game-world. I was distracted by a new ‘Neverwinter Nights 2’ module by a builder who had previously produced a module that I greatly enjoyed. The new one is even better, with a very absorbing story, but his estimate that it would take 11 hours of playing time to complete has turned out to be a drastic underestimate. I’ve spent about 11 hours on it already and it’s obvious that I’m nowhere near the end. Sorry, dear readers, for the delay. Oh, and my back is still sore; easing off gradually but not back to normal yet.

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This
From the current line of TV adverts for Lloyds TSB:

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you could make last night’s dream today’s reality? With a Lloyds TSB loan you could do exactly that. Instantly.”

Hmm. Many of my dreams involve my teeth falling out. Or interminable train journeys. Or interminable train journeys during which my teeth fall out. No, that wouldn’t be nice.

One memorable dream that I had, which has stuck in my mind even though it dates back to before I started working nights, featured me walking to work and having a flock of talking ducks come up to me and warn me that I was going to be late. I can’t see how a Lloyds TSB loan is going to be able to make that one become reality. Not without several generations of genetic engineering of waterfowl, anyway, and that wouldn’t exactly be instant.

I did have a more pleasant dream a couple of nights ago. It involved me and Ching-He Huang, the pretty Taiwanese girl who presents ‘Chinese Food Made Easy’ on BBC2, engaged in naked wrestling/massage in a bath full of cooking oil. Even leaving out the part about Ching-He Huang being simultaneously herself and Sorkatani (I suppose I can see the rationale there) I very much doubt if a Lloyds TSB loan would be much help in making that dream a reality either (and the Wombat would probably strangle me if I took out a colossal loan for that purpose anyway).

Belated happy birthdays to hieispike and chesha03

At work yesterday morning, around 6 am, I took a call from a woman who began “My name is Mrs (Greek surname) and I’m calling from a little country in Africa that you probably haven’t heard of. Malawi.”

Of course I told her “I lived there for six years”, and, after expressing her surprise, she asked if I had known any of the (Greek name) family. I told her that I had certainly had known people of that name, and a Chris (Greek name) had been one of my close friends at school there, but it had been a very long time ago.

She said “I know Chris (Greek name)”.

I said “This was in the late 60s, so I don’t think it will be the same person; the one I knew was probably a different generation.”

She laughed. “I think not. He’s 55.”

I’m 54, and was one of the youngest in my school year, and so it almost certainly is the same person. I told her that and she revealed that he is her brother-in-law!

- - - - -

Tonight I was checking the International Money Transfers done by agents on the day shift. I often find horrible spelling mistakes on them; some of the agents can’t spell ‘bank’, despite working in one! B-A-N-C-K. There was one to a place in the USA called ‘Austin, Texes’. The prize, however, has to go to the agent who was sending an IMT to a country in the West Indies of which I hadn’t previously been aware but that certainly sounds interesting.

St. Titts and Mebis.

I think, perhaps, the agent may have made a boob.

I corrected it to St. Kitts and Nevis, of course, but before doing so I printed it out so that I could show my colleagues on the night shift and the Call Centre manager when he came in at 8 to take over from me. It cracked them up as well. I spent the rest of the night having to suppress sporadic bursts of chuckling and in thinking up a biography of St. Titts.

St. Titts of Mebis; 5th century missionary who tried to bring Christianity to Wales but was martyred by suffocation between the enormous knockers of the druid priestess Gwenafra. Pope Benedict XVI is currently considering de-canonising St. Titts after historians discovered that the saint broke off from his martyrdom twice to go to the bathroom.

Belated happy birthdays to jamalov29, sp23, and treiza. On time happy birthdays to kantayra and jadeleopard

I fell down on the way to work on Thursday night. I’d hurt my ankle the day before and as I was walking briskly – not running, I was in plenty of time – for the bus that ankle gave way under me. I went down like a felled tree. I skinned the palms of my hands and one knee, bruised the knee as well, and ruined the knee of the trousers that I was wearing. My favourites, even though I hate the colour; they’re the only really comfortable ones that I own. I think they’re beyond repair.

Perhaps because of the fall I’ve felt somewhat out of sorts during these days off. My intended completion of ‘Life, Resumed’ hasn’t been accomplished although I still have one night to go and it is just possible that I’ll get it done. I’ve been writing away but what I’ve produced just doesn’t seem good enough. In fact I’ve felt rather down about my writing altogether. I haven’t really been able to summon up the enthusiasm.

But now I’ve just seen something that has fired me up again. mythichistorian has created some delightful artwork for Tabula Avatar and it’s brought the smile back to my face. Find it HERE.

Dear customers

If you get an e-mail telling you that if you don't click on a link and input all your password information your internet banking access will be terminated (or even that your account will be closed) DO NOT OBEY! The e-mail did not come from us. It came from an Eastern European mafia. They will steal all your money.

Frankly, my dear, we don't give a damn whether or not you use your internet banking. If you don't use it for years on end you'll probably forget your passwords but that's your problem. It's no skin off our nose.

Similarly, if you get a letter or e-mail telling you that you have won the Spanish (or British, if you're in North America) Lottery this is not genuine either. Did you enter the Spanish Lottery? No? Then how the fuck could you have won it? The Lottery makes its money through people buying tickets. Not through picking random people's addresses and/or e-mail addresses and then charging them between 8,500 and 19,500 GBP "admin fees" before sending you the millions of Euro "winnings". The letter or e-mail comes from a branch of the Ukranian Mafiya based in Toronto, Canada. They will keep your money and will not send you anything in return. Got it?

PLEASE STOP SENDING ALL YOUR MONEY AND BANK DETAILS TO THE UKRANIAN MAFIYA AND THEN CALLING US IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND EXPECTING ME TO GET THE MONEY BACK RIGHT THERE AND THEN. BECAUSE I CAN'T, OKAY? AND YOU'RE AN IDIOT.

And the widow of the late General Sani Abacha doesn't really need your help smuggling 130,000,000 dollars of purloined oil money out of Nigeria either.

Happy birthday to bookfanatic

I've been extremely quiet lately; it's because I feel so drained after the last 5 nights at work when there were only 2 of us there (full strength is 4). It was very busy as every night was a week-night, so there were no quiet weekends to relax and catch up on paperwork, and it is approaching the end of the month and the majority of our customers got paid during that time. The tooth extraction on Tuesday wasn't exactly helpful.

Consequently I haven't felt up to any writing yet on these days off. I'm just playing 'Neverwinter Nights 2' and that's about it. My energy is starting to return now, however, and I should be able to get back to normal functioning tomorrow. Pity that half my nights off have gone by non-productively.

I was going to post this on Insane Journal, and possibly stick up one of my older fics there, but I haven't been able to log on there for a couple of days. I'm just getting a 404. No idea why.

I've received so many nominations at the Fang Fetish awards that I can't even count them. Thanks to whoever nominated me. I was also nominated, for 'Angel of the Morning', in a really weird category at some awards site of which I was previously unaware but I can't find the notification e-mail now. Again with the thanks.