Ego-Boosts

Sat on the top of Botany Bay, and a small child cycles up to me. Can't have been more than three or four. "Do you live on the streets?" he asks.

"No," I reply.

"Well, you look like you do."

Kids play the hand they're dealt. The beard is relatively kempt. Perhaps I looked a little windswept. But I had just walked there from Reculver.




I'm always twitchy when friends are impressed by my being published. Part of my job, I say, no big deal. On the other hand, I'm impressed by friends being published. That's my mate in The Guardian telling you how to deal with slugs. He is the author of The Little Book of Slugs and The Organic Garden.




Finally an email via Friends Reunited from someone I went to school with and whom I lent Glory Road and Stranger in a Strange Land to in the ... er, mid-1980s. I never got the latter back, which I'd forgotten. But apparently reading Heinlein got him into reading. Coo.

The Wire Series 5

Well, I accidentally watched the final episode today - having planned to save it for later in the weekend. If you've never seen the greatest tv series ever made, it's not a great place to start but set aside a week and work up to it.

( Minor spoilers - actually only on the set up of the series, and certainly not how it ends. But you might prefer to go in ignorant )