Black Ink

The Puppini Sisters “hits from the Blitz” is on on Wednesday the week at Cadogan Hall.

I know of two tickets going spare, and am trying to help shift them.

Anyone interested?

I let Miranda get at the new iPad. Behold the result of 10 minutes playing with the Brushes app. She is no longer allowed at the iPad.

Just a heads up – if like me, you habitually post a lot of links to LJ, or hell, even if you don’t, you might want to be aware that LJ are now tracking and otherwise interfering with outbound links. There is an easy way to opt out of it, and I have done so, so in theory, the links I post should be tracking-free, but you might want to go swithc this track off for yourselves as well. (Details in the link.) It’s not a vast evil in the grand scheme of things, and I am not about to throw my toys out of the LJ pram – it’s only tracking clicks on outbound links to some domains, but it’s still tedious user-profiling crap, but it should have been better announced, and ideally operated on an opt-in basis.

(Info via apiphile. Cheers for the heads up.)

Just because I know that leaving anonymous comments means you don’t get a notification if I reply – I have replied to all the anon comments left thus far on yesterday’s post, so if you’re curious about what I had to say in response to you (or anyone else) then you can go back and check now.

So, I spend quite a lot of my spare time running, playing, or thinking about running or playing RPGs, and I do have a fair amount to say on the subject, and have been thinking about trying to set some of it down for a while now, and prompted by mindwanders, I thought I might see about getting on with it in the near future.

I am aware, however, that quite a number of my friends don’t have much interest in that kind of thing, so I thought I’d set up a filter for it, so as not to accidentally bore anyone rigid.

So: who wants in?

Don’t take too long to think about it. 15 books you’ve read that will always stick with you. They don’t have to be the greatest books you’ve ever read, just the ones that stick with you. First 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

The House at Pooh Corner – A.A. Milne
The Complete Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
45 – Bill Drummond
Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain
One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night – Christopher Brookmyre
Accelerando – Charles Stross
The Great Shark Hunt – Hunter S. Thompson
Bane – Joe Donnelly
Raw Spirit – Iain Banks
Fucked By Rock – Zodiac Mindwarp
Night Watch – Terry Pratchett
Quantum Psychology – Robert Anton Wilson
King Rat – Chine Mieville
I Was Dora Suarez – Derek Raymond
The Complete HP Lovecraft – HP Lovecraft

Nicking nalsa‘s Variation: that took me six minutes and ten seconds – timing myself made it a bit more interesting. (Also I could have been faster, but I was disqualifying comics.) (I suspect that my inclusion of Kitchen Confidential might be partly due to bleed from his list, but I left it in, because I think it deserves to be there anyway.)

Adding My Own Twist: If you’d like to know more about a book, or what it means to me, leave a comment explaining what you’d like to know about my relationship with that book, and I’ll tell you.

Minimal interest to most of you, but there were a few “I’m interested” comments on yesterday’s post. I’m afraid that when I went to book at around 11pm last night, the ticket site they linked to only had two tickets left, so while I did buy both of them, my spare is going to sparksoflight since she was the one who actually pointed the event out to me, and fair’s fair, after all.

Yesterday’s link yesterday does contain a phone number, if you want to try the box office yourself, and see if it’s just that the site had a tiny allocation. Sorry I wasn’t more helpful/organised/swifter.

Right, leaving to go stand on a plinth for an hour. Those of you who suffer from incurable bordedom and who can’t make it along to Traf Square will be able to see me at http://www.oneandother.co.uk between the hours of 10 and 11pm UK time. You won’t be able to miss me, as I shall be wearing a white suit, to ensure that I don’t accidentally blend in with anything, and to provide passers by with maximum mockery value. Plus, I will have camera and tripod set up.

I am on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square between 10pm and 11pm tomorrow (Monday) night. My plan is to take pictures of the crowd in the square. Which means I need a crowd, and in a perfect world I need the crowd to be interesting looking. So, please, if you’re at a loose end, stop by, and if you feel like dressing up, I’d be delighted.

If any of you feel like re-posting this call for interesting looking volunteers in your own journals, I’d be very grateful indeed.

Can anyone think of anywhere in London I can get an astronaut costume from on very short notice, and for sub 50 quid? I need it this time next week. I don’t mean an average, shitty fancy-dress-party type outfit, I mean something that actually looks within some reasonable mark of the real deal.