Monthly Archives: November 2003

8) Ersatz Nation by Tim Kenyon. Another one of the ones sent me for review by Infinity Plus but I think I need to rant here about it before writing something more sober. The main character’s lover gets kidnapped by … Continue reading →

Back in April I received the following amusing message from a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly from one of the small Unionist parties: I NOTE THAT YOUR COMMENTS RE ASSEMBLY ELECTION IN [constituency] STATE THAT THE [party deleted] SEAT … Continue reading →

It’s been a heck of a week. apart from the dismal result of the Croatian elections and the revolution in Georgia, the peace process in Moldova went into meltdown on Tuesday (completely unreported in the Western media as far as … Continue reading →

Georgia: Good. Croatia: Bad. Northern Ireland: wait and see.

7) The Separation by Christopher Priest – excellent stuff, dopplegangers, altered timelines and the second world war, as if Philip K Dick had been English and sober. Website – 120 predictions of the election results now – whew!

So I went into work yesterday, hoping to clear the paper on Georgia that has been hanging around for too long off my desk. I expected that the opposition would fail; the paper was written mostly before the 2 November … Continue reading →

If you go to http://www.thisdayinmusic.com you can find out what was at number one in the charts in both Britain and the US the day you were born. In my case it’s “Somethin’ Stupid” for both sides of the Atlantic, … Continue reading →

According to http://www.paulsadowski.com/birthday.asp: I was born on a Wednesday under the astrological sign Taurus. My Life path number is 8. The Julian calendar date of my birth is 2439606.5. The golden number for 1967 is 11. The epact number for … Continue reading →

First real kiss: Deirdre who grabbed me at a school disco. Nothing came of it; she was going out with someone else at the time. First job: Got a pittance on a Northamptonshire archaeology site in autumn 1985 during my … Continue reading →

Received an email just now: Dear Nicholas We look forward to seeing you at our Breakfast Meeting tomorrow morning (19 November) with the Foreign Minister of Andorra, Mr Juli Minoves at the Xxx Hotel, Brussels from 08h00 to 09h30. We … Continue reading →

6) Double Star by Robert Heinlein. Read it on my Palm Pilot thanks to getting the electronic version at Fictionwise. Of course it’s The Prisoner of Zenda with spaceships, but I was interested to notice just how much of the … Continue reading →

5) Why is Sex Fun? by Jared Diamond – still no really satisfying answer to the question of why men don’t lactate, except that we don’t.

A few years back I was at a talk by Misha Glenny, who is best known for his writings about the Balkans. He waxed lyrical about his childhood discovery of the Balkans through Tintin’s adventures in Syldavia, particularly in King … Continue reading →

3) City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer – excellent, though I now realise I have only the short version. City narratives are always great (China Miéville being the most recent specialist; I finished reading this book in Vienna, … Continue reading →

Well, managed to find the new printing of Christopher Priest’s The Separation in the American bookshop, so not a complete waste of time… Actually that’s a bit unfair. I’d given up on this conference last night, but this morning’s session … Continue reading →

I resolved a week ago that as a Celtic New Year resolution I would record at least the names of the books I read as I finish them, along with maybe a thought or two about them. I was working … Continue reading →

After months of work in what I laughingly call my spare time, the great elections website update is complete, and more than a dozen people have already tried predicting the election results. It’s really just a sad little hobby but … Continue reading →

You are Giles "You should never be cowed by authority. Except, of course, in this instance, where I am clearly right and you are clearly wrong." What "Buffy" Character Are You?

Of the four members of the Queen’s University of Belfast team in University Challenge back in 1994, three are Alliance Party candidates in the coming Assembly election: Kathy Ayers in West Belfast, Pete Whitcroft in Newry and Armagh, and Stephen … Continue reading →

Back in the spring of 1998, when I was sort of half way between jobs in Banja Luka, I set up a website dealing with the 1998 elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. I’ve just finished the more or less … Continue reading →

I’m trying to get all my Livejournal friends’ locations plotted on a map – please add your location starting with this form.Username:(Then get your friends to!)