Saturday, January 16, 2010

Haircut, come to the bazaar and better sound.

Tunbridge Wells Library has asked me to help out on Blue Monday (January 25). Libraries across Kent are going to be asking readers to slip write cheery message which staff will slip into other borrowers books. I will be in the library from noon until 2pm to advise anyone who is stuck for words. If you're in the area, please come along and say hi -- it's always a pleasure to meet 3BTers.

1. I have a haircut -- my first since before the wedding. I have about six inches taken off. "Your neck'll feel cold," warns the hairdresser. But I feel like myself again.

2. I am really enjoying Echo Bazaar, a strange game (played with discreet use of a Twitter account) about London that has 'been stolen by giant bats', and is full of zailors, devils, poets and greedy bazaar masters. The city's familar places have been renamed things like Veil Garden, Tenebrous, Spite and Quasectomy -- it's sometimes possible to work out where you are, sometimes not. Players deal in rumours and gossip to achieve goals of pleasure, wealth, power and fame. And there are sorrow spiders and Araby fighting weasles. And if you want a friend in Echo Bazaar, follow threebt on Twitter.

3. My blue radio has died, so I move the stereo into the kitchen -- I immediately notice and appreciate the improved sound quality. The voices have acquired a velvetty quality.

Morning, errands and entertainment.

1. I murmur an acknowledging greeting to a passing bin man. He is a well brought-up African and replies with eye contact and a warm 'Goo...