Cheryl's Mewsings

As you may recall, this year’s Ditmar Awards have a special category for Best Fannish Cat. I’m still a bit peeved that the rules required Australian residency, so I wasn’t eligible, but the nominees have just been announced and I think you’ll all agree that they are very fine felines indeed. The nominees are: Tabby [...]

Yeah, I’m busy. But because I love you lots here are a couple of quick links (with apologies to Twitter followers who have already seem them). Firstly some totally awesome Lego renditions of Escher paintings. Many thanks to MEG for pointing me at them. And secondly the good folks at The Book Depository are running [...]

Goodness knows how relevant these are now, but here we go: – The UK does have loony right-wing militias; – And real Fascists as well; – My thanks to Arizona for giving all Americans a taste of how visitors to their country are treated; – But at least Peter Watts has avoided any jail time; [...]

The apocalyptic plume of volcanic ash is making its way slowly across the Atlantic to Britain. There’s no obvious sign of it here in Darkest Somerset, which is no more Dark than usual for this time of year (though it is still very cold). The news media people are all terribly excited, but thus far [...]

My friend Glenda Larke is in the UK at the moment. Today she had cause to drive through Somerset (very wisely not stopping along the way). During her journey she discovered evidence that Somerset is about to enter the 19th Century. Yes, we are going to get steam trains! Here’s proof. Goodness only know how [...]

In the comment thread for the London video Paul Ewins pointed out that what was missing was London being destroyed by a giant kitten. He’s absolutely correct. So, to put things right… That, of course, is a still from “Kitten Kong”, an episode of the legendary Goodies comedy show. If you have half an hour [...]

Apologies for the lack of April Foolery here this year. It has a lot to do with my being up until 2:00am with Day Jobbery. Other people have been doing a fine job of compiling hoax round-up posts (notably Andrew Wheeler), so I won’t do one here. I will say, however, that the funniest thing [...]

There’s a fair amount of chat around the blogosphere about genre book covers. Mostly I don’t get involved, but when I saw Alex Massie blog about one I sat up and took notice because, well, see for yourselves. The art is by Hector Garrido and you can find a review with a plot summary here. [...]

Because I have spent most of today on Day Jobbery. – Joe Gordon reports on a BBC story about a supposed real-life Glasgow vampire that caused massive moral panic and led to censoring of comics. – Justine Larbalestier has a tribute to the brilliant and sadly missed Alexander McQueen. (Go on, click through, just look [...]

You can all blame Nick Harkaway for this. He found it first. For an explanation (as if you would be happy with anything so mundane), see the Daily Telegraph. So, what’s the caption? This cries out for the LOLcat treatment.

If you needed any proof that the world is a very small place, here it is. I’ve had email from someone in California asking me to drum up an audience for some Scottish comedians (well, one comedian with two hands) performing in Farnham. I speak, of course, of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre (no, [...]

At Clarkesworld we are subject to all sorts of attacks: computer viruses, spam plagues, zombie armies, alien space fleets, and of course evil overlords from parallel dimensions. It is essential that we have defense forces to counter such threats. Overlord Clarke has therefore been busy constructing a Secret Weapon with which to repel invaders. Unfortunately [...]

Other people have already linked to this, but Ben Goldacre’s snark is so magnificent that I can’t resist adding to the traffic. That this pattern could occur simply because one site was on the way to the next was not considered. Mr Brooks has proven, he explains, that there were keen mathematicians here 5,000 years [...]

Via Mary Robinette Kowal I have discovered a short TV program from Iceland that is most definitely not work safe but is very enlightening on the subject of why we should all be having sex with elves.

Dear me, surely this is the sort of thing we expect from the Daily Malice? But no, it is the Guardian Book Blog. They have a post up encouraging commenters to vent about how much they hate hobbits and elves. Of course the headline might be the work of an over-enthusiastic sub-editor. Andrew Brown, the [...]

… some guy pays $330,000 of real money for a virtual space station. Mashable has the full story. Why did the guy spend so much money? Well, the place in question is a giant virtual hunting lodge in which guys with laser rifles get to take down ferocious alien animals. I guess they’ll be paying [...]

As I’m doing all of the seasonal nonsense I might as well go the whole hog. What was I doing this time ten years ago? Writing Emerald City, of course. Issue #52 was out in time for the Solstice, and included my own take on the Millennium, a tongue-in-cheek broadcast from Anglo Saxon Chronicle TV [...]

I have probably enthused here before about the wonderful selections of Christmas music put together by my friend Marc Gascoigne. Well, now that Marco is the Glorious Leader at Angry Robot he’s put together a special collection of science fiction-themed Christmas songs. There are, of course, some right stinkers around. As Marco says, “Santa & [...]

For those of you who like your holiday celebrations to be tinged with tentacles, the excellent John Holbo has been busy once more. See here for more like that below, including a magnificently gibberworthy filk of “The Night Before Christmas”.

Kevin and I are both very tired this morning. We have no idea why. However, breakfast and caffeine should fix that. In the meantime, in the great hobbit tradition of Second Breakfast, I offer up a big plate of link salad. Cyprus and Turkey are at loggerheads over cats The Guardian dishes the dirt on [...]