New book!!
My friend B is wonderful. We’ve had a bit of a tradition that she organises my birthday present months in advance, and in the past she has taunted me with this for said months. Not this time, though, so opening a package to discover Borges and the Eternal Orang-utans (by Luis Fernando Verissimo) was a delight. She did the IB, and had to read Borges, which she didn’t really like; I borrowed it from her and loved it – absolutely loved it, and I can’t think why I haven’t gone out and invested in more of his stuff since then. Anyway, it’s perfectly apt from her to me.
I can’t wait to read it… I haven’t heard of the ‘Eternal Orang-utan’ before, so whether this is an invention of Verissimo’s put into John Dee’s mouth, or not, I am not sure… but if it is Dee’s original, I wonder if this is where Pratchett got his idea of the librarian being turned into an orangutan from?
Tricolour Alpacas
Who knew they came in three colours?

Books read in the last three days…
More as a remnder to myself that I really must post more substantial reviews, I read The First Crusade on the weekend – at last – and last niht finished My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult. Not at all my normal read – am doing it for a programme at school – but it certainly surprised me….
Sadly… another fish down
This time, it’s the sole remaining Algae Eater. He, admittedly, has had a white patch on his bck, which has come and gone… it looked like he was losing scales, but I was never sure what to do about it, or whether it was actually a problem. Of course, I’m still not sure, but there you go. He died.
Dead fish
I’ve lost three fish in the last week or so – two widows and a neon tetra. Bit sad. I think, I hope, that this is only because they’re getting old… we’ve had them for a while now. Haven’t seen any problems with them before death, anyway.
Delano R Franklin
…is one of the cleverer names I’ve heard recently in a story. This is from “Paradox and Greenblatt,” written by Kevin J Anderson, from EscapePod (episode 74). This was a very, very clever story – well worth streaming or podcasting!
Triffids
01/10, it looked like this…

On 06/10, it looks like this…

Growing Like Mad.
And the roses too… should have flowers pretty soon – they’re covered with buds. Yay!
Laces old and new
Stoopid old red round laces…

…lovely new brown flat laces

And new boots, to boot! Thanks Mum…
Quinn Nathan Jack…
… was born today! Hurrah! Congratulations to Zoe and Mark – how exciting!
Interesting poetry allusions
On the news tonight, talking about Tiger Woods doing well, the title of the piece? “Burning bright.”
Mahahaha.
