The Spoons That Are My Ears!

I guess that soon I'll post my 'Review of the Year'...

I don't have to do this, but I want to, strangely enough. I didn't feel the need last year, or the year before: and this reminds me that I've had this blog now for two years. TWO YEARS! That's 5% of my entire lifespan. Gasps, etc.

I don't much care for Christmas but it hasn't been so awful this year. I've managed to largely ignore it, and more to the point it has somehow managed to ignore me. That's a mutual accommodation I can live with. But last night I went to the Uplands Tavern for a seasonal drink. I went with Stuart and we met up with Neil and Kate in festive mood, and Lowri and Rhiannon, and some other guys who I didn't know and still don't. The featured band were awful but it was nice just to be with friends, slightly tipsy, wrapped in scarves against the cold. Lots of fog lately. Huw's cat's claws ripped Stuart's jeans. I am working on my 400th short story. I've finally discovered YouTube and have been immersing myself in some great music videos. Here are my ten favourites so far: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

Pedro Marques introduced me to YouTube by making a sort of film about my visit to Lisbon in November 2005 and posting it... here.

The Greek edition of my Infamy book is shaping up nicely. It differs from the English and Portuguese versions. It is a customised book, with some stories removed and replaced by pieces more suitable for a Greek readership (i.e. stories set in Greece). The idea of customising foreign editions of my books appeals greatly and is certainly the course of action I'll follow from now on. Three of the stories in this book will see their first publication not in English but in Greek. The contents list runs as follows:

* An introduction for the Greek edition
* A note from the translator

A NEW UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF INFAMY
* The Baron
* Zachaire
* L'Olonnais
* Zaharoff
* Lopez
* Turpin
* Henri Christophe

AND SO FORTH...
* City of Blinks
* The Landscape Player
* The Spanish Cyclops
* The Unsubtle Cages
* Celia the Impaler
* Of Exactitude in Theology

BORGESIANA
* Degrees of Separation
* All Shapes Are Cretans
* The Minotaur in Pamplona
* Finding the Book of Sand
* Life and the Plumbline
* The Hemisemidemiurge

* Translator's notes