The Spoons That Are My Ears!

Today is the final day of the auction, so the last chance to make a bid!

If you want to be a gladiator in The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange then you now need to make a minimum bid of $51.

For this sum of money, you will appear with six other lucky bidders fighting the author of your choice to the death. Plus you'll get a signed copy of the limited edition book.

To make that crucial bid, please visit the publisher's website. Total money raised so far is $533 and I'm very pleased with this. A big thank you to everyone who has already got involved!

Today's photo isn't really about the gladiator but the dinosaur. The gladiatorial battles in the novel are arranged (and enjoyed) by dinosaurs. They are, in fact, telepathic winking dinosaurs.

To create this picture, I didn't use photoshop or any other image-manipulation software. I simply set the timer of the camera with the model dinosaur close to the lens and then legged it towards the sea so that I was further away (and therefore smaller). It's a pure perspective trick!