RECENTLY ACQUIRED: CD/DVD/GRAPHIC NOVEL

This is the super deluxe everything but the kitchen sink lavish expensive £25 plus change (pre-ordered, the price has since gone up by £7) edition. It's the remastered orginal album, the alternative & unreleased & live stuff, and the DVD which includes their Live Aid show which I vividly remember. I'm playing the main album as I type and it's wonderful. But then I'm, as you probably know, a big fan of U2, well the earlier stuff. Though I have most of their later albums, it's the early period I prefer and in recent months I've been picking up the special, but not super deluxe, 2-disc editions of Boy, War, October, and The Joshua Tree.

It's all magical stuff. Bono may sometimes come over as a prat but he has one of Rock's most distinctive and effective voices. The Edge is a genius on guitar in terms of what he does with them and the rythm section is first rate. When you add a string of heartfelt anthemic memorable songs and brooding mysterious slower ones, there is nothing else quite like it in Rock.

I haven't seen this yet but I'm really looking forward to it, a sendup of -well I don't need to spell out that, surely?- set in Mongolia in the 30's which has garned rave reviews from all over the place and the trailer I saw looked pretty damn good. Gonna watch it tonight.

Of course I have the original comics but this is one of those I've decided to have in a nice edition. This one, just released, is the first of three in a deluxe edition. This means it's bigger than the standard hardback from DC but not by half the price as fancy as the Absolute editions. I'm working on an article about Alan Moore for this blog and cover Tom Strong in detail so I'll save any further comment until then.

BARRY: NOT AGAIN

In a recent post I mentioned my friend of 50 years, Barry Spence, who had to go in for heart surgery. The day before it was cancelled. A week later he was back at the Freeman hospital to admitted on the Tuesday with the operation on Wednesday (yesterday). It was cancelled because of a heart transplant.

He hopes that next Wednesday will be third time lucky. So do I.

BOOK / GRAPHIC NOVEL/ DVD: JUST ARRIVED

Death Note was an impulse buy because it was cheap and sounded fun. It also turned out to be part 1 of what is really a 4-hour movie based on a popular manga series -which I knew anyway. While it isn't quite as good as I hoped, I ordered part 2 just to find out what happens. It's a much darker piece than I was expecting as the protagonist who writes the death notes turns out to be a complete and utter psycho rather than an anti-hero and at the end commits an action so vile that you completely loathe him.

Here's the Amazon review I wrote for Madame Xanadu: Disenchanted. Strictly speaking she should be called Mademoiselle Xanadu as she isn't married -as far as we know.

This is one for regular fans of DC and Vertigo. Madame Xanadu is a minor but long-running magical character from the DC Universe. Now, courtesy of talented writer Mat Wagner (Grendel, Mage, Batman, etc) and the talented artist Amy Reeder Hadley (who is unfamiliar to me but has an attractive indvidual style) Madame X is brought into the realms of Vertigo which also happen intersect with the DC Universe.

What we have here is an origin story which spans around 1300 years and involves close encounters with The Phantom Stranger (who would appear to be her nemesis), The Demon, Neil Gaiman's perky Death, Zatara (father of Justice Leaguer Zatanna who happens to be a close friend of John Constantine), and finds herself involved in the Jim Corrigan incarnation of The Spectre and in settings which include Camelot, the Mongol Empire, Revolutionary France, Victorian London (just guess which historical character is the focus, and I doubt if you'll be surprised), and America on the verge of entering the Second World War.

All of the first ten issues are included making this a good value package and worth picking up. To be completely honest though, it's really a three and half stars rating as the stories aren't quite as satisfying as they should be. There's something about them which just doesn't fully work and, thinking about it, I feel it's the constant going round and round in circles with The Phantom Stranger. However as that seems to have been resolved by the end, future issues (if it isn't cancelled before its time as so many Vertigo titles are) should see an improvement. The art is consistently good.

Worth a punt.

It's self-explanatory what the computer book is and why I bought it. Windows 7 is still stable since Friday and shows no sign of destabilising, though it does have a disconcerting habit of going into hibernation very quickly but restores easily. On a similar note I've also ordered Dummies Guide to Office 2007.

COMPUTING: WINDOWS 7: THE STORY CONTINUES.

Yesterday morning when I switched on the computer, Windows 7 would not work. Cue more furstrating attempts to get it installed again and, eventually, I did. Later on that day it shut itself down because I hadn't used it for a while but actually successfully rebooted itself.

This morning I went swimming at 7.30, got back around 8.20, released the kitten from her cage, fed and cuddled her. Then I went to Newcastle to pick up Planetary 27, the final issue of an excellent comic (and the only issue of a comic as opposed to graphic novel that I've bought in years) which appeared only 3 years after the previous one and to be honest the previous issue would have made a more fitting conclusion. O also bought two Astro City trade paperbacks which I didn't think I had. Turns  out that the hardback of one is sitting on the shelf not three feet from where I'm sitting. Well, it was. When I checked on Amazon I discovered I could flog it for around £35.25 which, even after Amazon's cut, means I make a small profit on the cost of the two books and get to keep the tpb. Smooth!

So I came home, played with the kitten, cleaned up her diarrhoea from the carpet, ate lunch, locked the kitten in the cage and went upstairs and, with a deep sigh, switched on the computer.

And Windows 7 started up.

If the same thing happens again tomorrow I might just start to suspect I may have a stable system but I'm not counting my chickens just yet. Maybe next week, if it keeps on working, I might try to install Perfect Image 10 and reinstall all my files and software. We shall see.

COMPUTING; WINDOWS 7 HAS ARRIVED

 

Windows 7 arrived yesterday and it took me until mid-morning today to get it installed and working. Pain the arse? Yes. Big headache? Yes.

Having Vista, I first attempted an upgrade installation but when that didn't work, I foolishly went for the full install. I say foolishly because the same problems occurred. Specifically constant crashes, aborts and reboots. This went on for hours until it finally did a reset and went back to Vista.

I settled for that and tried again this morning. This time it seemed to go better and get farther before it crashed yet again. Yet I bravely -hell, what choice did I have?- persevered and eventually did get it up and running. I even managed to install -and very easily I should add, Norton Internet Security Suite 2010. Then I tried to install Perfect Image 12 Backup Suite in order to reinstall the copy of the hard disc I'd saved onto an external hard drive and got the same fucking problems installing it as I had the first time -see my review on Amazon, if I don't reprint it here; ditto for Norton.

I've decided to pass on it for today and settle for what I've got which is at least a pc that works. This particularly is by no means ended.

MUSIC: THE GRATEFUL DEAD: TO TERRAPIN

I know, I said I'd stop buying live Grateful Dead albums. Hell, I've even winnowed out my collection and sold a couple on Amazon Marketplace. But I just couldn't resist this one.

Not cheap, but not expensive either. 3 discs with a running time of around 2hrs50mins. The period is the run-up to the release of the studio album Terrapin Station (a good one), hence the title of this album as the Dead tried out a number of new songs with audiences. This set (from the Hartford Civic Centre 28th May 1977) came at the end of the tour when they should have been knackered but delivered a spot-on performance. I've only actually listened to half of it so far and it is pretty good.

But after this, no more new Grateful Dead albums. Honest. Really. I mean it this time. I mean, it's not like I'm a real Deadhead. So, this is the last one. I mean how many versions of Good Lovin' and Wharf Rat do I need...

GOOD LUCK, BARRY

My friend, Barry Spence, is taking a few days off from whatever it is he usually does to hang around in the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, to have a heart valve replaced. So this post is just to wish him luck.

Incidentally, the photo isn't of Barry. Amazingly, considering I've known him 50 years (from our first day at Bede Grammar in September 1959) -half a bloody century, I don't have a single photo of him on my hard disk and I couldn't find one of him on the Net either. Hell, even I have photos of me on the Net, albeit not usually posted by me (except for the ones on this and my cat rescue blog). I thought everyone in the world had their photos on the Net.

Barry, you're slipping.

(Oh, and the photo is of his big idol, the late film music composer, Jerry Goldsmith who, I'm sure, is wishing Barry good luck from wherever he is right now. Hi, Jerry!).

GRAPHIC NOVELS: ABSOLUTE V FOR VENDETTA, ABSOLUTE PROMETHEA VOL.1

T

The following are two reviews, both rated 5 stars, reprinted from Amazon UK.

I would say, as an assumption, that people who buy DC's expensive Absolute editions do so because they want a definitive edition, printed on good quality paper, in an enlarged hardcover with dustjacket and slip-case, and extras such as introductions, unused unseen art etc, of their favourite comic books. I know I do and can see, from where I'm sitting typing, Absolute editions of 'Crisis on Infinite Earths', 'The New Frontier', Dark Knight, Batman: Hush, the four Sandman volumes, Ronin, and now V for Vendetta. I'll get back to this in the second half of the review.

V for Vendetta is, along with Marvelman/Miracleman, the first of Alan Moore's major works in the field of comics. It was begun at the time of Moore's early feelings of unease at the UK's ruling Conservative Party and concluded when those feelings had coalesced into outright disgust. Like the best Science Fiction, the best comics reflect concerns of the time in which they were written -and, yes, I'm aware I'm bringing together a genre and a medium- and V for Vendetta is political Science Fiction. In his introduction, written in 1988, Moore expresses his anxiety for the immediate future becoming a Conservative-led right wing intolerance as Margaret Thatcher forsaw a Conservative Britain into the next millenium and mentions that he's considering leaving the country. In the event, the Conservatives barely lasted until the middle of the 90's and Britain stands proudly, for all its flaws, as one of the most liberal, open. and tolerant of western societies. If you just limit this to England, I would argue, on evidence, that this is the most liberal, open, and tolerant of western societies. And Alan Moore is still ensconced happily in Northampton which, he argues, is located in the very centre of England.

Yet, perhaps surprisingly, V hasn't really dated at all and its fear of fascism remains eternally valid. If you doubt that, then I refer you to the racist outpourings of the British National Party. V remains one of Moore's genuine masterpieces, erudite, compassionate, insightful, obsessive; all enhanced by David Lloyd's sympathetic distinctive 'realistic' artwork (with its echoes of British black and white weekly kids adventure comics) which is possessed of a great clarity and enhanced by a subdued colour palette. Perhaps what is even more amazing is that in the era of Ronald Regan, DC published a comic in which the hero is a psychotic anarchist whose intention is to destroy the existing social order.

Now, as for this edition, inevitably given the widely known dispute between Moore and DC, there is no new contribution by Alan Moore. A shame as it would be fascinating to read but, as I said, inevitable. Compared to other Absolute editions -the four Sandman volumes are packed with them, Crisis on Infinite Earths required an additional book- there is relatively little; a few sketches, a couple of reprint pieces by Moore, the inclusion of minor material previously printed in only Warrior magazine, panels blown up to full page pieces, all very nice but doing little to enhance the original material. Not that it matters as this is a beautiful edition of one of the masterpieces by Alan Moore the greatest comic book writer ever. How could you resist?

Before I leave you, I'll just mention the soon to be published Absolute Promethea vol.1. This is a work which I feel will grow in reputation and I'm looking forward to receiving my copy of this, one of Moore's most optimistic works. I'm not expecting any new contributions from the Great Man but I do hope to see lots of gorgeous unpublished art by the brilliant J H Williams. I'll let you know.

In my recent review of the Absolute V for Vendetta, I wrote that Absolute Promethea vol1. would be arriving soon and I'd let you know what I found. And here it is, two months sooner than I expected.

And it's extremely disappointing in terms of it being an Absolute edition. Usually these things are packed with extras. This has none. Nothing at all. And I'm not counting an introduction by Alan Moore (of the fictional history of Promethea) which probably (I can't honestly remember but it won't be original to this edition) appeared in an issue of the comic, and neither am I counting the one page afterword by Brad Meltzer. I was hoping for additional artwork by J H Williams 111, preparatory sketches and all that stuff. Nothing. Total disappointment. Maybe it's being saved up for the next two volumes. I can only live in hope.

And now for the good news.

The illustration on the box is of Promethea (there's a surprise) but printed in gold and it looks gorgeous. The cover on the book (no dustjacket, no big deal) is a wraparound by Williams and looks original to this book. The artwork inside benefits immensely from the larger format and the high quality paper. It is absolutely gorgeous and I'm quite prepared to state categorically that I believe this to be best illustrated of all Alan Moore's comics work. This isn't to denigrate any of the other artists who've worked with Moore. Moore has been very lucky in his career to have been able to use for his major works (with odd exceptions such as some issues of Miracleman) artists who have fitted his vision to perfection. But Promethea is just bloody beautiful.

This is appropriate because the story itself is an exciting, colourful, mysterious and hopeful one. I'll be sparing with the plot summary as I don't want to spoil anything for those discovering Promethea for the first time through this edition. Essentially: young student Sophie Bangs becomes the latest incarnation of the supposedly mythical Promethea (who, trust me, is not a Wonder Woman clone as thought before this series originally appeared). First, she has to survive the attention of magical enemies and then learn just who and what Promethea really is. The journey proves as unexpected for the reader as it does for Sophie.

For me, Promethea is one of Moore's finest and most imaginative creations and despite the lack of extras, this first book of three comes with my highest recommendation. This ranks with Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and Lost Girls to make an essential quartet of graphic storytelling.

RECENTLY ARRIVED: BOOKS: SCIENCE FICTION

The House of the Stag is a sequel to an earlier episodic comic fantasy of Baker's which I enjoyed very much and, therefore, couldn't resist this one.

The title, The Empress of Mars, deliberately harks back to the interplanetary Scientific Romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs which began with A Princess of Mars. But that is all, because Baker is too wise and too well aware that times have changed and what we have here is a 'realistic' depiction of life on Mars set within the context of her Company series of novels. I'm just over a third of the way through and, as I expected, it's great fun, full of strong characters and dry humour.

I've read Norstrilia before, many years ago when it was split into two Pyramid paperbacks. Here, Nesfa Press (see the Zelazny collections in recent posts) have brought them together to form a definitive edition, along with various pieces of text which originally linked the separate editions and with an introduction. It's an excellent publication and the perfect accompaniment to the definitive complete collection of Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality series. 

Nesfa Press does do more publications along these lines but alas of authors in whom I have far less interest such as Poul Anderson,a competent writer from the Astounding/Analog era and a little beyond but whose time I feel has gone. Smith and Zelazny's works, however, still retain their vigour and their magic and writers like Anderson and his ilk just aren't in their league.

COMPUTING: MICROSOFT OFFICE 2007

As part of the general complicated cock-up when I got my new superduper pc from Mesh, I ended up losing all my pre-installed software which included MS Office. As I couldn't afford to buy another copy at the time I went for the free Open Office software of which I'd seen a number of good write-ups. While not exactly a mistake, I just could never really get to grips with it and things I could find easily in Office (although I'm really talking about Word here as that's the program I use most) I had to dig for in O.O. if I could find them at all. Finally after tearing my grey hair out over it one too many times, I decided to buy a copy of MS Office.

I scouted around until I found what seemed to be a bargain -cheap price and included all the Office programs. Catch was, it was for students only. Fair enough. So I bought it for my nephew Alex who has just started at Hull University. Alex, being a kindly soul, allows me to use it when he doesn't which, him being in Hull and me being in Sunderland, is so far most of the time.

I hadn't actually used the 2007 version before and was used to the pull-down menus so the new arrangement when you clicked on a heading to access a different toolbar was a bit strange for about five seconds but I soon got used to it.

It's like coming home. Microsoft comes in for a lot of flack but I just love Word. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best piece of software for the home user ever. It's also nice to have Publisher, Powerpoint and Excel again for the options they provide. I'd recently designed a new version of the Animal Krackers leaflet on O.O. and it was a sod to do.

My next big adventure in computing will be installing Windows 7 which I managed to pre-order when it was briefly being offered for £40 and change. Having got my hands on a, genuinely, free copy of Paragon Drive Backup I'm feeling confident there won't be any problems in restoring all the data and software into the W7 environment.

I shall let you know.

CATS: TIGER

Tiger April 2006-7th October 2009

She was found on the front step at 8.15 this morning. She had been hit by a car and was bleeding heavily from the  mouth. Twenty minutes later, she died in the vets surgery before the staff  could do anything to help her.

TV: TOO MUCH SCIENCE FICTION?

When I was young SF on tv was rare. I remember watching the original series of Quatermass & the Pit which scared the wits out of me and then a few short years later, the very first episode of Dr Who. Now, there's so much it's impossible to watch it all, not that anyone in their right minds would want to do so.

I doubt if any SF writer ever even imagined that there would be an entire tv channel dedicated to Science Fiction or that it would be called, deep shudder, SciFi (damn you Forrest J Ackerman) or that there would be an even worse name -Psyfy. But there's even too many relatively decent new series to watch.

Fringe is now just about to start its second series and I'm still in the process of watching the last few episodes of the first. I wasn't too sure of it at first with its echoes of The X-Files but as the series went on and it began to develop the sub plot of a sinister conspiracy which believed in a war against a parallel world and that the heroine might unknowingly be linked to it I found myself warming to it. I was also warming to its lead Anna Torv as the often solemn FBI agent and two other key characters of the mad scientist (literally, he's just out of an institution) as his sarcastic estranged son. I'm still not a huge fan but I keep watching it.

Flashforward, after just two episodes, looks like being the new hot SF series. It manages to blend personal stories with a deep mystery and a conspiracy. The cast is good, the characters already stick in the mind, the script and direction seem sound and its the one new series I really look forward to.

Starting tonight with two episodes back to back is Stargate Universe on Sky. I'm not a big Stargate fan having watched on the occasional show and none at all of Stargate: Atlantis, but the buzz is that this is Stargate for people who don't like Stargate, so I've set my Virgin Media box for record. The reason I'm not watching it live so to speak is because it clashes with Holby City which wins over everything except going to the pub.

If you broaden your definition of what constitutes SF on tv then there's also True Blood starting on Channel 4 after a run on FX. I already have the American (Region 1) DVD of the complete series and it's brilliant and does qualify as SF for its clearly set in a parallel world.

On BBC on Saturday evenings there is the second series of Merlin but I wasn't keen on the first and won't be bothering. Ironically I preferred the much panned Demons on ITV. Good news that Primeval will be back for a fourth and fifth series, albeit truncated ones and not for well over a year. I always found this an engaging piece of light entertainment with likeable characters. And only a few short months to the new series and new Doctor Who.

Good times, good times.

BOOKS: ROBERT BLOCH -SHOOTING STAR/ SPIDERWEB (Hard Case Crime, 2008)

Not read yet, this is actually one book with two novels doubled-backed in the tradition of those wonderful Ace Specials. This is particularly appropriate as these two Hollywood noirs were originally published by Ace in 1954 & 1958 as Ace doubles but not, obviously, together.

It would be very easy for me to get hooked on collecting these Hard Case Crime books as it's the sort of crime fiction I love. But I won't; I spend too much money on 'rubbish' (quote, S. Hardy) as it is. The occasional title, just now and again, you understand.

IAN HAS A NEW BLOG

As of today, any posts about animals will appear in my new blog, the unimaginatively titled Cat rescue, Sunderland, which you can find here-

http://catrescuesunderland.blogspot.com

It includes an archive of all older animal related posts  from here. So, from now on, this blog will focus on the popular culture side of things.

SCIENCE FICTION: THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ROGER ZELAZNY VOLS 1-4 (NESFA PRESS 2009)

If you are going to produce a complete collection of the short stories of one of Science Fiction's greatest writers then this is the way to do it. These are the first four volumes of a 6-book series, with the final two due to be published next year. They are printed on high quality acid-free paper with a cover by Michael Whelan with each volume progressively revealing more of one long painting packed with allusions to Zelazny's work. The spines also match up to appear as one single image which looks great on the bookshelf.

Apart from the stories, there are introductions by other writers, notes by Zelazny on each story (and poem, for they are there too), notes on the stories by the editors explaining various references, essays by Zelazny, plus a variety of other material '-curiosities'-, unclassifiable bit of Zelany writing- original publication details, biographical and autobiographical pieces. It would be churlish to criticise this book for putting too much in, though not everything will be of interest, though that point should be noticed. Although I like the poetry of Zelazny's prose, poetry itself is not something I have much interest in.

The stories.

They appear in order of publication which is not synonymous with the order in which they were written. I was amazed to learn that the story he wrote first was A Rose for Ecclesiastes  but which he held back from submitting due to his being insecure about science already making the story implausible. As if that mattered! Some of the stories have never been collected before but that doesn't mean they are bad stories, rather they are minor ones in the Zelazny canon though this is not synonymous with 'without interest'. A few are collaborations.

I tend to think that Zelazny works best at novellette or novella length and there are many examples of this including the original magazine versions of The Dream Master as He Who Shapes, and This Immortal as And Call Me Conrad, plus the stories which make up the My Name Is Legion sequence, and many more.

Some authors improve as they get older. Sadly, this wasn't the case with Roger Zelazny. He exploded into action in the 60's and, I'm afraid, never bettered, or even matched, his initial splendid outpourings. He maintained a high standard, of that there's no doubt, and it's arguable but plausible that his later short fiction did reach a higher level than that of his later novels which were, by the standard of his earlier works, a touch pedestrian. No matter, these stories were, are, and will remain a high watermark of Science Fiction.

This is simply an amazing work which, for various reasons, partly, no doubt, because NESFA is a small press associated with SF fandom (many of its publications include chapbooks by/about worldcon guests of honour and produced for the annual worldcon) is not available in the UK from Amazon, though specialist dealers would probably be able to get copies. I paid around £23 including postage from Amazon.com and they are worth every penny. This is a magnificent achievement of publishing. NESFA have done the late author very proud indeed and provided a service to his many fans. The editors -David G. Grubbs, Christopher S. Kovacs, and Anne Crimmins- surely deserve some kind of recognition at the 2010 Worldcon for this labour of love.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Post Script

It appears that as of today they are available, albeit not actually in stock,  from AmazonUK for around £17.00. Go get them.

I have also submitted this review to AmazonUK.

ANIMAL KRACKERS AT THE BANGLA DESHI CENTRE, SUNDERLAND

Now why, you're wondering, in the first place would we be at the Bangla Deshi Centre and who, in the second place, is we?

We, is me and Andrea. Why, is we was asking for money.  Let me explain...

There's a government funded local group called Back on the Map which is a quango with the aim of improving life in the Sunderland areas of Hendon and the East End. It does a lot of very good work, part of which involves promoting the area. One a year they allocate relatively small sums of money to groups which provide some form of service to the area which is where we come in.

Animal Krackers is well known in the area and a lot of rescued animals come from here such as Lulu the kitten. This year we put in a request for £1800 which would provide 5 places at Ferryfarm Kennels for a year and stray/unwanted dogs from Hendon would be guaranteed a place. One such dog can be seen sitting on my knee in the photo below about an hour after it was taken away to its new fosterer. The dog is a Jack Russell, a ratter by instinct and likely to chase small animals. It proved to be terrified of cats as I discovered when I had to drag it past one of my cats which was sitting just inside the front gate.

The format of the meeting is that each individual group gives a maximum 5-minute presentation. Each group is fit into one of 4 categories -Health & Fitness, the elderly, ethnic, and 'small sums' (our category). A varied amount of money is allocated to each category and is voted on by 50 volunteer judges from the area. However, as I've just found out from Susan a few minutes ago, the voting is overall and not in each separate category so it's possible that none of the groups in a particular category could be voted any money. This is obviously not a good idea and clearly I'm writing from hindsight as I found out some disturbing information after writing the following two paragraphs.

And it's held at the Bangla Deshi Centre which, despite the name, is open to all and is a very active centre.

Usually Susan and  Andrea we do it but Susan had to be at a meeting about her mother and I was the obvious replacement being articulate, confident  and charming. You do recognise that description of me, don't you? One slight problem, until the day before, Andrea was away for the week. Susan dictated an introduction which I typed and modified. I then wrote my piece about Lulu and Grace and brought it all together in the conclusion. Andrea emailed a piece a couple of days before which I then edited, cut, rewrote, etc until the whole thing pretty much worked. Given the 5-minute limit, I was still doing minor revisions an hour before we were due to arrive.

Held in a large hall arranged into the audience in groups of tables with up to six at a table, and the supplicants arrayed on either side of a wide table along one wall. With over 20 groups and allowing for technical hitches this would, I thought, take a long time. As it turned out, only one group overran and no-one minded as it was to support a group of prepubescent would-be cheerleaders who, while their young female presenter was excellent, were pretty terrible but all the more charming for it. Quite a few presentations were over in a minute or less and we were on last.

We had brought three display boards packed with photos of Hendon animals we'd rescued and put it in front of the table. Holding the microphone close and wearing my Animal Krackers t-shirt, I gave the introduction about why we were asking for money and what we did. I passed the mic to Andrea who then cited examples of Hendon dogs we'd rescued referencing the relevant photos. Back to me for brief stories of Grace and Lulu and I then wrapped it up by explaining that if we got the money for the dogs if would have a knock-on effect in that we would not be placed, by limited funds, into having to choose whether to provide either veterinary care or a kennel place, in effect, condemning an animal to an uncertain future. I may have imagined it but I thought we got a substantial applause when we finished.

Strange thing is, despite being shy in a social situation where I'm not on familiar territory or with people I know, I have no problems at all about talking to a large group, concerns that I might fluff lines or lose my place, yes, but I don't feel nervous at all. It would also seem that this is not a delusion on my part as several people mentioned how confidently I came over.  Andrea and I agreed that if we didn't get the money it would be because the judges had other priorities rather than any weaknesses in our presentation or content.

We then networked the various tables for about three quarters of an hour until lunch arrived, ate lunch, and, deciding we'd done all we could, left.

In a nutshell: we got the money we asked for.

However, Back on the Map shot themselves in the foot. Because it wasn't voted on by category, none of the groups in the ethnic section got anything and the organisation is in turmoil and accusations of racism are flying around. Susan even offered to donate £500 of the money we'd been given to one of the ethnic groups but we weren't allowed. I feel sorry for BOTM because they are a worthy organisation but they've screwed up big time and I hope they can this mess sorted. It's rather soured our win as I do feel the ethnic groups haven't had a fair shake.

And that's it, no real wrap up, just life, man.