Went for a walk.

One of the benefit's of living out in Wylam has been the decent walks immediately on hand, a benefit which goes tits up the minute the evenings (and soon enough late afternoons) get dark. Moreso right now because all of the surrounding fields have been ploughed up. Went out briefly tonight, had a wonder through some woods, got the shit scared our of me several times by some birds, scratched my hand, got stung by nettles, muddied my shoes, nearly hung myself on a weird bundle of metal wire in thicket, and almost ripped my coat climbing a barbed wire fence. Marvellous really.

I then found myself in a field, right next to my house, and because I'd never actually been in it before (which is weird, now I'm thinking about it) I didn't realise it was my house at first. Got the crap scared out of me (again) by a couple of deer, who jumped out of the long grass and pelted away, little orange buggers. Then I turned around, realised it was suddenly quite dark and I had about quarter of an hour until it went all "don't go out on the moors".

Took the opportunity to listen to some of the Silmarillion whilst wondering, lets just say it works better as an audiobook. The levels of incomprehensibility are somewhat reduced by Martin Shaw's narration, and walking in woods similar to those I imagine Tolkien composed much of his mythology in does help. There was a very peculiar moon this evening as well, which was nice, it looked like one you get in the prettier anime films. I tried to take a picture but it didn't come out well.

Thought for the day: fuck, the Beatles did all that in eight year?

A diet drink I would consider.

Things.

Good news: Stephen Fry, it seems, has finished a book, which is always something to look forward to. The Hippopotamus is still his best, but for how long?

Bad news: Keith Waterhouse, aka the man who gave us the Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe (not to mention Billy Liar), has died.

Envious news: Neil Gaiman has let some internet types photograph his basement library, and quite unfeasibly huge it is too. Smaller but sexier is his second library (in the same house), where he keeps his reference books. Wow.

Petition for a posthumous apology to Alan Turing.

Worth a look, really. Seeing as the poor man, who should be a national hero, was chemically castrated as the only alternative to prison.

From the petition.

Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think.

He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a 'cure', and took his own life, aged 41.

The British Government should apologize to Alan Turing for his treatment and recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany. And an apology would recognize the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man's life and career.