Happy New Year, fans!

In Memoriam (excerpt)

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

- Alfred Tennyson

A special service to our readers

Phone cam recording of Saddam's hanging (via Drudge).

May plenty of others like him (Saddam, not Drudge... well mostly Saddam) find the same fate in the near future.

Thanks a lot, Universe

It's gone and done it to me again.

Given me a cold.

For the third holiday in a row.

I had a cold when I went to the US this summer, came down with one while in Prague in October... and now I've had to cancel my trip to Marseille tomorrow. That's not bad luck, that's a cosmic conspiracy.

I'm sniffling and sneezing and coughing. My joints are aching with fever. Bad, bad universe!

Christmas comes again

Christmas is multiorgasmic this year (and if that image is not enough to ruin the rest of the holidays for you, then I haven't done my job properly).

Not only did I buy the latest semi-autobiography by Bill Bryson today (titled "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid"), but when I got home I found a huge parcel on my doorstep. I unwrapped the several layers of packaging with greedy, trembling hands to uncover my precious loot: A leatherbound, signed copy of "The Absolute Sandman", Volume 1. It contains the 20 first issues of Sandman and it's absolutely brilliant in every way.

Guess my pupils will have to wait another week to have their papers and tests graded, muahahahaha!

Christmas comes early

Those (poor souls) who know me, know that I have a somewhat strained relationship with Christmas and all things related to said holiday. I'm no Christian and I don't share a smidgeon of the ideological basis for the celebrations. And I have nothing but scorn and contempt for the contemporary hoopla surrounding it.

Still, I'm a great believer in pampering myself (don't - for the sake of your own mental health and that of your children please don't - take the expression literally, much less attempt to envision it!), so I went browsing in a bookstore in Oslo today. And lo & behold, what did I find but new books by three of my favorite writers! My grubby, little hands are currently clutching copies of the following: "Fragile Things", a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman, "Wintersmith", a new Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett and "Blue Shoes and Happiness", the latest installment in the thoroughly enjoyable "No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series by Alexander McCall Smith. As if that wasn't enough I also got an illustrated Pratchett book called "The Art of Discworld". Throw in a very cool looking book called "Historical Atlas of the United States", and you can imagine my mental state at this moment. In addition, I simply forgot to buy a new semi-autobiographical book by Bill Bryson that I saw in the shop, so that's also waiting for me down the line. Life is goooood!