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There's an interesting interview with KJ Bishop up on Charles Tan's website. I look at the picture she links to and can see where The Etched City came from and suddenly the gulf between the first section and the rest of the book makes sense.

On a more personal note, I want to be distracted today. This isn't the fault of the interview. In fact, the interview is a symptom. I suffer from magpie gaze.

My eyes just lit on one of those old copies of the Strand magazine I so like, and it announces boldly that it contains CS Lewis and Dorothy Parker and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. It's going to cause problems, those four in such a small space. I bet they argue. I blogged about it when I bought it, but I never resolved that potential for argument.

I need to know what Parker has to say about it all. Getting to her thoughts is slow, though, and fraught with interesting obstacles.

I must first stop and read the advertisement that calls "Where's your magnesia smile, uncle?" Which has to be science fictional. (I'm not sure I want to read a short story on magnesia smiles.) Or maybe I need to buy myself an Accurst Watch. Oh, it's an Accurist Watch - why would I want one of those?

Flick, flick and my magpie eye lights upon something else.

I'd be lying if I said "... but I've got a tin of NESCAFE!" What I have is a tin labelled Community Coffee which is thankfully not (as this proud advertisment tells me) "a soluble coffee product composed of coffee solids, with dextrins, maltose and dextrose, added to retain the aroma." There is truth in advertising, but it doesn't tempt me to buy the product. Nor does the gentleman saying "I prefer NUFIX" - he is the well-groomed evildoer from a mild horror movie, with his hair neat and vegetable-oiled. Maybe he's one of those vegetarian vampires? His picture is right next to an ad that is about razor smiles.

It's times like this when one needs Dorothy Parker. Or a good SF novel. Or both, with pages read alternately. Except I have to wait: this is a Christmas issue. The science fiction is CS Lewis with "A Christmas Sermon for Pagans."

Don't nitpick. Just because he didn't write it as SFnal doesn't mean I can't read it that way! - it's illustrated by Ronald Searle, after all, and those illustrations mainly consist of an angel being abusive to a poor little demon. Mervyn Peake has also done some illustrations in this volume, which almost makes up for the fact that Parker and Olivier and Leigh were quoted, rather than wrote anything. Sometimes the truth in advertising is marginal, it seems. I knew this, but had forgotten it. That's the trouble with a bird brain.

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Today's inbox had lots of baby pictures. Welcome to the world, Alec and Lily. And thank you, their four parents, for sending the photos. I don't think I'll be able to do baby visits for a little, so they were a very welcome sight.

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Apparently there's a Jane Austen Festival in Canberra next year. It's a busy week for me, but I'm looking forward to talking food. Evilly yummy recipes from Austen's time. In fact, some of those evilly yummy recipes are from Austen's family.

The question is, should I cook a few more Austen family recipes, just to prove I can? The other question is whether this should replace decanting unlabelled liqueur (possibly bullace - but all the labels have merged with my books in a very romantic fashion - they will emerge one day, proudly showing off dustball offspring) as my evening's special acitivity?

Actually, it doesn't have to. My family recipe for liqueurs is identical to several I found from Austen's time. I merely have to think ladylike and ironic thoughts while decanting.

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The beginning of the end of historical fiction covers where body parts are lacking or heads are partly cut off. Maybe the worst of those book covers can be recycled as zombie fiction? Anyhow, I like this new style of cover, even if it means I don't get to imagine strange growths coming from the missing top-of-head or left side.

ETA: if Elizabeth Chadwick sends a posse after me (I was definitely in Evil Gillian mode when I commented on her blogpost), one of my nephews wants my library. He has to drink all the bullace liqueur to inherit the books, though. Bullace, it appears makes a slightly medicinal flavour liqueur. Maybe I should take it to my next booklaunch "Buy my book or you have to drink this." Medlar or cherry, those are both magic. Plum is good. Bullace is very slightly challenging.