Daily updates will resume later.

 

Down another bit today.

Here are some cranes

It was just over four years ago that I mentioned The White Mountain, the eighth of a projected twenty books in David Wingrove’s expanded, edited and republished epic future history, Chung Kuo.

After that, it went a bit quiet, as the publisher, not happy with the volume of sales, pulled the plug and declined to produce any more of the series. Wingrove promised that the series would return, but nothing seemed to be happening. But what’s this? It’s back! I somehow missed this when it appeared in October[1], but as soon as I realised it was available I hit the “put this on my Kindle NOW” button, and here it is. It’s now being published by David Wingrove’s own company, so this time there shouldn’t be any cancellation issues. The previous eight volumes have been reissued in paperback and Kindle form, so you can catch up if you missed them earlier.

And things are continuing to develop – this being a kind of “middle of the series” volume, it’s more about consolidation, slowly drawing threads together and characters than major plot developments, but it’s very readable, and likely to leave fans twitching until the next one appears.

One thing to note: there’s a problem with the Kindle edition where a chapter appears at the end of the book (after the usual appendices) instead of in its proper place. This may cause confusion – I’ve reported the issue, and I’m sure other readers have too…

[1] Amazon didn’t shout at me for some reason

Down again to a new low for the year. And indeed a new low for, err, well, I’ll have to borrow a phrase from weather forecasters and say that today’s weight is the lowest since records began at the start of 2004. Now there might have been some records from late 2003, but I seem to have trashed the relevant file at some point, so we can’t look at that.

This is a big floaty thing[1] on the Wear:

[1] Technical expression

Back down a teeny bit today…

Just along from yesterday’s Martian invader, there’s another alien thingy by the Wear:

Again, they claim it’s “art”, but we know better, right?

Back up a bit today, which makes a change after all the dramatic drops…

I had a trip out to Sunderland today, for a visit to the National Glass Centre. I saw some really nifty glass-based art in the Young Glass exhibition and enjoyed a demonstration of glass blowing, which was also nifty.

As I was in the vicinity, I had to check on the Martian War Machine that’s still lurking under the Wearmouth Bridge:

Down by what’s probably a temporary anomalous wossname today. And yeah, that is yet another instance of being down again to a new low for the year.

This is another one from my archives

 

Down another bit today, and yes that means down again to a new low for the year. I’ve just had a look at my spreadsheet, and just for comparison (with the usual stuff about different scales, etc) the lowest weight I’ve recorded since starting this was on  27 September 2005, when I was  197.4 pounds (14 stone 1.4 pounds, 89.5 kg). Can I beat that? We shall see…

And on an unrelated note, here’s a view of Durham

Well, well, well, etc. Down again to a new low for the year. And, while adding all the disclaimers about different scales giving different readings, the weather in Aberystwyth, and anything else you can think of, that’s the lowest recorded weight since 2005.

All of which is probably making your jaws drop as wide as this:

No change today…

Here’s one more of Tynemouth Priory: