Our beloved Panjandrum has been updating his website again.

Go to [www.jasperfforde.com] for some fascinating thoughts on writing LIAGB.

There's also a link off the Grand Central page to 'Whatever Next'. Which is a hurry-up call if ever I saw one. Isn't it, team? Team? Hellooooo?



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Is it me or do the page backgrounds not line up with the text?

Fascinating read though. Like it a lot.

NarrativeDeviceSwipery#3: The Monkey's Paw. Few people cannot have read this masterful short story by WW Jacob where a sinister monkey's paw has the power to grant three wishes, mirroring a powerful dramatic irony which has been the mainstay of countless tales throughout the ages: 'Don't wish for something too hard, you just might get it!'

________________

I don't know the short story, but i've seen the Simpsons treehouse of Horror episode inspired in it quite a few times!
:-)

Jon, I think Ben's been really busy so he hasn't had a chance to get it all together yet. As soon as he does, I'll translate it into HTML and we'll be ready to roll!

And Mr. Fforde has been putting more of our stuff in the Reader's Contributions pages, including some of Ben's I don't recall seeing before.

I'd seen all mine before, of course. I think.



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Erm, by Friday?? I'm getting there, honest...

For anybod wondering, Whatever Next is looking good. It just isn't looking anywhere near 'finished'. I proise to get it finished by the end of the weekend at the very latest. Honest.



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

two different promise dates all in one post! Are you sure you're not the Ebay merchant who's been promising me to send the cat tree I ordered for almost 2 months now?
LOL

A "cat tree"? Is that a tree which produces feline fruit? (c.f. the Medieval belief about the origin of Barnacle Geese)

Erm, Carla, I always thought the moral of 'The Monkey's Paw' was "Be really, *really* specific about what you wish for, otherwise a maliciously humoured higher force will give you a head shaped like an orange, or like, whatever the heck it was"...

One of my chums once played the foundry's solicitor in a stage adaptation of 'The Monkey's Paw', and amusingly summed up his part with the phrase, "Your son's dead - have some money!"

Re: Cat trees - any relation to mug trees? Are they a polypodous kitchen item for people to hang their cats on?



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.

Incidentally, Simon, that wouldn't be Lancing as in Lancing College, in West Sussex, now would it?



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.

The people I bought my first house off had two vile Persian cats, property of the female half of the team. While helping them move out, I found a cat tree (which is, I think, a sort of activity centre for moggies). I asked the male half what I should do with it; "tie a couple of cats to it and chuck it in the cut," was the suggestion.

Don't think he liked those cats much.



- - -
I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Yes, it's Lancing College... I work here, as the laboratory technician for the Chemistry department. What leads you to ask... Were you a pupil here?

Yes, well, Persians are a little problematic. This is mainly because the poor creatures are so inbred they can only just work out which end is supposed to do the miaowing. Give me a moggy any day.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

And I'm a laboratory technician in the Physiology Department at University of Michigan.

Checking entroposcope - nope, the rice and lentils are still evenly mixed.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Oh, you're *that* Simon!! I'm Howard's son, you may remember me from such classes as "Chemistry, 1989", and "Chemistry, 1994"...

Truly, this website does more than most to separate the rice from the lentils.



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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.

Is this a Simnpson's reference, per chance?



PSD

==========

This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Yes, I remember you.

Aren't cat trees those wooden objects that you insert into your cats to make sure that they remain in the same shape while you are not wearing them?


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sometimes I wish they were....oh sometimes! (just cleaned up a very large box of things that were spilled by rambunctious cats while trying to get into the window after pulling down the lace curtains...)

Don't talk to me about inserting objects into cats. The last time my Chomsky had his temperature taken at the vet's, he purred. That animal must be some kind of purr-vert.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah