…ks, and the more towards the centre we moved, the less I could make myself understood. I could sort of fake it in Hội An (to the point that when I asked for the bill it was presented to me in Vietnamese, cueing a “er, how much is ba mươi hai in English/French/convenient other language” [1]), but Huế was markedly worse. Thank God, we didn’t go any further North… Also, I can’t really understand people (I catch words here and there, mainly from conte…

…iety. The other GOH is astronomer Marek Kukula. I’m also likely to hang around in London for the weekend (basically, I want to avoid getting up early and returning late, so I’m looking into being there Sunday as well). More details as I have them. (PS: as some of you on FB and Twitter know, I jammed my right hand in a steel-reinforced door. I’m currently typing with my left hand and an index finger, so I’m not exactly fast on my feet at the moment…

…ly sure they’re books I’d hand to my children. Every single nationality around the globe basically got skewered in a racist fashion (including but not limited to Africans, Arabs, Asians, Gypsies–you name it, he skewered it), and it’s very much boys’ adventures–wimmen need not apply. There are other BDs from my childhood that are far, far better than those. Also, this quote? there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & h…

I’m going much better now: the fingers are mostly not swollen anymore, and all I have left are biggish bruises on the fingertips (which make typing all but impossible, but at least I can flex my fingers). The flipside of hurting my hand goes as follow: -Basic language test: I basically switched to English the entire time the H and I were dealing with the (minor) emergency, and only switched back to French once my hand was safely bandaged. So, app…

…n of Eastern and Western (see the octogonal pavillion vs the crosses that line the terraces). Inside, it looks a lot like a Vietnamese Versailles, with lots of ornate ceramics on the walls, and it has a golden likeness of the Emperor (the actual body is somewhere under the palace) and a shrine to honour his memory. That’s all from me–tommorrow it’s back to novel brainstorming and cooking 🙂…

…… is that, even while getting home relatively late, there’s still a good half hour of wonderful sun to enjoy while walking in a park. *happy writer*…

…Chinese kind, has a low smoke point at 180°C, which means that it starts decomposing into a lot of components if you use it on high heat–including a fair amount of carcinogens. Most cooking oils, by contrast, have a higher smoke point at 230°C or something like that, and are thus suitable for frying on high heat. Sesame oil is more like a dressing: you put it on cooked stuff, or in salads, but you certainly never ever use it for frying. So, no, th…

…for the suggestions! And any other recs in the same vein are very much welcome (especially more non-US and non-UK works). Also, if you’re one of the people who gave me recommendations: I was at work or sleeping for a significant portion of the discussion, and twitter sucks at threading discussions over several hours, so it’s entirely possible that I didn’t manage to write your recs down. Feel free to ping me again if you think I’ve passed you ove…

…Very pleased to announce I’ll be a Guest of Honour at Eurocon 2016 in Barcelona, along with Richard Morgan, Jun Miyazaki, and Enrique Corominas. Dates are 4-6 November 2016. (yeah, you’ll have noticed I seem to go to Barcelona quite a bit those days. Not complaining, it’s a great city, the food is awesome, and I get to practise my–ailing–Spanish…)…

…ists, aka I’m floored again; and just for a contrast, VarietySF’s take, which basically lists “Shipbirth” at the bottom of the list as completely incomprehensible and unreadable)…