Michael's Meanderings

I've just realised it's been nearly three months since my last posting! I'll try to summarise.
At the beginning of March I had an interview at a local residential home. It was a nice walk, and the interview went OK but I didn't get the job. A couple of days later I had an interview for an IT job in Redhill, this was also unsuccessful.

On the first Monday of the month I went to see "The King's Speech" at the local cinema, It was very engrossing, and a worthy Oscar winner.

On St Patrick's day I visited my chiropractor then walked from Hove to Brighton.

Nearer the end of the month I went to Crawley for a job fair, at which I discovered the Reach project (providing training for unemployed), important later.

Learned that Diane Wynne Jones had died, one of my favourite authors. I did get to meet her at Sadler's Wells at a performance of Witch Week as a ballet.

On the last Tuesday in March I went up to London to the Science Museum, saw the new James Watt workshop exhibition, this was followed by a visit to their archive a Blythe House.

The following day I returned to London, went to Forbidden Planet, back to the Science Museum, and then stayed to the Lates evening.

I had an appointment on Monday afternoon to help in my jobsearch, and despite delays did get there in time, and received some helpful comment.

Signed on the following morning, then got a lift from my Mum to my first job interview in 25 years! It seemed to go fairly well, but as I learned a week later i didn't get the job. Probably for the best as it was in the middle of nowhere and difficult to get to without personal transport.

On Wednesday I had a Time to Talk phone session, to help with mild depression (not unexpected in the circumstances) not sure if it will help but any port in a storm.

On St Valentine's Day I took a walk around Bedelands, very gluey mud in parts. Repeated this last Thursday, took camera but unable to take any photos as the battery hadn't charged!

Last Saturday was Picocon 28 at Imperial College London. I counted up and it was the 11th Picocon I'd been to in 22 years, though it was raining I had a good time. The Guests of Honour each gave different but fascinating talks. First thing Kari Sperring gave a lecture on how Tolkein delayed her writing career, as she believed a writer had to go the academic route as JRR did.

Paul McAuley followed this with an illustrated talk on how he wrote some of his books backwards. How he found some cool science then wondered how it could be added into a story. In particularly the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

After Lunch the final GoH Juliet McKenna, talked about the hard science in fantasy. Good fantasy should be rooted in reality and any made up stuff should work consistently.

There then followed the traditional panel, where the GoHs plus discussed Steam Punk, more an aesthetic then a genre.

The last item I stayed for was the Turkey reading, which raised money for charity by getting bid to either stop the current reading, or to continue. There was the obligatory section from a Gor book, and they included 2 video turkeys.

And feeling tired I went home.