I’ve remembered what I forgot earlier.

Michael Marshall Smith is also guest blogger this week on Powells.com.

“Now, there are certain combinations of words that just work, conjuring something beautiful and true and pure: like ‘peace and harmony’, ‘second-hand bookstore’ and ‘all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet’. ‘Health and safety’, on the other hand, is a phrase that makes me want to bite people. It’s always used as if it needs no qualification, but was found carved into a rock discovered well below the carboniferous layer. ‘It’s health and safety’, people intone: not adding ‘regulations’, or prefixing with ‘in the interests of…’ — but rather as if they are evoking an irrevocable property of the universe, like thunder or gravity or death. Though ‘health and safety’ is of course a good thing, it often seems to be used more as a way of stopping people from doing something that might otherwise be convenient or intuitively reasonable. But I suppose that not subjecting potential customers to danger of death is a boon, overall, so that’s the current battle in the overall struggle to bring natural health, beauty and contemporary health medicine to a yearning public.”

Originally from her divine shadow on August 21, 2007, 3:57pm

herdivineshadow: is a boatload of fail.

Originally from Twitter / herdivineshadow on August 21, 2007, 2:26pm

Having 3 lots of online banking systems to contend with and only remembering your log-in details for one and a half of them is massively massively annoying. A pox on amazon.com for precipitating the fail.

ANYWAY. I know…one of you might be interested to know that Michael Marshall Smith has a new book out. As Michael Marshall Smith, rather than just Michael Marshall.

Which is a nice change, as it’s been about 10 years since the last Smith book and about 5 minutes since the last Marshall book. It’s called “The Servants” and it can be ordered here. Or on amazon.com. Where it is cheaper but made my internet banking skillz fail. At least earthling take paypal.

I know there was something else, but I can’t quite remember it.

It looks like plans have been made for the bank holiday. Bah.

Originally from her divine shadow on August 21, 2007, 2:28pm

A

Originally by herdivineshadow from maybe you’ve been brainwashed too on August 19, 2007, 2:43pm

So this weekend was mostly spent in Birmingham. Saturday had a bit of shopping, ate delicious chinese food, wandered about a bit, napped for a few hours and then there was yartek‘s party. Dalek biscuits = win. Also, the train was full of what I suspect were people on their way to some football match somewhere. I have no idea.

Then today… normal Sunday morning stuff really and then lunch at the Goose.

Train journeys are madly tiring for some reason.

Originally from her divine shadow on August 19, 2007, 1:12pm

Yes, I’ve not posted here in over a year. It’s… unlikely to change. 🙂

Link to the original site

herdivineshadow: in Birmingham!

Originally from Twitter / herdivineshadow on December 31, 1969, 3:59pm

herdivineshadow: is still really really really tired

Originally from Twitter / herdivineshadow on August 17, 2007, 3:49pm

Shadows are being used by Japanese researchers as an non-intrusive way for friends to stay in touch.

This seems like a really nice idea. I think people use facebook and twitter and other vaguely similar social networking sites, so that they have an awareness of what their friends are up to. Pervasive tab-keeping as it were. […]

Originally by Rachel from More Tomorrow on December 31, 1969, 3:59pm