Brass Monkey weather.

The BBC reckon it's going to hit seven below on Saturday. At least it'll be dry. I'm told it's ten below that in New York at the moment. I wonder if I should break out the silly-weather coat?

The pub last night was fun. Charlie was preparing for his weekend away, but had a computer journalist in tow, complete with an autoharp which she played very briefly in between the (dismal) songs from the jokebox. She cheerfully gave Andrew her card in a shameless attempt to scab any work that might be going. Always odd to meet someone you've heard of.

Mostly I talked to Andrew about the upcoming big thing in his life and the upcoming fairly big but not quite as big thing. The former is of course that Lorna's due on Saturday and her bump's shown signs of moving south for the summer, which might mean that something will happen roughly on schedule. The other is a short-story collection he's trying to put together for Worldcon. He's been talking to various people, who mostly seem to be very enthusiastic - so much so that he reckons there's an outside possibility of having a full professional budget for it rather than sliding it out on a wing and a prayer.

And speaking of journos, I notice Rachel has a rare appearance in a weekday Guardian. In fact, I don't think it's happened before at all. Good good. I don't, personally, hate it when my friends become successful.

Self-Serving Science, part IV

Beer prevents cancer.

See also this previous article.

Furthermore, on an unrelated topic, Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!