Writer, historian, academic and supplier of the best kosher choccies on Planet Earth, Gillian Polack, posted this entry on her Live Journal blog recently...

"...I'd sincerely love to see what one of Australia's edgiest SF writer (Marrianne de Pierres) does when writing a fluffy pink novel. Maybe it will turn into one with fluffy pink killer rabbits? And what would Jenny Fallon do if asked to write a novel set in one room? Or if Kaaron Warren was told to write determinedly upbeat space opera in 6 volumes? Or Justine Larbalestier were forced to write a story about rambutan-eating zombies killing unicorns? Wait, that last one isn't impossible. She would love to write that one. She might even make her zombies stop halfway through the slaughter to watch the cricket. (and aren't I lucky most of these writers don't read my blog!!)"

Well, I have news for you, Dr Polack...

One... more of these writers than you think read your blog, m'dear:)

And Two... I could so too write a story set in one room. It'd probably be the wild flights of imagination of the single occupant slowly going insane from the solittude. But I could do it.

I think you need to send me more chocolate now, Gillian, for publicly implying that I suffer from UES (that's Uncontrollable Epic Syndrome) and be warned. I have spies everywhere.... muwahahahaha...

The website aboygoesonajourney.com recently ran a comprehensive survey on the reading habits of fantasy fans. Now admittedly, the sample taken wasn't huge (271 respondents), but it did come up with some very interesting results, like male readers prefer to read male authors as a rule, whereas women don't seem to mind. This didn't suprise me at all, because I often meet men who would not pick a book written by a woman if their life depended on it. Maybe they're afraid they'll get girl germs off it, or something. :)

Anyway, what did suprise (and give me a warm fuzzy glow, I have to say) was the answer to the question on readers' loyaty to a particular author...

Loyalty
Would you say you are loyal to any particular author? What author is it?

Assumption
When I see a new book come out by a certain author, I will jump at it. I don’t care what it’s about, I know that name and I know they are fantastic. This is just an idea of what I meant by loyalty to an author, but it could also mean things like if you read that author often or follow their blog or such. One respondent put “There are no good authors, only good books”. I had posted my survey on some Australian sites and some International sites, so I’m not surprised that a lot of Australian authors came up.

Actual
The two most popular authors, however, were Jennifer Fallon and Terry Pratchett...

You can read the rest of the survey here. Fascinating stuff.

As we don't have crops here to put circles in, we don't get a lot of, well, crop circles. This morning however, we went one better. A strange circle of 77 shopping trolleys appeared on the major roundabout at the southern end of town.

Seriously. Turns out this strange phenomena wasn't the result of escaping aliens from Pine Gap leaving messages that can only be read from the air by their brethren in concealed flying saucers. It was the work of a very pissed-off local political activist, Mal Crowley, was wants "to make the Town Council and shopping centres accountable. We've been trying to get something happen for years. The trolleys cause problems for cars, for sight impaired people and they're just untidy. They've (the town council) refused to do anything about it... and this will hopefully force their hand."

The best part of course, is that the bulk of the trolleys were gathered by Crowley and his team in just four hours from the Town Council lawns. LOL.

Crowley, who is something of a shopping trolley afficiando once appeared on ABC TV's The New Inventors for a feral cat trap he made out of shopping trolleys. See, even our raving looney activists out here in the bush are entrepreneurs:)

Sadly, the Town Council came along and cleaned up the crop trolley circle within an hour or so, but I did manage to see it before it was dismantled. So, the world is teetering on the brink of financial disaster, there are wars, floods, famines and global catastrophes all over the shop, and the issue that gets Alice Springs residents up in arms is feral shopping trolleys.

Damn, I love this town:)

Read the ABC news item here

The phone rang at the crack of dawn this morning. It was the breakfast producer from the ABC Radio asking if I'd heard Heath Ledger was dead, and if I (being the in-house movie reviewer) would go on-air and have a chat about his life and work.

I did it, of course, but what a sad reason to be doing an interview. The death of someone so young is always a tragedy, not so much for what they've done, but for what they will never do. Heath Ledger was only 28, and initial reports say he may have accidentally overdosed on prescription sleeping tablets by mixing them with over-the-counter remedies for insomnia.

Life is so fragile and sometimes it takes the death of such a young - and public - figure to remind us that every day truly could be our last. It puts things into perspective.

Stay connected with your loved ones. Don't sleep on arguments or let silly disagreements turn into the last words you ever say to someone you love, who might - without you knowing anything about it - believe that one more of these, added to a few of those, will result in a goods night's sleep.

This was just emailed to me with the following warning:

This will boggle your mind and you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your right foot, but you can't. It's preprogrammed in your brain!!

1. While sitting where you are, at your desk, in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number '6' in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction!

Kiss the rest of your day goodbye trying to figure this one out...

Muwahahahaha