Just in case anyone reading this has not already seen it:

The SCI FICTION website has been publishing excellent science fiction stories, both old and new, since 2000. It is to stop publishing at the end of this year, alas. Some of its fans have had the excellent idea of compiling a tribute, by asking for volunteers to write an appreciation for each of the 320-odd stories on the site.

The first few of these have been done already - Pete Tillman's appreciation of the Nebula-winning "Goddesses", by Linda Nagata, Ben Peek's appreciation of "Jailwise", by Lucius Shepard, Jay Lake's substantial essay on "The Wages of Syntax", by Ray Vukcevich, and Lois Tilton's brief (but heartfelt) note on "The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode In On)", by Howard Waldrop. But there is still plenty of room for more. You could more or less pick any story and find you had something to say about it.

And if you just want to read the reviews as they come in, you can get them via ed_sf_project.

I DON'T BELIEVE IT!

The new set-up for my Palm T|X has wiped my entire appointments calendar, for some reason.

Luckily I still have the old one at home and can backup from that, missing only changes made in the last week. But it is DEEPLY aggravating.

[Edited to add: Even more luckily, there was a backup at work, so all is now restored. But autopope is right; I need belt and braces.]

Last weekend's Observer reports that Francis Campbell, the new British Ambassador to the Vatican, "will be the first Irishman to represent the UK abroad since the partition of Ireland in 1921". The Zenit newsagency goes a step further, saying he is "the first Irish Catholic to be elevated to ambassador since the republic of Ireland was granted independence in 1921".

Er, no, not really. My cousin Dermot MacDermot was an Irish Catholic who was also a British ambassador almost fifty years ago. His cousin Brian MacDermot was also a British ambassador at the end of his career, but had earlier been Chargé d'Affaires at the British representation to the Holy See (contra the Zenit story that only Protestants were allowed to hold that position from 1917 on).

There are lots of things I don't like about the British state's relationship with my religion. But we should give credit where it is due.