freckles_and_doubt | with any luck I'll spot David Tennant in a burn or on a bannock, or something

I am coming to Scotland in August! To give a conference paper on Neil Gaiman and Tanith Lee and weird inverted vampire Snow Whites, which I have still to write, but pshaw, details! This is all being paid for by the faculty, who are thus currently high on my list of Favourite People, at least until they dream up another set of horrible jobs for me. But the important thing is, I'm coming through Heathrow and have booked my tickets to stay two nights in London before heading Up North. I'll arrive on the morning of the 9th August, and leave for Glasgow on the morning of the 11th. Far-flung exiled London crowd, who's around then? Can we Gather in a Pub or adequate substitute in the usual ritual fashion? There are too many of you I don't see often enough, or at all (

bumpycat, I'm looking at you here!). Also, I've had offers of accommodation from

starmadeshadow and Scroob - whose doorstep will it be most convenient for me to turn up on? do you want to arm-wrestle for it?

Gosh, I'm all excited about this. *fans self*.

I am on leave today and tomorrow, allowing the lingering vestiges of glandular wossname to exit my system by means of determined lounging about. Despite this I have managed to re-watch Iron Man 2 (still grin-inducing second time round), have the car serviced (clutch much smoother! it's like magic, I can take off without ripping involuntary wheelies), and read an awful lot of hot cyber elf-sex (Justina Robson, who is kinda fun and not nearly as schlocky as it sounds, and who I shall probably review in detail sometime). And, of course, entirely ignore the World Cup (other than about 10 mins of amazing Bafana butterfootedness in between episodes last night) in favour of watching large amounts of STNG while knitting, which means I'm onto the stripy bit of this scarf, which is kinda cool.

And which leads me to the next vital question. Do they let you take rosewood knitting needles on planes these days?? Because it's SAA, and the inflight movies are non-personalised and always unbelievably bad, and I have to do something to prevent myself from losing it completely and feasting on the flesh of the living somewhere over Tamanrasset. Last time it was Rush Hour 2 and an earnest, syrupy, American rugby film which I followed with involuntary horror and perfect comprehension despite refusing to wear the headphones. Honestly, we should get danger pay.