House Update

We finally have a house! And the house (or at least the lounge) finally has wallpaper.

We completed the purchase on Friday and picked up our keys in the afternoon, although frustratingly we weren't able to actually get in as the path outside was being tarmacced. Yesterday and today though were spent finishing off the wallpapering job we started when we were given early access a couple of weeks ago, and stocking up the larder. Full move-over will be on Tuesday and Wednesday; as the distance is so short, the removal company have suggested doing it as two small moves on successive days, so we'll be in the new house from Tuesday evening.

So, how about this decorating lark? Well, wallpapering isn't as scary as people sometimes make out, especially if you use vinyl-based paper that allows you to paste the wall, and use ready-mixed paste. It is very finnicky, takes two or three times longer than you expect and dispels any illusions you may have about the walls of even new houses being flat and perpendicular to one another. But the results can look very nice, and it's a lot less messy than painting.

Now to put up the curtain rods, replace the dull pendant light bulbs with some spots, and fit some toilet-roll holders...

MC

Boffin Bonanza

A couple of weeks ago Ken MacLeod reviewed a new book on the history of that great British proto-Geek stereotype: the Boffin. Francis Spufford's Backroom Boys sounded like a book I might enjoy, so when I saw a few copies on sale the other day I quickly grabbed one. To say that I got everything I'd hoped for would be an understatement.

Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin is one of those books so wonderful, so perfectly attuned with the essence of what enthuses me, that it was almost impossible to read more than a few pages at a time without wanting to bounce up and down with glee. Perhaps more than than other book I've read this year, maybe any other book I can recall, This Book Is Me. Moreover, I'd wager a good deal that the same would be true for many of my fannish friends. Spufford has a genuine gift for lucid and at times almost poetic writing that illuminates the sheer joy of technical challenge.

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