Back home...

Home again, a bit tired. Fred the cat is off at the vet, with some kind of oozing head-wound from fighting something else. He's fatter than when I went away. Everyone else is more or less the same weight, except for Lorraine, who is thinner. Spent this morning opening mail and Xmas cards, feeling cheerfully guilty that I hadn't sent anything to anyone at all. Maybe I'll do a new year's thing, and maybe I won't.

To settle the debate raging in your Live Journal comments section re: Alan Moore's christmas card picture from last year... can you please confirm whether or not he drew Herod slaughtering the innocents, or applying makeup to their eyelashes? To follow the thread in question, click the link below.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/officialgaiman/88021.html?thread=364501#t364501
Much appreciated,
Moira F.

Er, Herod was applying mascara to the innocents. That was why it was so funny. Alan's an excellent cartoonist, and he drew a long line of small children, miserable, as a gleeful King Herod applied too much eye-make-up to them.

Hi Neil!

As there'd been a topic about using "said," I just want to know which of the two is correct (when quoting a character): "blah blah," said Lee -OR- "blah blah," Lee said. I hope this isn't such a stupid question for you. I'm quite sure that I've encountered both usages in several "really respectable" articles and books.

Thanks a bunch =) Cancan, Philippines


You have. Both are correct.

According to http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/ the Solstice this year is actually the 22nd, not the 21st.
Just a comment.

Rebecca, who has been called a pedant

Ah, but if you were properly pedantic, you'd argue that it's not that simple: while I did indeed drive past Stonehenge at about 7:00am on the 22nd of December, where a bunch of people were waiting for the imminent Solstice, it was still only 11:00pm on the 21st in places like Los Angeles...

http://www.candlegrove.com/solstice.html is a lovely solstice site. As they say,

Winter solstice for 2003 will occur at 11:04 pm PST on December 21. If you want to be precise about it, please be sure to correct for your time zone. Planning for upcoming seasons? Here's a chart through 2020, but it's based on Universal Time, so you'll need to adjust it for your time zone.


Dear Neil.
Could "mi sides are splitting and mi mirth is uncontrollable" be a reference to what any fule kno is the gratest buk in Eng. Lit.: A Whizz for Endless?" I larfed mi sides off. o|--< See? Very thin.

Spot on. Nigel Molesworth was last mentioned on this blog in the entry for http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003_03_23_archive.asp#200067479 while the idea of him writing about the Endless makes me grin foolishly -- This is Dilirium. She is a gurl & she skip along saing hello clouds hello sky hello big green mouse-hed thing that etes people etc