grumbles from paradise

The seas are gentle and the colour of dark sapphires, the weather is balmy, and the writer would very much like to be able to get his computer online thank you very much. The best I can do is someone else's computer in a dollar-a-minute internet cafe, in which only one window can be open at a time, so I can't even cut and paste anything, which seems to rather defeat the point. If you think of me, it should be with a small thundercloud over my head, following me around...

I was able to get into the FAQ messages, though, and the mailbox is filled up with grumbles from people who cannot fathom (or have not fathomed) the inexplicable Fox Movie Channel tendency to show the 13 Nights of Fright intros about 20 minutes before they start the movie, at the end of the film before, not as a lead-in to the film I'm introducing. (It's nothing to do with me, guv, honest.) Yes, the intros are showing, but they're immediately followed by a 15 minute plug for "TAXI" or similar, instead of the film. No, I don't understand the logic of such programming either.

For those of you who missed the opening of the first one (the coffin one), on Hallowe'en Fox Movie Channel will be doing a marathon of seven of the films (with a few variant outros) and that'll be one of them. And last night's secret word was very probably ALLIGATOR.

Several other people mentioned that Neal Stephenson has done a wonderful interview over at Slashdot. But you'll have to go to slashdot.org and find it yourself.

(And apologies to anyone who's sent me an important and earthshaking e-mail over the last few days and hasn't got a reply.)