Cussedness Awards 2007

  • Literary event of the year: Kittenwar: The Book. The launch party was brilliant fun, thanks to everyone who turned up.
  • Best book about cats not written by me and Fraser: Cat Getting Out of a Bag by Jeffrey Brown. This is a smashing little book, endearing and beautifully observed. Chronicle are clearly the quality cat-book publisher.
  • Best book not about cats and not written by me and Fraser: Oystercatchers, by my mate Sue, read it now.
  • Album of the year: We Can Create by Maps. Lovely.
  • Most overrated album of the year: Neon Bible by Arcade Fire. Am I the only person in the world who thinks this is a load of whiny rubbish? And I liked Funeral, too. Deeply disappointing.
  • Best animated feature, and about time too: Futurama - Bender’s Big Score.
  • Best computer I have owned to date: 15″ Apple MacBook Pro. Not quite perfect, and Leopard is a bit crashy still, but much nicer than using Windows on some shonky PC.
  • Depressing non-event of the year: our house sale. The current state of this almost eight-month long transaction is so fragile that I’m wary of discussing it in public for fear of the remote possibility that our buyers might read what I think of them and take offence, so I’m going to leave it until the sale has fallen through entirely or (unlikely, this) completed before relating the full saga. It’s a cracking story though; the whole experience has led me to believe that English property law needs serious reform, perhaps involving the statutory deployment of stocks and public floggings as deterrent measures for recalcitrant parties.
  • Scary number of the year: 30.

That’s about it, see you next year.

Gold Star

Gold StarFinally: the recognition I deserve! I got a gold star from the head of my old sixth-form college (My mum gave a copy of the Kittenwar book to Mr. Rostron, who was deputy head when I was there, and is, as I recall, a very nice chap). I’m reasonably sure I never got one of those when I was actually a student there, although that might just be a result of my mardy teenage self having refused to acknowledge such things at the time. I was a bit like that as a sixth-former.

Dan’s Data Kittenwar Book Review

Dan of Dan’s Data, one of my favourite geeky technology-related websites and an excellent read if you’re into that sort of thing, has reviewed the Kittenwar book. He says all sorts of nice things about it and even goes so far as to recommend it. This makes me very happy indeed. Hooray!

Kittenwar Book

Kittenwar: The Book
I just took delivery of the final, finished copy of the Kittenwar book, written by a couple of shady characters known as Fraser Lewry and Tom Ryan. Coming to a book retailer near you in September.
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