Wednesday running around London and ....

I talked for about an hour to Farah Mendlesohn's class at Middlesex University about the editing process, about what I consider to be encompassed by the term "horror" and how I got into short story editing. Afterwards I went for coffee in the campus cafe with Farah and three of her students.

Then I met Paul McAuley at his flat and we walked to Islington for tea with Kim Newman. After that, Kim went to see a movie, Paul went home to work, and I went over to Rob Holdstock's for a drink before dinner.

Rob, Sarah (his partner), and I drove to a pub called The Woodman that had marvelous English food: roasts, which I love, Yorkshire pudding, excellent roast potatoes and perfect vegetables (NOT overcooked), and dessert. By the time we finished we three were stuffed.

The big adventure was their driving me back to Camden Town--we drove in circles for 45 minutes and the most ridiculous thing was that at least once we were in viewing distance of the High Street but couldn't get there. Sarah, who was driving and I in the front seat with her finally were hysterical laughing at our plight. I was in tears with laughter. Rob was trying to read the map which was utterly unhelpful (not him, but the map). Somehow, after twice reaching Mornington Crescent we managed to find the right street home...Rob asked me not to blog about it but Clute just told me (to make Rob feel better)that he had read that Camden Town has the most complicated traffic patterns of urban streets in the western world. So Rob, I hope this makes up for me blogging about it.


And I saw Jeff VanderMeer's rave on Scifi Weekly for Inferno:

Inferno

Thursday in London

I got up an hour earlier than I meant to because I read my clock wrong. But that means I was bright and sparkling by the time Pat came over to pick me up so we could go to the Tate Modern. I should have brought my camera so I could photograph the "crack" that runs through the first floor gallery. There's a sign warning people to be careful-I guess some visitor tripped over the crack. (it's an art thing).

Saw some excellent modern art, including lovely little finely detailed etchings by an artist previously unknown to me: Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) 1913-1951--the exhibit includes all of his 34 works. Viewing them inspired me to try someone with some of the photos I took in Maine, after the blizzard: Maine Survivor series

When I get home, I'm going to print out one of the photos in a very small size and if it works the way I want it to will bring a bunch of others to be printed out by a photo shop.

Home now at the Clutes' until we go off to the Groucho club in Soho to meet Amanda Hemingway for a drink.