(1) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to feast on crab fried rice with Nina Kiriki Hoffman in Episode 214 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast.
Nina Kiriki Hoffman, who aside from having sung the earworm “Feelings” with me more times than I can count, has either won or been a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the HOMer award from CompuServe, the Endeavour Award, the Mythopoeic Society Award, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award.
She won the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Short Story for “Trophy Wives,” and her novel The Thread That Binds the Bones won the Bram Stoker Award for first novel. Other novels include The Silent Strength of Stones (a sequel to The Thread That Binds the Bones), A Fistful of Sky, and A Stir of Bones. Her novella ‘”Unmasking,” published in 1992 by Axolotl Press, was a finalist for the 1993 World Fantasy Award. Her novella “Haunted Humans” was a finalist for the 1995 Nebula Award for Best Novella and on the same ballot as her novelette”The Skeleton Key,” shortlisted for Best Novelette.
We discussed the way a ghost story which left her wanting more led to her taking her writing more seriously, her early reactions to reading Robert A. Heinlein and Ursula K. Le Guin, how the Clarion workshop convinced her she could have a career as a writer, the way she wanted to grow up to be a combination of Ray Bradbury and Zenna Henderson, what she learned about characterization from Samuel R. Delany while at Clarion, the major difference she saw between the horror and science fiction communities during the early days of the Internet, how my perception of the arc her career was affected not by what she wrote but by what she sold, the lesson Ellen Datlow taught her which she passes on to her students, and much more.
(2) DEFENSE BUDGET DIVIDEND? SYFY Wire gets us ready for holiday conversations with these Seussian factoids: “5 Things to Know About How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”
WWII training cartoons led the way for special to get made
During WWII, a lot of talented artists were enlisted to create materials that would help the war effort, or help train troops heading overseas. Two of those talents were animator Chuck Jones and [Theodore] Geisel, who met and worked together on the U.S. Military commissioned animated short films produced by Warner Bros. Studio. The Private Snafu series helped educate G.I.s on a range of subjects in an easy and entertaining way.
Having worked well together, Jones approached Geisel about adapting the book into an animated holiday special in the same vein as the hit 1965 animated special, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Unhappy with previous adaptations of his books, Geisel agreed to give Jones the rights because of their previous personal collaborations.
(3) CLIMATE ACTION ALMANAC. ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination and the ClimateWorks Foundation will launch their new book, The Climate Action Almanac, with a free virtual event on January 16, 2024, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time. The event will feature, among its speakers, the SF authors Kim Stanley Robinson, Libia Brenda, and Vandana Singh. They’ll explore how to craft narratives about hopeful climate futures that catalyze real-world action and resonate with policy realities, especially in the wake of the recent COP28 UN climate summit.
When we think of climate, the stories we tell about the future are bad: megastorms, crop failures, and heat waves loom over us. These narratives are compelling, but can leave us feeling hopeless, helpless, and disillusioned.
To motivate broad-based change in the present, we need visions of positive climate futures grounded both in science and in local geographical and cultural particularities. We need stories that bridge the imperative for global coordination with values, resources, and community action, envisioning transformation that grows bottom-up and bottom-out, rather than top-down.
In the wake of the COP28 climate summit, join us for the launch of a collection of such stories: The Climate Action Almanac, presented by CSI and the ClimateWorks Foundation. We’ll hear from contributors from across the globe who have charted pathways toward a vibrant, decarbonized future.
The event is free and open to everyone. Register today!This event will take place in English, with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish. It is presented by CSI and Future Tense in collaboration with the ClimateWorks Foundation and ASU’s Convergence Lab.
(4) DRIVEN. “Famous Cars: The Most Memorable & Expensive Cars to Ever Grace Our Screens” – Investing Magazine has a list. Many are from sff productions. Here’s one that wasn’t cheap to begin with, and now is worth a fortune:
9. The Original Batmobile
As Seen In: Batman the Movie
Year: 1966
Estimated Value: $4.6 million*Built by famous designer George Barris, the original Batmobile was based off a 1955 Ford Lincoln Futura. This concept car was worth $250,000 at the time. But by the time it had become an iconic part of pop culture, the Batmobile was worth $4.6 million.
(5) CURBING A HABIT. Charlie Jane Anders shares a technique for keeping doomscrolling from interfering with writing in “A Productivity Hack That’s Been Helping Me Lately” at Happy Dancing.
I used to be way better at staying focused on pouring words into a word processor, which would puree them gently into a delicious word slurry that I would send to my publisher. (At which point the publisher takes the word slurry, mixes it with gravel and limestone to turn it into decorative bricks for your garden, or so I’m assuming.) Anyway, in recent years it’s gotten harder to tear my gaze away from the sussurating horrors gathering in the desolate crevices of the collective unconscious.
Basically, the doomscrolling has gotten harder and harder to resist. It’s bad for my concentration — and, frankly, for my mental health.
(To be clear, I support staying informed about the state of the world! But not to the point where you’re just marinating in learned helplessness. And I really believe what I wrote in that book, that creativity is a worthwhile and valid way to deal with awful times. And as I keep saying, daydreaming is the opposite of doomscrolling — and daydreams are powerful.)
So I’ve come up with a productivity hack to keep myself from staring at news sites and social media all day. I recently told a friend about this method, and she seemed to find it useful too. So here it is.
Basically, my main problem is social media and news sites, plus emails to some extent. All of this stuff lives on my browser on my computer at home, and I experimented for a few years with installing browser extensions to block certain sites during daytime hours — but they usually wanted to invade my privacy, and they weren’t super reliable.
Then I discovered a way to just make my browser inaccessible during work hours, using my Mac’s settings. (I’m running the latest version, Sonoma 14.1.1.)…
(6) MAJOR SF+F EVENTS IN EUROPE IN 2024. [Item by Dave Lally.] Now that Chengdu Worldcon 2023 is over… The year 2024 has a number of major SF+F events, in Europe, approaching (and all dates given herein are inclusive). And this data is primarily for those from outside the area (to help).
Mid April 2024 sees another major SF+F event (herein numbered No 2 : Eastercon/UK (in late March-early April) being No 1):
Luxcon (Luxembourg National SF+F Con): —
Fri 12 (unofficial for early arrivals), Sat 13-Sun 14 April
Venue: Forum Geesseknappchen, Hollerich, (western) Central Luxembourg City, L-1430, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Everyone in Luxembourg speaks English fluently (and many therein also speak many other languages).
The Grand Duchy (in the EU) has one of the highest standards of living in Europe. Currency: Euro.
Luxcon held a very successful Eurocon –with that year’s Luxcon– in 2022.
Their website: Official Luxcon. Also double check other media re updates.
Nearest Airport : Luxembourg [ IATA : LUX ] – fast connecting express bus from the airport to the Luxembourg City Central Rail Station. Thence and FREE (*) local buses (no 10, and no 20) from there to the Con venue.
[* Nota Bene within Luxembourg and at all times, all local public transport (standard class) — incl the Luxembourg City tram (LuxTram), local buses and local CFL (rail) trains– are Free. Hugo Gernsback (yes him, originally from here) has a street named after him in eastern Luxembourg City.]
Luxembourg City Rail Station is served by:
- SNCB (Belgian Rail) trains from Brussels Midi (via Arlon and usually one per hour) tho the cost from Arlon (Luxembourg border) to the Luxembourg Rail Station portion (see * above) is free. And sometimes there is a train change at Arlon. Note this train usually has NO catering thereon (so stock up on food/drink before travelling). Brussels Midi is of course served by EUROSTAR trains from London St Pancras International Rail Station and from many other places, elsewhere in Europe;
- SNCF (French Rail) – TGV (High Speed) trains (with catering) from Paris Gare de L’Est (via Metz, tho there may be a change of train on that route). Paris-Gare de L’Est is right next door to Paris-Gare Du Nord (which itself is well served by EUROSTAR trains from London St Pancras -as above).
[No doubt local Luxembourg fen, reading this, will be able to update/augment this data. ]
And as usual fen from anywhere overseas are very welcome at any SF+F Cons here in Europe, including Luxcon.
(More events to follow.)
(7) MEOWMEOW. The New York Times ran an obituary for “Neil Drossman, Adman Who Sold With a Smile, Is Dead at 83”. Not a genre figure; he just made a big imprint on popular culture with his memorable ads.
Neil Drossman, who brought a cheeky wit and a tireless work ethic to the award-winning print advertisements and television commercials he wrote for clients like Meow Mix cat food, Teacher’s Scotch whisky and 1-800-Flowers, died on Nov. 25 in the Bronx. He was 83….
From the late 1960s until this year, Mr. Drossman was a copywriter and an executive at several agencies, some run by the advertising guru Jerry Della Femina and some he helped run himself….
…One of the most enduring lines Mr. Drossman wrote was for Meow Mix: “Tastes so good, cats ask for it by name.” That came at the end of commercials in which cats appeared to sing (“Meow meow meow meow/Meow meow meow meow”) for their chicken and seafood…
…In 1973 and 1974, Mr. Drossman ghostwrote full-page testimonials for Teacher’s Scotch in the voices of celebrities like Groucho Marx, George Burns and Mel Brooks. The Brooks ad was written as an interview with Mr. Brooks’s character the 2,000 Year Old Man.
“Sir, when was Scotch discovered?”
“It was during the Ice Age. We had so many tons of ice, we didn’t know what to do. So we made drinks, all kinds of drinks.”….
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Born December 15, 1951 — David Bischoff. (Died 2018.) Our community is blessed with many amazing writers of which David Bischoff was one. So let’s talk about him.
His first writings were in the Thrust fanzine where he did a mix of commentary and criticism. (Thrust got one Hugo nomination as a fanzine and four as semi-prozine.) Editor Doug Fratz would later convert it into a prozine for which Bischoff along with John Shirley and Michael Bishop were regular contributors.
His first novel, The Seeker, which was co-written with Christopher Lampton was published by Laser Books forty-seven years ago. He was extremely prolific. No, I don’t mean sort of prolific, I mean extremely prolific. He wrote some seventy-five original novels which is to say not within of any of the many media franchises that he wrote within plus another thirty-five or so novels falling within those media franchises.
What franchises? Oh how about these for a start and this is not a full listing by any means — Aliens, Alien Versus Predator, Farscape, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Jonny Quest, SeaQuest DSV, Space Precinct and War Games.. And no, I never knew there were Jonny Quest novels.
Oh, and I must single out that he wrote two Bill, the Galactic Hero novels, Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Tasteless Pleasure and Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Ten Thousand Bars which is either a great idea or maybe not. Not having read them I have no idea.
And he wrote for the Trek universe, two most excellent episodes at that. He co-wrote the ”Tin Man” episode from Next Generation, a Nebula nominee, with Dennis Putman Bailey, and the “First Contact” episode from the same series written with Dennis Russell Bailey, Joe Menosky, Ronald D. Moore and Michael Piller.
Almost none of his extensive fiction has been collected save that which is in Tripping the Dark Fantastic from a quarter of a century ago which collects a few novelettes and some short stories.
Very little of his fiction is available from the usual suspects, almost none of it his original works. And Tripping the Dark Fantastic is not available.
(9) COMICS SECTION.
- The Far Side shows a new kind of “Love, American Style.”
- Free Range found the answer to a super trivia question.
(10) NO LONGER THE ANSWER. Deadline says “Mayim Bialik Out At ‘Jeopardy!’”.
Mayim Bialik will no longer be part of the Jeopardy! hosting team.
The actor posted the news on Instagram on Friday.
The move comes as Ken Jennings has been hosting Season 40 of the syndicated show by himself.
Deadline revealed in May that The Big Bang Theory and Call Me Kat star walked away from hosting the final week of season 39 of the gameshow as a result of the strike.
Mayim Bialik’s Instagram says:
“As the holiday break begins in Hollywood, I have some Jeopardy! news. Sony has informed me that I will no longer be hosting the syndicated version of Jeopardy! I am incredibly honored to have been nominated for a primetime Emmy for hosting this year and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of the Jeopardy! family. For all of you who have supported me through this incredible journey and to the fans, contestants, writers, staff and crew of America’s Favorite Quiz Show, thank you.”
(11) HARI HARI SELDON SELDON. “Elon Musk to open a STEM-focused K-12 school, university in Austin” according to the New York Post.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk plans to launch a STEM-focused primary and secondary school in Texas before debuting a glittering university “dedicated to education at the highest levels,” according to a tax filing.
Musk, who moved from California to the Lone Star State during the pandemic, will build the schools in Austin with a $100 million donation from the billionaire’s charity called The Foundation, according to tax filings first reported by Bloomberg.
The charity’s name appears to be a nod to the science fiction series written by famed author Isaac Asimov that details the collapse of a ruling empire to make way for the birth of an alternate society — fitting considering Musk’s public criticism of the current education system….
… The Foundation’s application to open the schools was initially filed in October 2022 and approved in March, according to Bloomberg, though it’s unclear when the K-12 school will break ground…
(12) DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A GALLIFREYAN ARMY KNIFE. “Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa Shows Off the Fifteenth Doctor’s New Sonic Screwdriver” – CBR.com has the story. Somebody might think this is a spoiler, so no image here. Just a link to the video: “Ncuti Gatwa’s New Sonic Screwdriver”.
… In the official video posted to YouTube on the Doctor Who channel, Gatwa talks about the design elements of the newly remodeled sonic screwdriver, which comes with its own unique bells and whistles. As Gatwa demonstrates, the sonic is much larger than most previous iterations and contains several new gadgets, including a connector allowing it to link to other devices like a “USB port,” as the actor describes it….
(13) MARTIAN DOG YEARS. “The Biggest Sci-Fi Show of the Year Challenges Its Star In One Revolutionary Way” –that’s how Inverse describes For All Mankind and its lead, actor Joel Kinnaman.
Since 2019, Kinnaman has played the show’s lead, Ed Baldwin, who begins his journey as an Apollo astronaut in 1969 in Season 1. By Season 4, it’s 2003, and Ed is pushing 80, but still living on the Mars colony Happy Valley. At 44 in real life, Kinnaman is convincingly playing nearly double his age but, as he tells Inverse, this is the moment he has been waiting for since getting cast in the first place.
“The idea of doing this is what initially really appealed to me with this character,” Kinnaman reveals. “But of course, it’s rare that you have to wait five years to do the thing that you really were looking forward to doing with a character.”
As Ed Baldwin leads Helios workers on Mars to a labor strike in the episode “Leningrad,” Inverse caught up with Kinnaman to get a sense of how he took Ed this far, and whether or not he can play the character again in Season 5.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Lise Andreasen, Scott Edelman, Joey Eschrich, Dave Lally, Kathy Sullivan, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mike Kennedy, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day RedWombat.]
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Great scroll title, RedWombat!
(4) The Batmobile is worth every penny.
(7) Singing cats may be genre-adjacent. ANd I can hear that Meow Mix jingle in my mind…
Just got back home from a trip and was able to watch the latest Who with my wife. What fun!
6) The Luxcon folks were very welcoming to me when I was their guest (as the 2020 TAFF delegate), and I only wish I could afford to return on my own in subsequent years. I fear, though, that some folks might find them a bit more media-oriented than traditional U.S. fan-run cons, and might discover the dealer’s room (Funko Pops! Dried fruits by the pound!) to be more central to their con experience than expected. As an Anglophone, I had no communication troubles, and was almost disappointed not to get a chance to try my Esperanto skills.
11) What the heck would be taught at this school? Who would be excluded, and what materials would and would not be taught?
He’s certainly not known for his critical thinking skills, given recent developments!
(3) The real obstruction to climate isn’t scientific, it’s political, and economic. And the petrochemical industry is interested in only ROI. (Why, yes, thank you for asking, I do run head-on into this in my next novel, Becoming Terran, coming early next year).
(9) One wonders if they read the old story The Fog Horn.
(11) Um, yeah. Austin, home of UT at Austin, and he’s going to do this. The only question is whether this will turn out better than Trump U.
(13) Now, if you could only watch it on something other than AppleTV.
@Carl Andor–Yeah, I wouldn’t want my (hypothetical) kids attending Musk’s school.
Although, since they’re entirely hypothetical, I suppose it couldn’t hurt them. And I’m sure there are people who will think it’s a great idea, because he’s a billionaire.
Tonight, I tested positive for covid. Feeling not too bad so far, but we’ll see how it goes. Cider is performing cuddle therapy, in which she has all the highest certifications.
LisC – OH, NO! Can you do Paxlovid? If so, do asap. And warning – after avoiding it for years, we both got it – I caught it at Windycon by not masking, and Ellen caught it from me. The first, and major symptom was a HORRIBLE sore throat. And hers was worse – the second day she went to take her Paxlovid, she would have screamed in pain, if her throat had let her, as she swallowed the pills.
@mark–Tomorrow, I can talk to my insurance company, which is the first step because…it’s a little complicated, but my insurance will no longer cover my PCP, whom I’ve been with for 20 years. And since he’s 80, and his full retirement cannot be another 20 years off, it doesn’t really make sense to fight this. I need a new doctor. Have for three months, but nobody bothered to tell me till last week.
Hopefully the positive covid test will be a convincing argument for moving things along quickly.
@ Lis Carey
Best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery, and a quick and successful search for a new doctor!
(8) Tripping the dark fantastic is of course available, here, for instance: https://www.abebooks.com/9781587151354/Tripping-Dark-Fantastic-Bischoff-David-1587151359/plp.
@Lis depending on what kind of insurance you have you might be able to get it at one of the big pharmacy chains (I got hit with it last year when I was out-of-state, and was able to make an appointment at a local cvs).
(11) I would say that I’m not sure why anybody would want to send their kids to a school ran by someone connected to Jeffrey Epstein but that guy’s got a lot of deeply weird (in a bad way) fans.
@Mark: “Um, yeah. Austin, home of UT at Austin,”
Universities are like cats, you can have multiple of them in one place and they’ll either get along or ignore each other. (And there’s a bunch of other universities in Austin already)
I don’t think the Boerd of Education will ever actually go thru with this, but I’m wondering if he’s in some kind of feud with those “University of Austin” people https://www.uaustin.org
@Lis
My primary care guy retired a couple of years ago. He did it gradually, taking in a couple of younger doctors who then took over his patients at another location. So far I’m happy.
@P J Evans–My PCP had brought his daughter into the practice. She was doing more of the see-the-patients-in-person stuff, while he continued to see long-term patients and patients who needed his specialty expertise (asthma, allergy). I’m both long-term and asthmatic, but he’s 80, and I’d seen her a couple of times.
Oh, and the time machine is back. I am typing this from the depths of December, 1563.
She’s great. I really like her.
She’s a pediatrician, and can’t be my PCP.
So I was starting to work on myself to act on the knowledge that I needed a new PCP. And then, in August, the larger medical group he’s a part of decided that if he wasn’t taking new PCP patients, they were dropping him from the contract with my insurance.
And nobody told me.
And while my doctor’s office apologized for the failure of communication, Fallon has made a couple of runs and trying to persuade me that they sent a letter, and I just forgot it. Nope. I’ve known for a while that changing doctors needed to happen, and I would not have forgotten a letter telling me my doctor wasn’t covered anymore.
Frustrating as heck.
But there’s a telehealth service that covers people in MA that are without a doctor, and have tested positive for covid. THAT worked remarkably smoothly, and the Pavlovid prescription is in the pharmacy’s hands, and I should be able to pick it up later today.
And between a recommendation from my therapist, who has contact with a lot of the medical groups in this area, and my insurance actually wanting me to pick someone, I at least provisionally have a PCP again, though that can’t be confirmed until Monday.
(11) Is this Musk’s first step toward recruiting cult members for his slave colony on Mars?
Lis–My wife and I are in the first week of our first Covid session, so we’re a couple days ahead of you in the process. As you’ve discovered, Paxlovid itself is free to qualified patients (which includes ancients like us), though we’re told that a pharmacy can level a “dispensing charge,” which we may not see directly, thanks to very good state health insurance.
Nearly everybody we know socially (all but one vaccinated) has had Covid, sometimes twice, and what’s strange and interesting is the range of presentations, from sniffles to a bout of the flu to lingering malaise. So it’s impossible to predict exactly what your case will be like. Ours seem to be in the bad-cold department, though we’re only about halfway through the theoretical trajectory.
Paxlovid responses seem almost as variable, with the most common being the nasty metallic taste-in-the-mouth–which my wife is not experiencing. So far no diarrhea (3% is what I read). Most of our acquaintances report that it seemed to dramatically curtail symptom development–though without a control case for comparison, that’s just anecdotage. Right now, I don’t feel particularly sick, aside from the stubborn-cold symptoms–much better than I did the for the first 24 hours.
It’s hard not to be apprehensive, given what we’ve seen all around since 2020, but most of what I’ve heard from friends and family who have been through this suggests that it can be gotten through.
(5) Charlie Jane Anders’ productivity hack is in the prior issue of Happy Dancing.
Lis,
Sorry to hear that you have Covid. Good vibes that it’ll be short and not totally miserable. My nephew has it, too. He feels lousy, comparing the feeling to post-digested dog food, ahem. Hopefully, he’ll not have any complications.
I was planning to go down to visit him and his family this coming week, but that’s out, not only because of that, but also the upcoming snow showers, which invariably end up closing a road or two. So, I’ll see him sometime next year.
I was in the unenviable position of having had a sister some years older then me, and, growing up, she’d catch whatever was going around at school, and get over it after Thanksgiving, and then I’d get it just in time for Christmas, EVERY SINGLE YEAR! Once she moved away, I never got sick at Christmas again.
Oh, by the way, if you’ve never had the measles or the vaccine for it, please consider getting the vaccine, folks. I had measles as a kid before the vaccine was available. It was the sickest I’ve ever been from any illness. I was left with a weakness for upper respiratory issues as a result. I recall news stories of that time, when women who were pregnant ended up with horribly deformed babies, or having miscarriages, adults sometimes became sterile, lost their hearing, or their sight, and of the 4 kids in my school that went into the hospital with measles complications, one never made it out.
As soon as the vaccine came out, people were standing hours in line to get it, for both themselves and their families. There were no anti-vaxers then, as everyone knew someone who was adversely affected by the disease.
Writer Roald Dahl’s daughter died from complications of having measles.
Here’s a link to the essay he wrote on that experience:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/02/the-saddest-story-roald-dahl-ever-wrote-about-his-daughters-death-from-measles-and-is-worth-reading-today/
Besides being prolific, Dave Bischoff was a kind and caring guy who’d give you the shirt of his back if he could. He took his work seriously and he took his friends with equal dedication. He was a hell of a sweet guy. I knew him from the THRUST days until his passing in Eugene, OR. He was a complex man who always fought to do better in his writing and life. RIP, buddy.
@Carl Andor–I got all the “childhood diseases.” My sister, 10 years younger, got the vaccines, except for rubella and chicken pox, which didn’t come out till a bit later.
Thank you to all, for the kind comments. Due to the magic of telehealth, I “saw” a doctor, and was able to pick up my Paxlovid prescription today.
I’m still trapped in 1563, though. Stone knives and bearskins it is.
Jake – of course there can be multiple universities in a metro region (around 1980, there were 36 in the Philly metro). But UT Austin is one of the big names in high-tech.
The next question is whether he’ll get accredited.
Lis Carey – here’s hoping you feel better soon. My experience with Covid and Paxlovid this spring was that the first couple of days were like a medium-bad case of the flu. I took my first dose of Paxlovid the afternoon of the second day, and started feeling a little better by the next day. Gradual improvement continued over the next several days. The awful metallic taste was pretty bad. I’m told sucking on peppermint candy helps that, but I didn’t have any on hand. Good luck, and get well!
The remedy I’ve heard of for “paxlovid mouth” was cinnamon candy rather than peppermint — cinnamon Altoids or Red Hots.
Lis
1563? Enjoy the roast boar, even if you can’t smell it. Perhaps it’s better that you can’t smell it.!
1563? Hey, you’ve got 25 years to prepare for the Spanish Armada. And in the meantime, celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 5th year of reign.
@Carl Andor–So far, I have both my sense of taste, and as much sense of smell as I ever have. I’ll give the boar due consideration.
@mark–Yes, celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s 5th year of reign should be fun! Will have to take lots of notes.
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