Greetings

Just a brief pre-emptive welcome to anybody who visits this blog over the weekend of Greenbelt 2005, either as a result of my appearances at Between the Lines or via my festival blog for surefish (to which, unless anything radically unexpected happens, my next post here should link).

So. Hello. Welcome to Peculiar Times. [Shuffles awkwardly.]

Please feel free to read, to browse the archives and links (especially to my homepage, where there's lots of stuff relating to my published fiction), and to leave comments if you so wish.

While I write this I am, in no particular order:

1. Trying desperately to research blogging and blog theory as preparation for the panel discussion in Between the Lines on Sunday at 6pm. (Technorati is proving helpful in this respect.)
2. Looking forward eagerly to my arrival at Greenbelt in roughly eleven hours' time, and to the subsequent festivities.
3. Supposedly (as in "supposed by my employers to be") working as a librarian. (No, really, I've just catalogued a book. Later on I'll be enrolling new students and issuing them with library cards.)

Greenbelt is, I'm sure, going to be wonderful -- the only issue being, as ever, how to divide one's time between the hectic mix of arts, seminars, worship and social interaction that's on offer. (The last of these has to remain unlubricated by decent beer, sadly -- not that Greenbelt's "dry" these days, just that the beer at the Cheltenham Racecourse bar is legendarily indecent.)

[STOP PRESS EDIT: I am informed by a reliable correspondent that this year there is, in fact, a Real Ale Marquee! And Richard Dawkins insists there's no such thing as a miracle...]

But if you're reading this as one of the people I welcomed above, you know exactly how wonderful it is, because you've been there already -- or, if you're particularly keen and net-addicted, are there right now.

I hope you're enjoying it as much as I intend to, and I look forward to seeing you there.