For the past couple of months I’ve been recording the audiobook version of my novel Type Thief. My first was Codename Hirondelle, which is already available. I found the second one easier, and I think it’s worth recording here the techniques/settings I used. The first time around, the whole process took a bit longer, and when it came to uploading files to ACX, i encountered a range of technical issues to do with loudness, peaks, etc.

It's mild (4° warmer than December average) and it's damp, soggy, squidgy, and muddy. I'm struggling to close my rings at the moment because I'm still ill (two weeks in), still coughing a lot at night, and therefore still not sleeping well. But I'm also bored of the loop: the exactly-three-kilometre loop around the block that I am obliged to do when it's so wet.

Good on Rubio for rescinding a bad decision, and even better for doing so with a fair and informative explanation.

Let us stipulate that my opinion of RTD's writing is quite low. My expectations, therefore, of The War Between the Land and the Sea (TWB) were also quite low. This 5-episode show is the only remaining fruit of the much vaunted Disney-BBC tie-up, the last dried-up satsuma on December 28th. For decades, people were wondering why the BBC didn't just throw some money at…

I don't mix with the plebs much since I retired. There's a weekly supermarket run, and I avoid the occasional dog-walker on my daily constitutionals, but my only real interface with the outside world is through the medium of my OH, who still has to get up four days a week and go to work. Like an animal. I am, of course, exaggerating, because we went to Copenhagen recently, and we make regular trips up to Nottingham to see the Other One.

The government says it will fund training and work experience for 350,000 not in work or education.