I'm hoping at the weekend to get a big chunk of AquaGirl 2 written - as it's currently >5,000 words long and I've only covered half a day; and I'm intending this episode to last several days (more water-based training, starting her 'day job', evening computer fiddling, and her first mission), it might take a while longer to finish (although hopefully before a rather portly superhero piloting a rather improbable vehicle makes his seasonal appearance!)

Stephen Fry (possibly the most well-known homosexual in Britain, also actor, comedian and host of QI) has caused a few raised eyebrows over the weekend. In an interview for November's "Attitude" magazine, he apparently said:

"If women liked sex as much as men, there would be straight cruising areas in the way there are gay cruising areas...It doesn't happen. Why? Because the only women you can have sex with like that wish to be paid for it."

Newsbiscuit carries a variety of spoof / satirical news stories, but this particular one (evidently compiled by a history buff) had me chuckling far more than most...

The supposed dating site advert:

‘Young-at-heart widower seeks like-minded companion of child-bearing age for fun, adventure and to sire a male heir to the throne. GSOH and an intolerance of Catholics an advantage.’

The dissatisfied customer? Miss Katherine Parr, age 31. No prizes for guessing who supposedly posted the ad (with obligatory misleading portrait)...

You may vaguely recall a story I wrote a while ago called "The Genie". Somehow I got this crazy idea in my head of recording myself reading it...

...so at 5:30pm today, trying to ignore the fact the temperature was dropping from 8 °C to 3 °C (hence the thick coat!), I sat at the edge of a local monument and did the deed.

Thinking about the October contest last night, this opening idea came to me while I was dreaming, and was sufficiently wacky for me to recall it after waking...

Since Mads and Bev have given their 2p worth, I thought I'd join the club - but to be different, I'll give a rough outline of the weekend's events. I've also deliberately left a lot of it vague, to both tease you and not spoil things in case any of the other attendees decide to write in more detail about proceedings.

Saturday, 5am.
The things I do in the name of fun... waking up at a ridiculously early hour on a weekend to travel half way across the country to spend a weekend with a bunch of random people I've met on the internet. On the one hand, I'm a little nervous and apprehensive (for a variety of fairly obvious reasons); on the other I'm excited about finally putting faces and voices to some of the people whose writing I read every day here on TopShelf.

Oh, and there's also the small matter of this being the third bunch of random internet strangers I've met - the first being regulars on this blog (and what could be stranger than fans of a blog of a radio news magazine show?!); the second being fans / participants of this project held last year.

The BNF has 20,000 different drugs to take - so Adam Kay and Suman Biswas thought "What could we produce to give you all a break?"

In a nutshell: Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin is a cure-all, but has some rather unusual side-effects...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlmEc8rd_Nw

Background: A person who was coming to the end of a secondment from GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) to MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service) was discovered dead in his flat, his body contained within a bag within his bath. The first post mortem was inconclusive, and there's speculation he'd been killed two weeks beforehand. As there was no sign of forced entry, it's believed the victim knew his attacker - so his private life is being investigated.

As the Comics Retcon Universe expands, so does the amount of information pertinent to it. While some of that information can be conveyed through the stories themselves, the Universe page, and blogs; there's an increasing need for a more centralised storage.

So may I present...

The Comics Retcon Wiki

A Roman Catholic adoption charity's appeal to be allowed to discriminate against gay people wanting it to place children with them has been rejected. Catholic Care wanted exemption from new anti-discrimination laws so it could limit services provided to homosexual couples on religious grounds.

The Charity Commission said gay people were suitable parents and religious views did not justify discrimination. The Leeds-based charity said it was "very disappointed".

Source: BBC News

Thieves use breasts to distract victim

Police in France are looking for two attractive female thieves who bared their breasts at a man at a cashpoint to distract him before stealing his money. The women in their 20s exposed themselves to the victim as he punched his pin code into an ATM machine in Paris.

 
Just to keep you up to date with what's what in terms of the background resources PS and I have been working on to enhance / extend your enjoyment of the series (and act as an aide-memoire to past events), here's what we have lined up for you:

Current Resources:

Bike Archive	Episode Summaries	Location Map	And in the future?	EAFOAB Wiki
Resource Link	Resource Link	Resource Link		Resource Link

(More info after the break...)

I-Dosing: How teenagers are getting 'digitally high' from music they download from internet.

At last, vindication for those of us who suspect the Daily Wail's science reporting isn't all it's cracked up to be.

They've published a story about a phenomenon called I-Dosing, which they claim to be A Bad Thing ^TM.

Interesting article spotted in this week's New Scientist:

"IN 2010 we need to ask afresh just how deep the rabbit hole goes when it comes to gender politics - and how far we are from digging ourselves out. Our beliefs about differences between the sexes have an impact on society vastly out of proportion to the magnitude of those differences, from female scientists defending their mathematical and technical expertise to boys accused of lacking the communication and emotional skills to succeed at school."

New Scientist: Opinion | Out with pink and blue: Don't foster the gender divide | 19th July 2010

In their sports section, Gene Cherry wrote an article covering the results of the 200m sprint at the Prefontaine Classic Diamond League meeting on Saturday. Either Gene was in a funny mood, or someone needs to educate Gene on double-entendres...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6622I420100703

Needless to say, it's doing the rounds on Twitter...
(Yes, I am a member of the Twitterati, FWIW)