Has anyone heard from Angharad? The last personal post I’ve seen on BC was of her holiday in Spain and she hasn’t replied to my last two emails.

I have been engrossed on my Kindle with Karin Bishop's EPIC two-novel tale and wish to highly recommend the story to others. Karin's books are not expensive but I do hope purchasers will use the BC link to Amazon to help with the costs of keeping BigCloset running.

This morning's news from Big Closet members is very uplifting but when I checked Facebook a friend had posted an old downbeat joke. In the mood of the day I decided to update the joke and here it is:-

A group of Hell's Angels in South Carolina are riding east on 378 when they see a girl about to jump off the Pee Dee River Bridge, so they stop. George, their leader, a big burly man, gets off his Harley, walks through the group of gawkers, past the State Trooper, who is trying to talk her down off the railing, and says,

Those who have been following The Transit of Venus know that I like to put links in the text to tempt readers. On the whole these have been popular, even the ones prompted by my weird British sense of humour, but I would like to apologise to readers coming across the links some time after an episode was posted if the link has gone out of date or simply become defunct. My intension has always been to write in such a way that the links are not a necessary part of the story but an ‘extra’ for those interested.

Happy New Year to all BC mambers

I'm a regular radio, podcast and audiobook listener and my mind wandered to who I would choose to read Angharad's 'Easy As Falling Off A Bike' - British of course with maybe a slight regional accent - suggestions welcome.

Why stop there though? I remember one BC link to a short TG themed audio story but imagine readers know others which I'd like to hear about. In the meantime if anyone wants a challenge how about posting a-reading-a-day from the beginning of Bike?

Reading ‘Genius at Play: The curious mind of John Horton Conway' I note two things:- when young he was nicknamed Mary by a teacher (it wasn't a wanted nickname and by second school he was called Prof) and among his many girlfriends one suggested by his sister was a well known Australian lady. Ms Greer did not confirm or deny the story to Conway's biographer but in the light of recent publicity I thought it more than a little ironic.

Conway is a mathematician and someone I'm coming to think of as the mathematical Beatle.

Listening to this woman with osteoporosis I remembered someone I used to see around town who was never going to merge into the background of gender stereotypes. She looked strong and determined and I now imagine her as a sister under the skin to dancer Claire Cunningham.

I just received an advert for another Joan of Arc book and looking at the blurb I wondered "What if Joan was TG?" This isn't something I 'm capable of developing but I'd like to see what some of our writers can make of it…

Having been raised in a particular gender role clearly didn't ‘imprint’ for many BC readers but I thought that I at least understood males until in raising the next generation I discovered that the boys were like a whole different species. Today I found an old (2002) radio show on testosterone which pulled the whole who, what and how of sex, gender, character and identity beautifully into focus

Reading that Grace Lee Whitney who played yeoman Janice Rand in Star Trek just died I wondered about Uhura who was my first role model as an example that you could be different without being a doormat. Somehow since those days Nichelle Nichols who played the part has become 82 Where did the time go?

This morning BC seems to be going through a rearrangement on my iPad (there have been recent problems for iPad readers) and before I knew it I had for the first time posted on a 'Forum'. That woke me up to examine the home page further and I discovered 'Statuses'

Is there such a word as 'statuses'? A check of the dictionary suggests there is and it is the preferred plural of 'status' despite sounding odd. But what does it mean for a BC member? Is it like Facebook? Do you want to know that I was awoken today by the grunts and cries issuing from a passing dragon boat?

Today I understand and have sympathy for my late parents. They were it is true given to racist, sexist, homophobic, snobbish religious fundamentalism but nobody's perfect and they probably only wanted a little certainty in their lives.

I never saw Eurovision 2014 but was impressed by this BBC radio interview given by Conchita Wurst and Tom Neuwirth

It made me think about those on BC whose comments have introduced me to a wider cross-section of humanity than I'd previously given thought to and I hope this is of interest to some of you.

It has been pointed out that one or more of my characters might be charged under UK law for an incident at the end of

Advice would be welcome as a PM so as not to spoil the story

Thank you for your time to at least read this

Rhona