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.

This has not been edited (apart from cutting away the trek to/from the camera, and putting in a fade at the start/end) - mainly because whenever I hear a recording of myself, I cringe, thinking I sound awful and lame.

So if you're brave enough, down a glass or two of wine (to dull your senses) and click on this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfdUZ6lJ-Hs

So am I really as bad as I think I am, or do I have an overly deprecatory view of how I sound?

But hey, I like experimenting with doing new things with technology, and this was certainly a new thing for me. Whether I'm mad enough to do anything remotely similar will depend (to a certain extent) on what the audience thinks. Whether you close the window after 5 seconds because you've had enough of me, keep it running but don't hear much because you're laughing so much, or whether you think it's actually a credible performance, let me know.

Oh, by the way, if you're wondering about the extra camera in my hand, it was recording a copy of the audio - I didn't know in advance how well the audio on the video recording itself would turn out, so I played safe by having a recording device closer to me. In the end, I didn't need that recording, but if reception to this version is fairly positive, I'll use it to produce a cleaner version with less background noise, a short video tour around the windmill itself, and possibly sound effects at appropriate places (assuming [a] I can stand the sound of my own voice, and [b] there's enough room to insert it without getting in the way of the reading).