I have inventoried my to-read pile and am slightly horrified to find that it contains 98 books (39 non-fic and 59 fiction, which is interesting because I thought it was mostly non-fic! But in fact it's just that the average non-fic book is much larger so the fiction takes up less space). The fiction is about half SFF. I'm not going to make a poll of the whole lot, because I'd be here forever, but I have picked some categories:



The bedside pile is down to four books, including the ongoing Oxford History of England project and the current SFRG book, so it is time to build it up again!

I am on a real reading tear at the moment, and my bedside book pile is down to five! Naturally I then celebrated this by buying another six or seven cheap ebooks, because I delight in causing my own suffering. I'm hoping to finish another couple of the bedside books soon and then do a poll so you all can decide which bits of the epic to-read shelf I should use to rebuild it with.

A proper gaming post is in the works, but I have been delighted by the recent changes which mean that all Steam games now work on Linux - I haven't tested it extensively, but I've already played several previously-Windows-only games with no issues at all. Aside from work that was the main thing causing me to spend time in Windows, so suddenly I'm spending a lot more time logged into Linux, which means I'm getting to more of the tasks I do there! Including writing up my booklog, although at the rate I'm reading it's going to be a while before that's ready to post, and I've already finished six books in September...

Miss H and I are going to see Florence + The Machine in February, which was extortionately expensive but I'm still looking forward to it! This is why I don't believe people who say that classical audiences are low because tickets are too expensive, because you can get into most CBSO concerts for under £30 and the cheapest Florence tickets were £45 plus fees for standing room only. Which is not to say that £30 isn't a lot of money, but if pop artists can sell out in ten minutes for an average price over £100 then I just don't believe that price point is the major issue.

It's really funny how the last couple of weeks are suddenly waving AUTUMN IS COMING signs. We've had more rain this week than in about the previous month, and while it's still warm, I'm becoming increasingly aware that the sheet I sleep under is going to need to be switched for the duvet in the near future, and that there is a limited time for shirt-sleeves at home. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to being able to wear my jacket again. I used the hot water bottle on Tuesday night, but it's not back into the regular rotation quite yet...

Back to work was a slog today! That was my last day off until Christmas, and September is looking like being pretty intense as a month. The "be on campus for a week to act as a reserve for visa checks" has morphed into "three and a half days of being a reserve plus two full days of actual checking" (yes, this does add up to more days than exist in the work week; I have refrained from accepting the relevant calendar invites until someone can clarify quite how they expect me to staff two desks at the same time). I've also been voluntold to attend a full-day meeting on campus the previous week, which is not only on a work from home day but also a day with choir in the evening (not to mention choir the office day before it and choir the work from home day after it). I am trying very hard not to think about the number of things which I really ought to be getting completed before the start of term, because my odds are looking extremely poor.

On the other hand, I did get through the 300 system emails, 84 personal emails, and 31 Teams notifications which were waiting this morning, and only have a dozen or so new actions to pick up from them. And I did the first round of monthly reports, including desperately scraping my brain to extract suggestions as to what I did during August (not very much, apparently!!). I left the intimidating email from Legal for tomorrow morning, and then have ambitious plans to make a proper list of what I want to get done this month and try and make some progress on... well, anything. Something. A Task of some kind. Perhaps if I can manage that I will feel less like the human incarnation of the scream emoji.