Year in review 2011

I seem to have started a bad habit of getting most of the way through January before I get round to these. Anyway, this is my 8^th consecutive year of summing up the events and consumption of the previous year, so that counts for something, right? Like 2010, 2011 involved a lot of awesome teaching and a depressing series of failures to attract funding. A lot of delightful weekends with friends but few big memorable events. My love-life continued happy and there was a fair amount of wedding planning.

( that was the year that was )

I didn't think this was going to be the most difficult part of planning a wedding

Does any restaurant exist which:

• Is located in Cambridge or within a reasonable half hour's drive of there?
• Serves interesting, tasty food for veggies and meat-eaters?
• Can cope with gluten-free and other special diets? Able to tell you exactly what's in the food and make substitutions if necessary?
• Is realistically (not just theoretically) accessible to wheelchair users?
• Can cope with a party of 20?

Blehhhh. Not being able to think of any such place (let alone one that actually seems appealing) is causing a load of drama that I would really rather not be dealing with.

Book: Brasyl

Author: Ian McDonald

Details: (c) Ian McDonald 2007; Pub Gollancz 2008; ISBN 978-0-575-08288-5

Verdict: Brasyl slightly missed the mark for me, despite being well-written.

Reasons for reading it: Ian McDonald is one of those authors who seem to range from good to outstanding, so I'm pretty much happy to buy new any novel of his.

How it came into my hands: The tempting SF section of the Birmingham Waterstone's, where I always seem to end up spending several months' book budget.

( detailed review )

I think if this had been my first encounter with high quality contemporary SF, I would have loved it, but somehow it felt a bit paint-by-numbers. I'm also looking forward to The Dervish House a lot less as a result; I'm not really excited to read an SF novel set in Turkey if "Turkey" turns out to be just another iteration of "Brazil" and "India" with different exotic vocabulary!