I think my other downfall is in consuming several glasses before I go to these seminars. I stress, this is necessary, not merely an indulgence. I simply cannot muster up the enthusiasm for anybody else's work unless I have already been drinking. Then I am the very picture of benevolent attention, nodding, smiling and looking horrified at the appropriate points. If I have not had these few drinks (sigh... generally a bottle) before I go I cannot take my eyes off my watch, waiting for the minutes to tick by so I can talk about my own work. And considering I don't even wear a watch this is particularly rude.
So in light of all that I am going to slightly postpone my review of Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris. It took me three tries to log in to Blogger and that, in my opinion, means I shouldn't blog this evening.
Please applaude my efforts in this post, I have triple checked everything to make sure there are no spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or confusions of tenses, even though the better part of three bottles of a RAWTHER nice Shiraz now lap pleasantly in my stomach.