Monday 2pm, our mobile phones became possessed by the evil spirits of demented bureaucrats. A nationwide test of some newfangled alert system was being trialled. With no actions on our part and the contraption in locked mode, an eerie voice began communicating a warning test message. We were working on placing rocks in gabion cages.…

Books are such wonderful things. A few years ago we indulged and purchased the entire collection of Jack Vance books in their Spatterlight edition. It sure is a lot of books and takes up a fair bit of space. The unusual name refers to one of the author’s narrative plot devices, but in reality it…