A gift from above

A bird shat on me today, as I walked to work. I suppose that's good luck. It was a little splatter of green-brown guano that hit my trousers and the edge of my Kindle. I must have been lucky, because I had a packet of tissues in my bag and I wasn't looking up at the source of the defecation.

Then again, perhaps if I'd been really lucky it would have missed me completely.

I hope it was a bird. Let's say no more of that.

I was lucky because our signed copy of Charles Stross' latest Laundry novel, The Apocalypse Codex, had arrived in the post today. Strangely, it came in a parcel sealed in a plastic bag, emblazoned with a message from the Singapore Post Office that they'd had to reseal the package due to unspecific 'damage'. The book is pristine, which makes me wonder if they were checking for seditious literature. Or if the man who posted it from Scotland wasn't using sufficiently sticky sticky-tape.

Although I went home for lunch and picked up the book then, I didn't have time to read it until tonight, and that after we'd been out for an excursion.

This evening we went to the opening party for a Nike shop. This is faintly ridiculous because there's another Nike shop half a kilometre down the road, selling exactly the same stuff in a space with exactly the same decoration, but apparently it was a good enough excuse for a party. I can't complain; we both got given a party bag (that turned out to contain some shoelaces and a nylon bag for storing more shoes) and once inside, there was free wine, because nothing says athleticism like a bit of booze. And some meatballs. The shop was packed with frenzied Singaporeans, all shouting or playing on a Wii like they'd never seen computer games or shoes before in their life. Quite endearing, really, like Kinokuniya's bookstore mob from a couple of weeks' back. And Kinokuniya never gave us a party bag with a bag in it.

I took the opportunity to add to my collection of technical clothing, and then we left to find some dinner. Dean & Deluca have opened up in Singapore, which means you can buy a $22 sandwich, or blue cheese cherries in a jar, or similarly ridiculous things in a faux-New York setting inside a sterile mall. So I had a delicious $22 sandwich and then we went home to bed. Home, so I can generate some new nightmares via the Stross' latest work.