Post-conference

I know, I know. I am working on those Day 2, 3 and 4 posts. Really. Just cut me some slack, since I woke up this morning (awoken the first time by an important phone call that I missed, and the second time by another long-distance ring that I scrambled to answer, thinking it was Important calling back, but it was a telemarketer...) feeling like my body is a crusty old elastic band. The kind you find all hardened and gross in the back of the desk drawer at work. So I'm going for a massage first.

Taking today, tomorrow and Thursday off was the smartest thing I've done in a long time, let me tell you.

Meanwhile, I wrangled some news for you. You can thank me later.

• Canadian poet and novelist Paul Quarrington has lung cancer. Think of him/pray for him/creatively visualise, please.


• Twitter research: "Men have 15% more followers than women. Men also have more reciprocated relationships, in which two users follow each other. This "follower split" suggests that women are driven less by followers than men, or have more stringent thresholds for reciprocating relationships." Hmm.


• Iceberg theory, part 2,458: There are lots of things you don't know about people, even colleagues.

Linking to George, Ninja extraordinaire, above, reminded me of a moment in the Q&A after my talk on Sunday, so I will share that one snippet for now, with the promise of more conference news soon. Someone asked "If you could choose just one blog to follow out of all those you mentioned this afternoon, which would it be?" and went on to say she knew that would be difficult, etc. I immediately replied, no hesitation, Bookninja. It was like that moment in Roman Holiday, my favourite movie ever, when a reporter in a scrum asks Princess Ann which city she liked best on her European tour, and she (ok, after trying to be nice and say each had their own charms, she catches herself and) draws herself up to full regal height and says, "Rome." 'Cause that's just the way it is.