Paperwork

As the dust settles on another Spoiler Filled recording, and I dust off my bruised ego and wonder why I'm the only one who likes 'Speed Racer' it is time to close down the Quirky Muffin for a week as I'll be away at a highly unspecified BAMC conference in Leeds. Oh blast! There's never secrecy when you need it. Count on many odd and unusual stories on my return or numerous shifting on the feet as I struggle to get back into the habit of writing.

It has been a very wobbly week, with bike breakdowns, mixed podcast recordings, a horrific time in trying to adjust to Daylight Fakings Time and sickness to boot. It seems likely that things will improve but we never can tell. It's entirely possible that this blog has secretly been requisitioned by Venusian Intelligence Forces in an attempt to slowly acclimatize the United Kingdom and indeed the world to the idea that not only might there be life out there, but it could be custard-based life. The idea of custard-based life is not as bizarre as you might thing, being based in the legendary science fiction writings of E.P. Soblott, noted raconteur and hat maker. Soblott proposed the concept while manufacturing a particularly lopsided fedora for one of his more shady clientele before vanishing off the scene in the late 1930s. We miss him still, and his legendary prose in the service of speculative fiction has never been replicated.

To all you Jasper Fforde fans out there, I should really apologise for not mentioning the man before as I've read and enjoyed many of his novels. This year, the Quirky Muffin's field correspondent will be composing a dispatch from the site of the Fforde Ffiesta 2013. Hopefully the dispatch will make it through the security clampdown by the Legion of Danvers without extreme methods of concealment being undertaken. If anyone out there appreciates the works of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett then you should definitely at least check out the novels of Jasper Fforde. I especially recommend 'The Big Over Easy', 'The Fourth Bear' and 'Shades of Grey'. Our correspondent is even now being loaded down with the books he hasn't read and scolded strongly for his negligence. Sometimes we promote the wrong interns and it is sad.

Roaming madly around in a sleep-deprived bubble the word 'intern' sparks off a recollection of 'Parks and Recreation' which I have greatly been enjoying on DVD recently. The intern in question is the lovely and extremely scary April Dwyer nee Ludgate as played by Aubrey Plaza. She is so awesome in that role, even if she is barely acting, and my Aubrey Plaza infatuation continues. It's amazing what she and Chris Pratt pull off in that show, and her shafts of either evil or impish moods are refreshing in their spikiness. I wish there were more Aubrey Plazas.

It's entirely possible that one more post will be generated by the automatic writing machine before departure but for now I will assume the Quirky Muffin closed for about nine days unless a mystery guest poster can be secured.

O.