Shed water shed water shed.

Bloody bloody bloody I bunked off work early so as to go and view sword-botherer and geek icon Neal Stephenson at that there Watershed. And indeed there was water shed all over me and my bike. Belt home swap clothes look at phone oh fuck some useless bollix has left a something-or-other and the entirety of Carboot Circus is cordoned off while they send in robots. Manage to avoid most traffic in the howling pissing rain until I heave to in a queue of cars opposite the power station (as was) for the trams. Nothing happens for quite some time. Nothing stops happening and I make it left and right and across the road opposite the Chinese supermarket along from the Fleece. Nothing starts happening again and keeps happening for several minutes. I am now in a proper foul temper and it is pissing wet so I lever the car into a parking space opposite to the consternation of the idiot in the Citroen behind me who flashes his lights like it's a disco. I have no coat. Or rather, the only coat I have is the truly ancient Husky that had been in the back of dad's car for the thick end of a decade and has now been in the back of my car for a couple of years. I look like the angry ghost of gamekeepers past in the thing. Disco-Citroen stops flashing his lights and tries to look invisible. I have about three quid in 20p bits. The fucking parking machine gets bored halfway through me pushing money into it and times out. Since it is the electromechanical embodiment of Bristol Corporation, it does things by halves and badly and vomits half my money back at me. The fucking parking machine is fucking lucky I left the rest of the contents of dad's car somewhere safe, otherwise I would have disembowelled the fucking thing with a six foot steel pry bar. Bristolian pedestrians scatter in the general direction of away as a Boden Catalogue's worst nightmare stalks the streets seeking out who he may snarl at. Damply.

Stephenson was pretty good. I look forward to seeing how his sword-bothering goes. How will they simulate the wallop of hitting something hard with something heavy?

I'm also going to have to buy a less-old Husky.