I too met Neil Gaiman two years ago on an autumn morning in the children's department of Harrods' book store. The staff were surprised to see so many people, none of them children, and some of them apparently dead. But being English, they didn't show it and even offered to take my dripping umbrella. This could have been because I was the most normal-looking person around. He signed my stardust hardcover for Gloria, and my endless nights for myself, I babbled some stuff about how he should go to Singapore and how my sister would be dying to meet him, and how he should try all the food because that's what I miss... then I realised I was talking about myself and not him. I'd completely neglected to mention even once that I admire and enjoy his work. The fact that I was there would have implied that but saying it's just common courtesy, isn't it?

Anyway what happened at yours, Glor?

Time for an abrupt change of subject: there have been bomb blasts all over London. This is a horrible and sad thing; many people are dead. Ever since 9/11, London has been holding its breath for a terrorist attack. No one knows if one had already been foiled but there is a sense here that it has finally happened. At this point, it's very easy to give into the paranoia that the Americans have gladly embraced, (and I myself being Singaporean, gave quick thanks that we still have a 5 kg bag of rice should there be a stampede to stock up,) but I hope that Londoners will not be sucked in. Every major world capital is subject to these dangers. I'm just lucky that I don't use the tube, at least not during peak hours. I was in bed the whole time and not travelling industriously on the tube so the whole 'incident' (what the Home Sec called it) passed me by.

So. I'm ok and not dead. That's 3 times in my lifetime that I've had to reassure people that I am not dead. I do live in interesting times. The first was when a girl with the same name as me died in a car`accident and they misreported in SG that shw was from LSE, the second was the tsunami when I was in Sipadan, and now.

Oh yah, THIS IS TOR and NOT GLOR if you haven't yet figured it out. It's so me to write about Neil Gaiman first, then the terrorist attack on London.