Data protection and the dehydrating effects thereof.

There's a seminar on data protection going on behind me. It's going on right in the office doorway, meaning I'm very excited at the prospect of its coming to a happy close and enabling me to visit the drinking water, because nothing about my lips is currently correct. Gav and Ceci are in attendance at this seminar. Every so often I hear one of them ask a clever question. I am not so much attending the seminar as I am hiding behind the partition and sending out information about our two competitions ('Spring 2007 Poetry Competition' and 'Science Fiction and Fantasy', lest you've forgotten, details of which remain very much available on the website) and trying to research the intricacies of getting real live bookshops to stock our anthologies, which obviously are entirely worthy of being stocked by real live bookshops.

Mostly I was writing because I noticed in February, when we announced the winners of the Coffee and Chocolate themed competitions, we said that The Better Craftsman and Other Stories was on course to be out and about by the end of 'this month', which is obviously pretty much a fib on account of that month's having ended. I think probably my intention was to say 'next month' anyway, because that was generally understood to be the plan. It still is the plan. Barring any printing mishaps or delays or what have yous, the anthology should be available for purchase by the end of this month, which is March. Apologies for any confusion and the like.

Oh. Well. Sigh. Water. They must be finished soon though, the data protection bods. The sandwich man who comes along daily in his sandwich van will be here any minute now, and no way will Gav and Ceci sit quietly and listen to people talking about data protection if it means risking the absence of sandwiches. It's not that we don't care enormously about protecting your data, but the sandwich man is our hero and 11.30am-ish is generally a very exciting time of the morning. I'm sure you'll understand. Especially you, Mr Ephraim Gadsby of the Nasturtiums, Jubilee Road, Streatham Common.

Joke, obviously. But an approving nod to anyone who can tell me from which author I lifted Mr Ephraim Gadsby.

Sam.