Advice for young players

This weeks piece of folksy wisdom: do not stay up way past your bedtime, tap yourself a glass o' water when overtired, go to bed and have your wife/partner/flatmate wake up 3 hours later to find that said tap (faucet) has not been properly turned off and the kitchen bench, floor and draws are all swimming, then spend next hour+ ladling water out of draws that can not be removed and towel dry every stinking piece that dwelt in said drawers. If you can avoid this, I would recommend it.

Noelle asked: "Is it possible to be both a wit and fulgar? This just occurred to me and it's going to bother me."

Well Noelle be bothered no longer! It is indeed possible to be a wit and fulgar in one person - a super-lahzar, such maddened souls are generally called dexters and typically have short lives full of violence, pain and a whole lot of treacle-taking. Not recommended for any but "power players".

Anna asks: "By the way Mr Cornish, how is the culture-life in H-C? Authors, painters, genealogy ..?"

There surely are these things, I touch on such a little more in Book 3 - though Rossamünd not being overly cultural does not give me great play with such things. However a brief mention in the story does give me licence to go too far in the Explicarium, which is yet to be properly worked up. I tend to add brief entries as I write the main tale, points to be elaborated while the main text is in Celia's/Tim's most excellent hands.

Ah, Monday, you spotted my H.P! I feel like I have been caught with my petticoat showing ;)

Thank you all! for your encouragements last post, I clearly see you all know full well the personal insanity that is writing.

Europe and Sebastipole fall in love?

Well, that was a (tongue in cheek) offering last post. Could it be possible? Would it be probable? If ever they married I would expect Sebastipole to get eaten at the end of the wedding night like some poor male praying mantis.

Monday had a question (similar to one I received via email from Nick Nitsch of Nashville):

"What kinds of music are most prevalent on the h-c?"

Such a topic is indeed not distracting but fundamental to my conception of the H-c - there is a beautiful piece by Strauss (the younger I think) Invitation to a Dance which though actually truly too new, has been an abiding inspiration to me. Monday rightly deduces that there are regional and social differences, but in the main when I think music for the Half-Continent I think late Baroque (as it is called in our world) and early Classical - Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, counterpoint and the private chamber ensembles merging with and developing into Boccherini, Mozart, Haydn - essentially what is sometimes called a Rococo style. (I have as yet to come up with the H-c names for some of these music styles - an interesting and I hope rewarding diversion!) This of course would be the more citified musics, out in the parishes it would more strident, the instruments more antiquated, the pieces more folk style or popular balladry. Hero of Clunes for example, in her tour of Sulk End and the Idlewild (as seen in MBT Book 1 & 2) would be doing a combination of popular shanty (albeit taking it to a more sophisticated and sonorous level) and high-brow choral numbers written by the current and more popular/fashionable composers (such as Stumphelhose of Witzingerod, Cappelluto of Seville, or Attic Nehme or Brandenbrass).

Oh, and as requested, for breakfast I had Vita Brits with sultanas and a cup of tea sweetened with honey.