A Slip of the Keyboard

Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.

And on the subject of signings, please read and take note of the formal instructions; signings take an awful lot out of the hand and decades of signings have made my hand rather weak. However, it’s still strong enough to pick up a glass.

I really am looking forward to the convention and that’s no lie.

Best wishes,

Terry Pratchett

I care for words and their meanings and sometimes stick up for them in a way that the Blessed Lynne Truss would understand, like screaming at the local news on television “If a policeman ‘said how he saw the suspect,’ then he is either describing the position he took in order to observe, or he was giving a very brief lecture on optics.” The word really wanted was “that.”

Often I have been contacted by Internet journalists for an interview or some extended comment and the moment they say that they are a journalist I say, “Good, tell me the six defences for defamation of character?” I am slightly cheered these days that some know what I am talking about.

My mother had taught me about the Greek myths and had mentioned the first marathon, run by Pheidippides—he ran from Marathon to Athens, as every schoolboy knows, well, used to—and I remember discussing with Mum the valid point that since he was running to Athens he was really running an Athens rather than a Marathon because, quite certainly, this would have been the case had he been employed by London Transport.

it has made me look at the world, just like my pants, from a new perspective

We know what cult means. It’s a put-down word. It means “inexplicably popular but unworthy.”

See? Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.