Farewells, Monopoly and uninvited budgies
More of my memories seem to be shuffling off the planet.
Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in the original Star Trek, died this week at the age of 90. Now Sir Patrick Stewart has died at 86.
I’m not a Trekkie. I watched the original series, but not the later ones, so I knew Patrick Stewart better as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men films. He was the very clever man in the wheelchair, surrounded by people with rather more dramatic superpowers.
Patrick Stewart was a brilliant actor, but there was much more to him than Captain Picard and Professor X. He grew up in a home where his father was violent toward his mother, and he later became an advocate for women experiencing domestic violence. He was also a great friend of Sir Ian McKellen, which somehow made me like both of them even more.
He’ll be missed. But let’s not be shocked. He was 86. Not a bad knock.
Visitors, rain and financial ruin
In other news, Pete and I had visitors last week, which meant rushing around cleaning the house and finally doing all those little jobs you put off until company is coming.
As it happened, the weather was awful. It rained for twenty-four hours, which is unusual here. We normally get rain in enthusiastic bursts, then the sun comes out and pretends nothing happened.
Since we were stuck indoors, we drank wine and played Monopoly. Col demolished all of us, piling his money into neat stacks in front of him. Pete came a distant second, and I had the distinction of being the first one declared bankrupt.
Never mind. It was all good fun, and imaginary bankruptcy is much easier to recover from than the real thing.
The budgies weren’t invited
My new book, The Admiral and the Pilot, will be out soon, so I’ve been having fun making bits and pieces for the marketing.
You might enjoy this very short clip. The budgies snuck in while nobody was looking, but I decided they could stay.
I expect some of you are wondering how the budgies got into the spaceship.
They weren’t invited. Before I created this video, I created another one which did feature budgies. Here it is.
So when I moved to the new video starring Konrad, they decided it was okay to tag along.
The Admiral and the Pilot arrives in my store on 15 November, with 20% off during its first week. It goes wide at full price on 22 November.
If you haven’t met Konrad and Fran yet, you can read the first chapter here.
Until next time, take care, enjoy the weekend, and try not to play Monopoly with anyone who arranges their money in neat piles. They’re dangerous.
