May Day

Spring. Mmh.

Last night I was at the 08 Clarke Awards to watch an evidently chuffed Richard Morgan win for Black Man. Afterwards to a very pleasant Chinatown restaurant to sit at a table with (careful now), if you'll excuse me the name dropping (down with that sort of thing): Joe Abercrombie, Roger Levy, Harry Harrison, Paul McAuley, Geoff Ryman, Chris Wooding, Vole Pogrom, Morgan himself, Steve Baxter and others. Excellent chat. Paul gave us a head's-up on the Iron Man movie, which he has already seen, and ran through his 'man of a thousand voices' portfolio of regional accents, which was terribly impressive. Steve put a brave face on the double whammy of not winning the Clarke, yet again, and Liverpool losing to Chelsea 3-2 (4-3 on aggregate). His brave face, luckily, is a fine face. Personally I'm toying with the idea of starting a petition to have Baxter given an honorary Clarke. If seven nominations is not enough to earn this, then I don't know what is.

In other news: I gave Roger Levy a tiny pair of trousers, and Joe Abercrombie was apparently also at the table, although since I'm not exactly sure what he looks like, or indeed who he is, I can't vouch for this absolutely.