You Are Lovable!

My Dear Fellows & Dear Princess Normal,

I'm sure you'll be waiting - with baited breath, mind - to find out whether my lovely developers fixed the problem from yesterday.

Yes, yes they did. In fact they had an easier time of it than me, who had to fill in extra forms and raise emergency changes and generally FART ABOUT in order to let them make their ONE EFFING LINE OF CODE change.

Eff's sake. I hate change management people. I'll bet they are the sort of people who alphabetise the contents of their freezer and own furry toilet seat covers.

But I'm in a jolly frame of mind today. I'm not sure why. It is possible that Cazza dropped some prozac into my cup of tea. Maybe it is that it continues sunny and lovely outside. I really couldn't say.

Meanwhile, Mad Dog has challenged me to post a picture of favourite books on Facebook every day for a week. Today, I chose "Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell. I bloody love this book. It is history as it should be - gossipy, funny and gory. 

Sarah Vowell is a very funny woman. She is also the voice of one of the characters in "The Incredibles" although she is not really an actress. She's actually a music journalist with a taste for stories of death and violence. Her book is about her travels around the USA looking at sites pertaining to presidential assassination, like The Mutter Museum and The Chattannooga Choo-Choo (it really exists and you can stay there).

I found it fascinating and funny. One of my favourite stories was of William Seward, Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state. What many people don't know is that he was also the target of assassination the night that Lincoln died. The conspirators planned to take him out, along with Lincoln and the vice-president to destroy the presidential "line of succession" and to plunge the US into a state of constitutional higgledy-piggledy.

He's also the bloke responsible for buying Alaska from the Russians. Apparently he went up there shortly afterward to break the news to the native Alaskans that "The Great Father" Abraham Lincoln had freed the slaves. Huzzah!

Whoops. He didn't realise the Inuits also kept slaves. The slaves were delighted. "Woohoo!" they said and disappeared over the nearest hill. As a result, both Seward and Lincoln were given a "Shame Totem" by the Inuit tribes for NICKING THEIR SLAVES. They appear as little men with red faces, because they are embarrassed.

The totems are still displayed to tourists today, as an illustration of the high regard in which Lincoln was held by the Alaskans. Little do they know it was quite the opposite. But now you have read this you know. And if you read Sarah's book you will know a lot more.

So that's #1 out of the way. I'm not sure I can keep this up. Have I even read two books??

S.