It doesn’t count if the laughter is sarcastic

A couple of things I didn't get round to blogging for this week...

A fascinating interview with David Mitchell, author of the wonderful Cloud Atlas. This is the second Mitchell interview I've read, and I think I can safely say that not only is he probably the best writer in Britain at the moment, he's also got the most interesting things to say. If you like hearing about 'secret architectures' in fiction, and wanky stuff like that. Which I do. (thanks to Coalescent for the link).

One of the blogs I rarely get round to reading properly is Richard Herring's - what with being a celebrated comic and Radio 4 regular and all, he has plenty of attention already, so I let him be, by and large. It's us mini-bloggers you need to worry about. Well, all the same, I did note a very interesting post from him this week on the losing, and regaining, of an audience. It's worth a look.

Now, I'm going to be away from my computer for the next week or so, so, fearful of losing my audience - and, as ever, keen to entertain - I've asked a couple of non-bloggers, my friends Dan and Sam, to step in and add the odd post while I'm on computer cold-turkey. So say hello to them in the comments boxes, if they show up...