Here’s hoping 2008 improves :)

[perlmonger]

The ManFlu I’ve been enjoying since we got back from Norwich hit its peak (I hope) last night. We had agc, Pat and Dave were here for NYE and beef with clementines and ginger wine with roast veggies (which was really quite amazingly good), but I had to bow out sometime 10ish to collapse upstairs. ramtops came and prodded me at five to midnight and I descended blearily to wish all a happy new year and fail to drink a glass of pink fizz before returning to my pit. The night got steadily worse, culminating in a delirious stagger to the loo sometime between three and four, where I nearly collapsed with my chest a single solid ache that turned to agony when I failed to stop coughs, and my heart beating so hard and fast I thought I’d have an aneurysm to add to the pneumonia it felt like I was developing. I don’t know what my temperature was, but I felt like I was tripping, so probably fairly high.

Things gradually calmed down from there; I concentrated on getting my heart rate down and not coughing, but I didn’t get much in the way of what you’d call good sleep. I’m feeling a lot better now; temperature back to something near normal and chest not hurting anywhere near as much, so hopefully that was the worst and I’m heading for something resembling a restful night.

Here’s what I read in 2007, 39 books in all:

• The Golden Torc - Julian May
• The Nonborn King - Julian May
• The Adversary - Julian May
• Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
• Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman
• Untold Stories - Alan Bennett
• Uncle - J Percival Martin
• Star Rider - Doris Piserchia
• Bedrock - Lisa Alther
• Warlord of the Air - Michael Moorcock
• The Land Leviathan - Michael Moorcock
• The Steel Tsar - Michael Moorcock
• Neuromancer - William Gibson
• Count Zero - William Gibson
• Sleepwalkers - Arthur Koestler
• Mona Lisa Overdrive - William Gibson
• Mother Night - Kurt Vonnegut
• In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat - John Gribbin
• A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
• Killing Thing - Kate Wilhelm
• Deepness in the Sky - Vernor Vinge
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J. K. Rowling
• The Mouse and His Child - Russell Hoban
• Shame - Salman Rushdie
• The End of Harry Potter? - David Langford
• Un Lun Dun - China Mieville
• Hy Brasil - Margaret Elphinstone
• One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
• Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday
• Double Vision - Tricia Sullivan
• Making Money - Terry Pratchett
• Byzantium Endures - Michael Moorcock
• The Laughter of Carthage - Michael Moorcock
• Riotous Assembly - Tom Sharpe
• Indecent Exposure - Tom Sharpe
• The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
• Reflections on the “Name of the Rose” - Umberto Eco
• Tea with the Black Dragon - R.A. MacAvoy

ETA links to Amazon, in case anyone were to be interested