I said I would update eight days later. I have now updated, exactly eight days later. Happy now?

So you finished your novel, then? Like you promised you would? I finished a draft of it, yes. And where can I find out more about this new novel? Run don't walk to the [1] writing section of this very site.

I have also, partly against my better judgment, decided to post upon this website [2] a picture of what I look like. In case you're interested.

And in other news here's the cover of a fine-looking edition of, as it says, [3] the Major Works of [4] Robert Browning. My name isn't there on the cover, but it's my edition, all save the introduction, which was written by the estimable [5] Danny Karlin, a much better Browningist than I. (I should, perhaps add, then when I say "my name isn't there on the cover" and talk about "my edition" and so on, I'm not implying that they should blazon "ADAM ROBERTS" in large red letters at the top, with Robert Browning in little script at the bottom. That would be vainglorious of me. Obviously I'm prepared to give Browning some of the credit, for, you know, writing the poems.)

Interestingly, the wikipedia link to [6] Browning's name I gave a few lines above includes in its informative article the following cartoon from an 1891 edition of Punch. The tagline to the cartoon, marvellously prolix after the manner of nineteenth-century cartoons, is:

[she to him] "Don't you admire Robert Browning as a poet, Mr. Fitzsnook?"

[he to her] "I used to, once; but everybody admires him now, dontcherknow -- so I've had to give him up!"

When you've finished howling with laughter at that one, look again at the man in the picture. Could it be …? Yes, surely it is [7] Danny Karlin himself. A mere co-incidence? I think not.

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