Sound fella

I mentioned my almost-blind great-aunt. Today I finally sat down and started doing what I thought of doing ages ago. She relies heavily on audio books ... so what better Christmas present than The New World Order (about the only one of my titles likely to appeal) narrated by the author, her great-nephew?

Chapter 1 has been recorded for digital posterity already. At the rate of one chapter a night, it should take about a month. Easily doable. And tell me - professional audio titles might be much more swish, but how many times on (say) the author-recorded audiobooks of His Dark Materials do you get Philip Pullman saying "I'm sorry, I read that completely wrong, I'll try again?" Hey?

And fairness makes me report that Windows XP actually impressed me. At the back of the computer there's a green in-socket and a pink in-socket. I plugged the mike into the green one and a little window popped up, asking (almost with a sense of resignation) "what did you just plug into the green socket?" I selected "microphone" and it came back with "you plugged it into the wrong one." A clear, concise, accurate, helpful Windows response. Lucky I was sitting down.