Just checked in to the Radisson in Glasgow, where I’m speaking at the UK Society of Editors’ conference. First thing I looked for, naturally, was (free) broadband — and it’s provided. Quite fast, too. Just the ticket.

Eric Homberger has written a nice obituary of William Styron. I loved this description of how and where he wrote:

Styron wrote his books in longhand using a No2 pencil on yellow lined paper. A good day’s work might see him complete two or three pages of manuscript. A quotation from Flaubert was displayed in his study: “Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work”.

I see now where I went wrong. I’ve been trying to avoid becoming bourgeois all my life. Sigh.

The Boston Globe obit adds something else about his craftsmanship:

Mr. Styron wrote in longhand on yellow legal pads, striving for 500 words a day. He preferred to write just one draft of a book, getting each page just right before proceeding to the next, rather than revising a completed draft. His own harshest critic, Mr. Styron had a self-described “neurotic need to be perfect each paragraph — each sentence, even — as I go along.”

This is the headline on Good Morning Silicon Valley’s report that Vista for corporate customers will be unveiled on November 30 at an event in New York. Neat, eh?

From the Economist’s review of Margaret MacMillan’s new book, Seize the Hour: when Nixon met Mao.

Some of the most revealing discoveries Ms MacMillan has made in her researches are the haiku-like memos Nixon wrote on his yellow pads. One, which he scribbled before the talks started, begins:

What they want:

1. Build up their world credentials

2. Taiwan

3. Get out of Asia

What we want:

1. Indo China (?)

2. Communication—To restrain Chinese expansion in Asia

3. In future—Reduce threat of confrontation by China Super Power

What we both want:

1. Reduce danger of confrontation & conflict

2. A more stable Asia

3. A restraint on USSR

Note the question-mark after “Indochina”!

Naturally, the image comes with a Creative Commons licence!

From The Register…

Charles Simonyi, 58, is set to become the 450th person in space, and the fifth amateur cosmonaut to fly to the International Space Station (ISS). He also claims to be the first nerd heading for orbit.

He is slated to take off on 9 March, 2007, provided he completes his training and passes all the medical tests.

Simonyi told the BBC that he had three goals: “One of them is to advance civilian spaceflight, the second to assist space station research, and the third to involve kids in space sciences,” he said.

He says he plans to learn Russian as part of his preparation, and will also bone up on the workings of the rocket that will take him to the space station.

“Learning about the systems is part of my engineering curiosity and makes the whole experience so much more interesting when I understand exactly what is going on and, for example, why the flight is safe,” he explained.

After the eight minute journey to orbit, on board a Russian Soyuz rocket launched from the Baikonaur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the software engineer will spend two days travelling to the ISS. He’ll spend eight days on board before returning to Earth.

As with other high profile space tourists, Simonyi has organised his trip through Space Adventures. The ticket to the ISS is thought to cost between $20m and $25m.

One of Simonyi’s more inspired endowments was the money he gave Oxford to establish a Professorship of the Public Understanding of Science — currently occupied by Richard Dawkins.