Orion's Murder Room

Via Alison Flood, the exciting news that Orion have set up The Murder Room — the crime equivalent of the Gollancz' SF Gateway — intended to make out of print classics available as ebooks. I've taken a quick look and it looks pretty exciting — not least because it gives me the opportunity to catch up on some of Anthony Price's Audley novels without having to scour the second had section of Amazon.

A particularly absurd crime

Unfotunately, I've had my bag stolen. I don't so much resent the theft itself — although, obviously, I do — so much as the inconvenient circumstances: it was stolen from my locker while I was swimming. As a result, I was left standing around in the reception of the sports centre in my trunks with nothing to my name but a hat, a pair of goggles and my shoes which, thankfully, were not in my bag.

Fortunately, the people at the sports centre were extremely helpful. They contacted the police, gave me an old promotional t-shirt — score! — and a pair of shorts from lost property. When I got home, I threw myself on the mercy of one of my neighbours and used their phone to call the landlord. After my landlord had rushed over with their spare keys — something for which I was pathetically greatful — I then got to spend the rest of the evening on the phone to the bank, to work, and to the police cancelling things and given statements. All most inconvenient.

So although I'm aggrieved, I'm also able to see the funny side. Because there is something absurd about being left standing around semi-naked with nothing to change into but a pair of shoes and someone else's leavings, while some criminal loser frantically tries to fence a 6 year-old phone and a pair of scruffy short-legged jeans...