Punt tomorrow. School night gig marathon from heck. I blogged it a couple of years ago as a gin'n'tonic crawl. Things have changed a lot since then -- the venues are a different (and, I think, nicer) set and at least one of the venues has been renamed. Twice, I think. Not to mention that this year I'm actually on stage, shouting for Space Heroes of the People (11pm, at the Cellar). Eeek.

The evening starts at 6.15pm, with a free show at Borders. It's usually something gentle and folky, but this year's combination of contemporary bossa nova and christian rap leaves me troubled yet strangely excited. From then on, it's mid-evening venues, which are £4 each if you haven't got your punt pass (available for £7 from Videosyncratic or QI). QI's also one of the venues. I have a pass (no, you don't get in free for playing!) and plan to be running from venue to venue at this stage of the evening, extra-easy this year as all venues are very close! The pub venues pack up at 11pm, which should get me to the Cellar just in time to perform, handy really. Smilex are topping the bill. The full preview is on page 12 of this month's Nightshift -- I'd point to a better online preview, but I'm not seeing one -- bit of a shame really, as a bunch of myspace links would make the evening a lot easier to plan. EDIT: Ah, it is here, in the Nightshift forums -- thanks to concourse for the heads up.

In other news, something has been digging up my garden. Cats? Hedgehogs? Crows? I'm planting hardy things (marigolds, night-scented stock) in the disturbed areas, but damiancugley favours a more technological approach and wants to cam up the garden. Oh, and I have a greenhouse, in bits, in the garden. Just like flatpack furniture, right? (god help me...)

Pictures and educational notes about spotting when a panda is on heat accompany this account of how the introduction of a hot young male sparked off a panda mating frenzy. Also: inflatable whales!

A couple of links from douglasnoble, deserving of further investigation: Look inside the suitcases of Peter Greenaway's fictional archivist Tulse Luper; and explore the work of Jason Nelson, whose game, game, game and again game I just failed to finish (hard to avoid the nagging suspicion that success is impossible, having built similar things myself in the dim distants).

Last: making strawberry daquiris by injecting white rum into strawberry with a syringe is a) possible and b) delicious. Photographs of shooting up the strawberries will follow.

...and in local news someone steals a massive quantity of fish. The mind boggles just at the logistics!