Olympic Games, here I come!

Today I'm travelling down to London for the Olympics. I'm going by car, not by ship, like Themis in The Boy with Two Heads. And it will only take six hours, not six days. 


We have tickets for three events: beach volleyball on Monday ("the hottest tickets in town"), athletics on Friday evening, and trampoline on Saturday (these must be warm tickets, at least!). We decided against boxing, in spite of its relevance to my story. The weather looks dryer there ...

Horse Guards beach volleyball venue

Since I last blogged, Connie has overcome the technical difficulties and up-loaded the e-book of The Boy with Two Heads to Amazon. She decided the price would be £3.99, with a 'free day' sometime soon, when readers will be able to download it for free. I'll blog the date when I know.


Meanwhile, I've been writing the first draft of a new reader manuscript, probably for Cambridge. 

Which is why I haven't been focussed much on my Boy! But he's been selling gently all along, and I did take two days off to go down to London two weeks ago to go round the bookshops near the Olympic Park and in Central London to raise awareness of him. I wore my promotional T-shirt. I hope to have more to say about that when I've had a chance to see if there have been any results. Waterstones' website says he is available to order. Blackwell says he is 'not in stock - our special ordering service will try to obtain this title for you'. At least, they've stopped saying he's only available from the USA!


So now I'm all set to enjoy the Games. We watched the Opening Ceremony on TV last night. The papers are saying it was "a Triumph". Thank you, to Danny Boyle and all the thousands who took part!  It was fascinating to be reminded of the variety of human cultures and styles as the athletes paraded into the stadium. My favourite moment (from among many funny and touching and enthralling ones) was when those 204 copper petals rose up and became a burning flower. The London 2012 'cauldron' was designed by Thomas Heatherwick, truly thinking outside the box. No bowls on sticks for him. Wow!