AgentPete

AgentPete

Guardian Full Member
Capo Famiglia From London UK
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  • AgentPete
    United-Nations
    I had a subscription to Office 365, which I’ve just cancelled – thinking that although I wouldn’t receive updates, I’d still be able to use it. Turns out, you can’t. You don’t pay – Microsoft hobbles your software, i.e. makes it unusable. This is not going to drive me back into their arms! LibreOffice looks better every day.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Just saw "KPop Demon Hunters" - the singalong version. I will never be the same. :)
    • Haha
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    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    Actually, yeah. It took me about an hour to acclimatize. But then I got it :)

    Most other people in the audience were singing along to every tune, many of them also voicing each word of the dialogue! I didn’t go that far. But I did enjoy :)
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    Jake E
    Jake E
    It's a very well written story. I really liked it, but, like you, it took a bit of time to get into it.
    My daughter loves it.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    Oh so it's the new Rocky Horror. Interesting that the audience is active and not passive. Take note AI. Live and connected is the future, not isolated and spoonfed.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Robert Redford is dead. Didn’t really appreciate him enough at the time, yet in retrospect he seems like one of the giants of the screen. Feels like part of the best of America may have died, too… Or am I being too melancholic…? :(
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    Hannah Faoileán
    Hannah Faoileán
    Redford's foundation of Sundance has inspired and helped so many as they try to find their feet in the film industry. He was a giver. The world should have more givers like him.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    Not enough good words out there to balance the sophism. Listening to the sequel to One and Future King. TH White socratically making the case for democracy and peace over might makes right. In the 30's UK had crap leadership until the old coloniser lumbered into place with his words of power and grace. Somewhere in the United Kingdoms there is an Arthur and a Churchill. You're the man to find them.
    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    Well, that would nice :)
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Following on from Mel’s post, this chap landed on my knee yesterday, a Common Darter dragonfly. However, I was horrified to later learn of their utterly lewd behavior, and I quote: “Eggs are not laid, but broadcast from the air: the male holds the female in tandem and swings her down and forward over water. At the furthest point of the arc the female releases some of her eggs to fall on the water.” This sort of grossly immoral public display must surely be banned? Why restrict it to just books?
    Common Darter.png
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    So let me explain what’s going on here. You’re looking at two male Ancistrus fish, South American vegan (of course!). Part of a shoal of about 20, all of whom have been with me for thirty years. The things they’re clustered round are Ancistrus fish eggs, and they are guarding, not eating, them. The female lays them then leaves it to the male (just one, usually!) to look after them as they develop, involving a lot of fin fanning to keep the water flowing around them and thus prevent rot. Hopefully, these two males are good friends since the baby fish, when they emerge, will have two fathers!
    ancistrus.jpg
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    The Author Platform is undergoing some design quirks at the moment and isn’t looking its best. This is temporary and we’re on it.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Quite an epic evening last night. A large male and a large female turned up. I was on my new viewing plinth, about five feet up. They had fun for 20 mins or so finding the peanut stashes I’d left. Then the (highly intelligent!) male worked out that the motionless creature draped in black, on the plinth, had a bowl of peanuts at his feet. It took him 5 more mins to work out how to get up onto the platform (he came in from the back, I was frozen still the whole time). Then, very deliberately, he came up, gave me a long stare, then proceeded to very carefully smell every inch of my trousers! So that’s what a human smells like... I’ve been entered into his smell-memory. It was, frankly, awesome :)PXL_20250825_190921195.PORTRAIT.jpg
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    And after! :)
    Untitled design.jpg
    • Like
    • Swinging
    • Cool
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    Katie-Ellen
    Katie-Ellen
    Brokkie brekkie.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    And now you know the one thing you MUST NOT plant and expect a crop-sweetcorn. Were there badger foo
    Black And White Animation GIF by littlekingdoms
    ty prints?
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    So I read somewhere that “badgers love sweetcorn!” Seemed highly improbable to me, but to test, I left a cob out last night on the usual badger plinth. This was the result this morning – case closed! They sure had a good party last night...
    PXL_20250810_110531810.jpg
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    PXL_20250805_195609802.NIGHT~2.png
    Two nights ago, she's found my peanut stash. I suspect she may be pregnant...?
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Don’t judge me, but I’m bunking off work now (3pm) to tidy up the badgers’ part of the wood...
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    badger_2025-07-01.png
    First contact, about an hour ago :)
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Freddie Forsyth is dead. Author of The Day of the Jackal and more of that ilk. As dodgy a character in real life as any in his books. Like Jeffrey Archer, wrote thrillers for the home county set. End of an era – end of a profitable genre too, perhaps.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Woke up to find a Chinese company who I’ve dealt with previously has successfully billed my credit card four times for goods not ordered. It’s a lot of money. Credit card company says – “wait for the good to arrive, then see if you can return them for a refund”. This is so wrong! All my morning will now be devoted to sorting this out :(
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    anaximander
    anaximander
    Yeah, had the same thing happen to this unknown company charging my creditcard via PayPal. Google the company and you get a lot of complaints of scams. Their website has a contact form that doesn't work. I disabled the automatic payment and hope that'll be the end of it.
    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    I’m pretty shocked at how unhelpful Mastercard have been. Four large payments, exactly the same sum, to a Chinese company, over the space of a few hours? Smells like fraud to me! But card company didn’t challenge even once. We’ll see how this turns out.
    Bloo
    Bloo
    Not fair at all. My Visa suspected fraud last time I renewed Litopia.

    Hope you get it sorted.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    What people don’t understand about the London Book Fair is that, like other book fairs, it goes out of its way to prevent authors from “bothering” agents. I’ve never minded that at all, but let it pass. More seriously, it’s still very hard for new agents to just wander around and meet publishers. You would think that the whole point of a fair... wouldn’t you?
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    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    The core function of a book fair has always been non-stop rights and sub-rights deals. Most rights people work really hard at fairs and all credit to them for that. But for a new agent, the process is actively discouraging – you have to fix appointments months in advance, usually with people you already know in any case. It’s actually easier to make new publishing contacts outside of book fairs, perversely.
    Sarit
    Sarit
    Well if they don't want authors bothering anyone why have an author's HQ full of activities?
    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    That’s fairly new, as is the idea that members of the (reading!) public might like to come along, too.
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    My life. For days. It really is coming together...
    1000003165.jpg
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Was never able to successfully make sauerkraut in Baker St. Don’t know why, but each attempt came out mouldy :( However, first attempt in Hastings has just turned out wonderfully! Sea air…?
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    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    Honestly, it makes me think that the Baker St environment was simply too polluted to allow the natural ferment to happen. The first batch down here is stunningly good, and very low-salt, too.
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    Vagabond I remember flying in to do some things for the Seaul Olympics, whatever year that was. The minute the plane door opened there was a strong earthy smell that permeated the cabin. I was told that was kimchi. Some of the best was buried for years...
    Jonny
    Jonny
    Congrats. It's always good finally enjoying success. :leafy-green: (no cabbage emoji)

    I find that when natural ferment doesn't take place... it's the wurst.

    OK, I'll get my coat... :baby-angel:
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    So I spent the evening toying around with DeepSeek, the Chinese ChatGPT-killer, running it locally on a machine here. Truthfully, it feels pretty much the same as ChatGPT, although the interface has been tuned to feel friendlier, to the extent of being somewhat conspiratorial – which an odd affectation for a program. It let’s you in on its “reasoning” process, which is interesting the first few times, then quickly pales. Main thing is… it’s free to run on your own machine! Hard to see how the others can compete against that.
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    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    Duh! Maybe post again in the thread I've opened...?
    Pamela Jo
    Pamela Jo
    This is a recent run at chat GPT. Still making up most of its sources. Also tho the writing is more blood stirring than the usual academic sort-most of it is based on wrong cliches we are trying to right. Medieval horses were Spanish for the most part-which was a specific brand more than where they were from. They were NOT draft types, but I agree the horse in LadyHawke is gorgeous. That's partly where that misinformation began. And muddy ground, kicking up dust... TWICE? To quote Lyse "I hates it so much. I do."

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    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Been shorn, given my locks to the (nesting) birds. Felt oddly like I was propitiating them. So part of me will soon be nurturing fledglings...
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    I didn't like all of David Lynch's projects by any means; but I always liked the fact that there was a David Lynch.
    Now, there's not :(
    AgentPete
    United-Nations
    Two foxes in the frosty garden this morning, mating. Apparently this takes an hour or more. Judging by the screams, I’d say it isn’t entirely enjoyable? Or maybe I’m just not a fox…
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