From tomorrow morning to Thursday evening I'll be in Denmark, Copenhagen to be specific. Officially it's a business trip, inofficially it's 50% being touristy, 50% being touristy with a porcelain focus by visiting things like Royal Copenhagen Porcelain and the Porcelain Museum to get an idea of Danish design.

Since the hotel claims to have internet in the rooms, I should be reachable by email.

I repeat my warning of a few days ago of Yaoihouse publishing, especially its founder/member/sole author/resident nutcase Kira Takenouchi. Things looked as though they might have settled down, but it's escalating again and there is no reason to think that the situation has in any way improved with new people at the helm of the company.

This comment is the latest development in this show of online drama. I'd also like to point you towards alice_montrose's link collection and her last update post.

To sum it up, Ms Takenouchi is constantly giving evidence that she is not a reliable business partner in any way. Mental illnesses can be an excuse for rendering business decisions null and void, but not when this mental condition was pre-existing and recognized. In that case, you're on your own and you'd better take responsibility. Not for what you did during the episode, but that you didn't take precautions when you knew this could easily happen. No professional would ever run a business like this. And what matters more, no professional would ever partner with someone with such a business record.

If you are considering doing business with Ms Takenouchi, this is once again a warning. This is not someone who is a reliable business partner. Not for readers - because she has not delivered on pre-paid goods - and not for writers, who she is attempting to bully and threaten into submission.

I've just realized that next week is Eurovision. It's been so quiet this year! No scandalous/weird/camp/insane entries seem to have been discovered yet.

Anyway, for those as oblivious as me: Semifinals on the 20th and 22nd (Tue and Thu), and the final on the 24th (Saturday).

Austria is sulking again this year - we'd be permitted into the semis, but because we didn't make it into the final last year, the national broadcast agency has decided it's a waste of money to send someone. This also bans me from voting, which is fundamentally unfair. At first glance, Finland is sending a group of half-naked men, most Eastern Europeans send pretty boys in black suits and white shirts and those who don't send skinny girls in skimpy dresses, and Ireland is sending David the Turkey.

After mentioning Tom Holland's Rubicon a few times, I've picked it up to see whether it really was as good as the reviews said.

It is. At least, it is if you want an overview of Roman history from around 100BC to 30BC, aka the last three generations of the Republic.

You get a very quick summary of the founding of Rome, the kings, and the first four centuries. Everything from the Etruscan kings to the Gracchi (753-133 BC) is dealt with on 30 pages, which means that the kings are just mentioned, the Punic Wars are glossed over, and issues like Jughurta or the Gallic conquest of Rome are completely skipped. You still get the big picture, though, and in a very coherent way. With Sulla the details start, then go on with Caesar and finish off with Octavian (though he is dealt with more quickly than the former two). For those 70 years, it's an excellent introduction. Political twists aren't always spelled out in detail, but the bigger incidents are all mentioned and the more important players get thorough introductions .

What makes the book really good, though, is that it doesn't forget that the reader is most likely a newcomer. Social customs are explained, beliefs, motivations. The honour ideology is spelled out clearly, as is the bellum iustum and the pathological Roman inability to admit to being the loser. Lots of little details, like the importance of swimming pools for social status. Plenty of gossip, too, from Clodius' sacrilege at the Bona Dea rites to Sulla's missing testicle and Pompey's father being struck by lightning. It's a history book that's fun to read.

I know some of you are looking for intros to Rome. This book comes heartily recommended. (It also exists in a German translation.)

Has anyone read C.E. Murphy's The Queen's Bastard and can explain to me what that book was about? I've just finished it, but I can't shake the feeling that I completely missed the point.

My balcony is currently the site of an aerial war.

The opponentss: me vs. a pair of thrushes.

I've put up big plant containers for my capsicums, cucumbers, tomato plants etc. The thrush couple has viewed this benevolently and has decided that a fourth flour balcony is an ideal place for them to look for their morning snack. So they come every morning and dig through the soil in the containers.

I wouldn't mind if they didn't make such a mess. But every morning I have a balcony floor covered in crumbs of soil, I have half-unearthed plants, and I have two annoyed-looking thrushes who couldn't find any worms or bugs because this was store-bought soil and thus didn't have crawlies in it.

If anyone has anti-bird-measures that a) work and b) don't scare my neighbours to death, I'd be happy to hear!

There is a very ugly situation going on at Yaoi House Publishing at the moment.

I'll direct you to alice_montrose's post on this, since she's immediately affected as an author. logophilos has a comprehensive run-down of the situation here.

If you're considering buying a subscription or a publication from Yaoi House, please take the time to inform yourself about the current situation. Be very careful when dealing with this publisher, both as a reader and a writer.

The closer the football Championship comes, the more it amuses me. Mostly because of sheer mathematics.

The organizers in Vienna, wise as they are, organized a fan zone on one of the main central roads, which will be blocked for a month because of this. Now this fan zone will hold 70,000 fans, and no more than that will be permitted to go in.

For comparison, the fan zone in Berlin two years ago for the world championship held 750,000 people at maximum capacity. On several days, Berlin's fan zone was too small.

See the problem?

For additional comparison, the last time a Vienna football club became Austrian master, the celebrations had up to 100,000 people attending. Somehow I do think that at least all of them might turn up for championship games...

Now the Vienna organizers are not stupid, of course. They refused to open a second fan zone on the Danube Island, Vienna's main entertainment and leisure area, where every year a big party with 500,000 people per day is held. Their official reason was that it is too difficult to reach. Of course, only three out of five subway lines, plus countless buses and tramways have stops there. Not to count regional train lines.

Instead, the second fan zone is in a Vienna suburb no tourist will ever have heard of. Too far away from the main fan zone to walk there, and only connected by one subway line and one tram line. At best, they'll manage to transport 10,000 people per hour. And the real fun is that this second zone will only opened if the main zone becomes too crowded - which will be decided at the moment when fan number 75,000 has entered the main fan zone. The trip to the secondary zone only takes about an hour, too...

It's going to be hilarious to watch the ensuing chaos.

There are some lines on the Vienna subway that have a reputation for attracting somewhat weird passengers. The U3, my commute line, usually isn't among those, but after the flasher this morning, the status might have to be reconsidered. He managed to wagon-hop back and forth for six stations before the subway security caught him.

I'm still puzzled over why he had a briefcase along. Casual Friday at his workplace might be considerably more casual than at mine.

So I've just gone and bought myself a bike. Bicycle, to be correct, though the idea of not having to pedal is tempting.

The reasoning behind it is mostly pragmatic - I need exercise, and don't have the time for it. Partly because I spend an hour each day on the subway. Now the commute is not a direct one by any means, but forces me to change trains and backtrack. On the road, the distance is just above 6km. I figure I can do 6km in 30 minutes easily and might even save time along the way. And with the way to the office almost completely flat with a few downhill bits, I'll even be fit for human company at work.

I have a question, though. When did bikes become so expensive? Two questions, actually - why would anyone in their right mind spend 1000 EUR on a bike? Final question - when did bikes lose the little carry platform at the back? I had to visit three stores until I found one that had the platform (Germans, help me out, what's a Gepäckträger? Inquisitive minds too lazy to use a dictionary are wondering...). That I'm too short for the standard frame sizes doesn't help either; I've ended up with a teenager bike because the regular adult bikes are simply too tall for me.

Anyway. Me has bike.