Weird first.
A Malaysian supposed-to-be-Muslim woman has been send to jail for apostasy. For two years.

I am mystified why religious idiots think one has a choice about belief. One believes, or one doesn’t. You can’t suddenly force yourself to believe, for example, that the moon is made of green cheese, simply because someone says you must; any more than a devout person will suddenly disbelieve in God because he has been told he must.

The only thing you can do – which thousands upon thousands of so-called Muslims do across the world – is lie about your lack of belief so you don’t get punished. (And from what I can see, in the US, if you are standing for an elected government position and you are an atheist, you’d better lie or you can say goodbye to winning. After all, we all know that atheists cannot possibly be upright, decent, honest citizens…)

I may think the Malaysian lady is a bit daft (her beliefs border on the bizarre – the cult she belonged to had links to a giant teapot sculpture…), but I admire her principles. Would I go to jail for a belief? I doubt it. I’d just lie like mad.

Disastrous second.
My computer keeps on slooooooooooooooooooowing down. And I mean SLOW. Press one key and wait up to a minute for it to react. Only cure is to close down (which takes approximately half an hour) and reboot. During one of these annoying episodes, it failed to save my work properly – and I lost a huge chunk of Rogue Rainlord. I didn’t notice and blithely OVERWROTE my good backup copies with the corrupted one. Clever, clever, Glenda. Fortunately I did have a print out. Now I am having to retype.

Encouraging third.
The Shadow of Tyr (Orbit UK) has gone to reprint. Nice.

I had great plans for today, all listed down neatly (because that what you have to do when you are my age), and then I went and lost the list (which is what you actually do do when you are my age).

Just to put some blood on the seal of my day, I parked on a side slope when I went for my morning run at the riverside, and the car door slammed on my hand. Just what you need when you have a report to finish before you go off to enjoy yourself at Convergence…

…three more days and I shall be in Melbourne!
And to make it even nicer, I get a first copy of the Song of the Shiver Barrens delivered to me in Melbourne on Sunday, hot off the Voyager presses, courtesy of the lovely Karen.

I’ll let you in a secret: No writer worth a reading public ever gets blase about holding the first copy of a book in their hand…it is a special moment, like savouring a particularly tasty pie when you are starving hungry. The smooth feel of it, the smell wafting up from the new pages, the taste of knowing it is yours…I’m salivating already.

Anyway, the day was great around lunchtime, because I met up with the mob – my bookgroup – and caught up on everyone’s doings. Good things, sad things, funny things – I really miss these folk when I am over in Kota Kinabalu. (Did I ever get around to mentioning I am back in Selangor at the moment?) They mean such a lot to me.

On a sadder note, the saga of the woman imprisoned for not being a Muslim, when she was raised a Hindu, continues. Apparently, the Arabic TV channel AlJezirah (sp?) ran a spot on her. I didn’t see it, having no TV, but they interviewed her husband, who has been to see her in jail three times. Twice he was refused entry.

[Fantastic. Now they keep her from meeting her own husband – I don’t think they even do that to murderers here!!!!!]

On the third visit, a sympathetic guard allowed them to meet with a chainlink fence between them. Apparently all they could do was touch fingers through the wires…

Their toddler daughter has been stolen from them and given to the Muslim side of her family to raise. [Presumably the same good Muslim family who so cared so much about their daughter’s religious well-being that gave her to a Hindu grandmother to raise…]

And the woman has refused to knuckle under and agree to follow a religion which has torn her family apart and treated her as a criminal and subjected her to brainwashing in a prison environment.

So what have they done to reward such intransigence? Extended her 100 day sentence by another 80 days.

Perhaps the worst thing in all this is the lack of outcry and outrage from Muslims in this country. Are you all so heartless? I have had nothing but gentle consideration from the majority of you in all my years here. Was that all a sham?

If you want this woman to be a Muslim, you have gone the wrong way about it.

I wish I could do more.