Because I am a good, supportive, helpful sort, I took a friend recently to purchase a new pair of running trainers. Which isn’t a very exciting way to begin a pre-podcastal anecdote, but don’t go away yet! You see, it wasn’t at all what I’d come to expect from my Friendly Local Sneaker Salesperson. No!

As you know, there’s not much room on these pages for political soapboxing, both because there are already plenty of internet playgrounds for that sort of thing, and because I’d rather freestyle on such endlessly gripping topics as the weather or this podcast’s sound quality. However. I have an opinion that must be voiced.

Today’s bedtime story has been requested by Patrick (as for the O’Connor, I will do, yes, but for now, have you heard this one?), and I looked all over town but couldn’t find a more appropriate selection for today, so you should all join me now in thanking him.

My friends and compeers and heroes at Librivox are celebrating their first birthday right now, and so I felt it necessary to add my kudos to their basic first-year achivements:

A question too often asked of me: how is a specific story or specific author on a specific day selected?

Rather than answer the question directly (because what’s the use of renting one’s own outdoor space if not to desultorily blather around or plant cobwebbish morning glories around it?), I thought I would instead give you insight into the metrics, processes, and rationale behind today’s selection. Steel yourselves:

The plot of tonight’s story involves a gaggle of young children who go to stay with their frail old grandmother, and who, more or less, are swallowed up by a house that I imagine to be uniformly mothballish and denture-gluey in nature. And I’m disclosing this to you now not so that I might spoil it for you (because I’m sure you’re all remarkably brilliant listeners who are after more than rote high-concept plot anyhow), BUT!