Wandering Pom

I read the "old" version of the story a few weeks ago, shortly before the "new" version was posted, so I was curious about this too. As far as I can tell, the two versions as identical, other than minor corrections in the "new" version. Since the "Kewl Dad" author page has been removed, I assume the author discussed everything with Mike beforehand. At a guess, the author wanted to use a new nom de plume, and decided that "The Secret Life of Nerds" was suitable for publication under the new name.

Well done to Foster, for a neat solution - I am de-tenterhooked at last :) Many thanks to Cole for a lovely story well told. I'm rather fond of the characters, and I'd like to know more about how their lives develop, but in the absence of a sequel I'll assume a modern-day version of "and they all lived happily ever after".

Thanks for that - I wondered where it was for a long time, but never quite worked it out. My best guess was quite close geographically, at least: Oundle.

Part 2 suggests Lindybeige found some freedom amidst the regimentation. But overall it still sounds like a fairly miserable experience for him. I can understand how it must have been quite traumatic for a rather independently-minded person to be suddenly dropped into this environment after being used to conventional home and school life. Overall I think it depends a lot on both the school (they vary a great deal in their approaches to discipline and control) and the person (some people need much more freedom than others). To take an example that I'm sure is familiar here, if Mihangel's writing reflects his experience of the real-life "Yarborough", then I think it was a combination of a less regimented environment with a personality that was better suited to it.

It's all looking good for me so far - no sign of the previous problems recurring.

Ah, Cambridge: a city I know quite well and am very fond of. King's College Chapel is probably its best-known and most beautiful building. There's perhaps a happy coincidence in the fact that the classic view of it (see the video at 1:30, and again at about 5:15) was used as the "cover photo" for Cole's Hammil Academy series.

Alexei Mikhailov, if I've transcribed the Russian correctly. Filmed on 31 May 2018, according to the YouTube description; a few of the comments on the YouTube post look to have links to other performances by him.

Not to worry: we're all human, and I certainly don't expect perfection. You're doing a lot better than many other writers, including some who are paid for it. Also, I'm doubtful that fewer words necessarily means fewer mistakes; I suspect instead that approach leads to more contorted prose which is harder to edit and understand.

Incidentally I spotted a small but amusing typo in chapter 18. The Christmas tree was described as "a Noble fur", which produced some mental images quite different from what I'm sure was intended 🙂

Well, the master of suspense has given us a double dose this time. I was already on tenterhooks from chapter 17, and after chapter 18 I'm now on double tenterhooks! How will I endure the near-eternity of waiting, a whole four days, until chapter 19 is published? And back down from my soapbox, I'm glad that Christmas has been a time of goodwill and understanding for our protagonists.

It's still going well, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's chapter. It's good to see that at least some of Johnny's possessions have turned up, at last, though I'm a bit surprised that amidst all the legal activity Bernard hasn't been given instructions to ensure everything was forwarded ASAP. But I think the most poignant moment so far has been Johnny's line "I thought if I had sex with them, they would love me." Poor lad.

I haven't (so far) had any problems replying to posts, but I have noticed over the last few days that some bits of the forums are rendering oddly. Some examples: Threads that run over one page now have the number page links listed vertically, not horizontally, so such threads get a longer block (with lots of empty space) in the forum listing. In each forum post, the member's icon is either slightly larger than before, or slightly shifted down, so it now covers the top half of the first line of the member description, e.g. "AD Author". The pin icon against the title of pinned threads seems to be jammed up against the text in a way that it wasn't before. In the main forum listing, the text indicating the date of the most recent post in each forum has a stray space + comma (i.e. " ,") on the end. My guess is that the CSS or equivalent has been subtly altered in some way - a recent Invision update? If it helps for diagnosis, my browser is Firefox v. 80.0.1, running on Windows 10 v. 2004.

More good stuff today. I won't say more at this stage for fear of providing spoilers.

Until the next chapter, for which I am now waiting with bated breath. Good to see things developing for Daniel, and impressed by the maturity that Rob and Terry are showing in their friendship.

Another good chapter. I’m impressed with Johnny, who seems to be finding his feet very quickly after deliberately launching himself into the unknown. Mike and Anne seem to be getting to grips with the new situation pretty quickly too.