Blogger’s automatic spam detection seems to have collapsed again. Can’t they just put in a line of code to the effect that any message which ends with the words “My website”, followed by a link, is to be suspected? You all seemed to have enjoyed the spam so much that I felt a bit mean, deleting it. Apologies in advance for switching moderation on again, if I have to – I’ll leave it for a few more hours.

Shandy, I’m sure you’re right that the messages have been filtered through translation machines. It hadn’t occurred to me. I thought it was just bad English, but the prose does have a special quality…

I read Cathy’s short story “Takeaway” in a single gulp yesterday. (Link to the Kindle edition on amazon.co.uk, but it’s also available on amazon.com, as Kristie points out.) It’s very short, very clever. It’s also an excellent taster-introduction to her Chinese detective, Song Ren, who appears in her full-length thrillers set in Beijing, “Pool of Unease” and “The Slaughter Pavillion”.

She’s got a new novel, called “Carnaby”, coming out in July, under a new name, “Cate Sampson”. It is classified as “young adult” and is set in England this time.

Knitting

I’ve started the tee-shirt.

My mind felt totally gummed up yesterday morning, as evidenced by that egregious mistake spotted by Beverly, when I said that I got 25 stitches to the inch on my swatch. (No wonder I found purling uncomfortable!) I should have written, 25 stitches to four inches, of course.

I measured a favourite rugby shirt. I wear it a lot, with a polo shirt underneath and, this time of year, a heavy sleeveless pullover underneath as well. That seemed about right, for size. It measures 22 inches across. I did the sums, worrying the while not about the arithmetic but about whether I had framed the questions rightly: is it legitimate to divide inches by stitches?

The answer seemed to be that I would hit my target if I cast on the number of stitches the designer gives for her smallest size, intended for a 32 ½” chest. How could that be? And she was using sport-weight yarn which would make her cast-on even bigger than mine? I wondered about this for a while, and re-did the sums both for my gauge and for hers. I finally decided (tentatively) that I was calculating correctly.

When the designer says, positive ease, she means business – that 32.5” chest gets a 48” tee-shirt. (Her gauge is 23 stitches to FOUR inches, and the smallest size starts with 140 stitches. Try it, and let me know if I’ve done the maths wrong.)

I don’t think I want that much material flapping about. I went ahead and cast on 140 stitches for myself, which, with my gauge, should produce a 44-inch-circumference tee-shirt. I think. I’ve knit a few rows, and it looks perfectly plausible.

I should just be able to follow instructions for the smallest size for the body (adjusting length, of course). The sleeves may be a bit trickier.