Potpourri

* Fergus Bordewich has launched a blog to support his new book Bound for Canaan , but three postings in six months does not a blog make, my friend. And the postings are book excerpts, it seems.

* David Woodbury is posting weekly (or thereabouts) but is going for length and quality in any case. Hard to keep up blogging momentum on a weekly basis I think.

* CSPAN has actually had an ACW author on (this via Drew Wagenhoffer). That's rare.

* A new Bivouac Banner was posted last month and the newsletter is now carrying excerpts from future book releases. Good idea.

* Brett Schulte's guest poster Johnny Whitewater has taken the trouble to read Team of Rivals and is annoyed at the depiction of Lincoln as superhuman puppetmaster; he doesn't like the citational style either.

* SavasBeatie has its 2006 release list up and seems to have taken two 2005 titles into paper already. There's a new Eric Wittenberg title in the bullpen .

* Mark Grimsley has noticed that the Department of War Studies at King's College (London) has gone into the distance learning business. I have a funny Department of War Studies at King's College story, believe it or not. (Don't we all?)

My friend Delk O. and I were sitting around over a meal of Australian steak grill-fried in olive oil (lots of olive oil, the cooks were not steak eaters normally) in a contractor's mess in Riyadh back in 1979 or '80. Delk, an outspoken fellow, had just come back from London where he interviewed to study in the new War Studies department; at the end of his Saudi contract he would start his advanced degree work

"How did it go," I asked. "A little rough," he said. "After answering a lot of questions I asked my interviewer, 'So are you going to put your name on my research and then publish it?'" This was pure Delk. The interviewer, who would have become Delk's advisor answered, "Sir, this is not the United States. We do our own research here."

Bad interview technique but good answer.

Apologies to my academic friends. I do love that story. I don't think Delk got in.