As a writer, he cornered the market in time-travelling aliens from Tralfamadore. My notes on his novel Timequake (1997) conclude "...the work of a master craftsman." But in retrospect that seems an overestimation, with his contemporary Kilgore Trout latterly eclipsing him. He was never as cozily genre as Asimov nor as influential as Philip K. Dick, so it's unsurprising that his highly accessible and morbidly funny literature was rather wasted on the human race - although appreciated somewhat more by Tralfmadorians.

Of course, he is now utterly indifferent to such matters, having suffered a fatal fall. So it goes. But should he turn out to have been wrong about God, and now be supping at a clam-bake just beyond the pearly gates, then here's to you: Kurt Vonnegut, Junior.

Dreams can be strange things: last night I dreamt I was checking-out of a hotel. To my surprise, the bill included a charge for gazing at contrails. Being a dream, this made perfect sense; I just regretted having stared at them so long...

An inauspicious beginning to my blog – but whoever agreed with my review of Primeval episode 5: (a) thanks – it made my day; (b) how on Earth, in any era, did you agree with all that (including the cleavage)? There's actually a serious point here: what I want to know about a review is, 'Is it worth reading?'. And that's not answered by the false dichotomy of the current agree/disagree system. Indeed for a show like Primeval, which is polarising opinion, 'agree/disagree' favours the most ambiguous or contentious reviews. (Which review would you be more curious about: one with 3×agrees, or one with 2×agrees and 2×disagrees?) What's needed is another button – one saying 'Recommend this review' that could be used to commend interesting or challenging writers, whatever their opinion. So, for example, a highly recommended but disagreed-with review would hint at a reviewer bravely challenging the popular orthodoxy; whereas a highly disagreed-with but unrecommended review would represent unfiltered pond scum. At minimum, a recommendation system (or even a 'most read' system such as found on every news site) would be another shovel for sifting 30-odd reviews to find the diamonds amongst the coal. And that's gotta be a plus.