The longest title

Today I gave up an afternoon of my vacation to be part of committee for the Department of Education & Training's COGs (Connected Outcomes Groups) project. We are investigating the list of potential literary texts that will be included in the units of work being developed for teachers. Fascinating stuff - and a good way to prepare for, and ease into, the daily grind when school starts back next week!

As the meeting wasn't going to take up the whole day, I was able to organise morning tea and lunch with my wonderful colleagues still working at SCIS/Scan. It was rather nostalgic heading off for a peak hour train (in the rain, but who's complaining?), with a Star Trek novel to read on the long commute to Ryde. Just like old times...

I took the SCIS cataloguers something a bit unique; a children's anthology of short stories I found at Galaxy Bookshop a few months ago, with surely one of the longest titles ever:

Noisy outlaws, unfriendly blobs, and some other things that aren't scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cellphones, creatures from the sky, parents who disappear in Peru, a man named Lars Farf, and one other story we couldn't quite finish, so maybe you could help us out, edited by Ted Thompson with Eli Horowitz, with an introduction & almost half a story by Lemony Snicket (McSweeney's, 2005).

Sadly, it was already on the SCIS database. Beaten by New Zealand. Drat. (I hadn't actually noticed that it was a 2005 book, and the writing contest printed on the inside of the bizarre dustjacket had already expired.) Oh well, it was a fun thought.