About this Blogspot blog

The blog has moved to: Little Stitches in a Tapestry. Please feel welcome to pop over.

A calm moment

It's New Year's Eve; I'm alone. Outside the wind is screaming, carrying rain by the bucket load.

Inside is calm, completely free of worry, a puzzle.

Our social infrastructure encourages us to think it's sad for people to be alone at this time of year. Trust me here though. In this corner and on this day, alone is simply the most glorious moment of peace.

This is my moment. I get to spend this one how I like. Well, I choose to spend this moment wondering - what you're up to.

If you've ever blogged and you've stumbled on an odd character who goes by the name of Bunnyman then there's one certainty I can offer. I'm raising my glass (okay, beer bottle) to you right now.

I hope you find something of value in the coming year.

Tomorrow, my attendance will be needed, chaos will sweep me away first in body, then in mind, but ... don't doubt that I'll be back sometime in 2007. After all, I have to examine my sanity somewhere.

Meanwhile, take good care of yourselves, wherever you are.

x.

Listening to: Philip Glass, music from The Hours

The Hours

I know it's New Year's Eve, but I gotta post this.

"To look life in the face, always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last, to know it, to love it, for what it is and then to put it away."  film quote

BBC2 has just shown the film, The Hours which I first saw back in 2003. I didn't have a blog then so I couldn't reflect on it ...

On the surface this is a film about the writer, Virginia Woolf and her fight against mental illness and depression; it's about sexuality and conformity explored in the lives of three women. But on another level it's about one character's realisation that her long years of blossoming happiness were merely a euphemism for one wonderful but finite moment in time; it exposes the superficial habits we construct to act out society's stereotypes; and it shows the intense, flawed and lonely people that we actually are.

Woolf faces the threat of her own extinction through madness. A mother abandons her children to leave an American Dream, one that is incapable of recognising her sexuality. A hostess struggles to confront her superficial life, as she sees the only meaning she's known, slipping away.

I can think of no other film that presents society's triviality in such bleak contrast to the intensity of our lives.

I love:

• that Nicole Kidman is virtually unrecognisable
• Philip Glass' mesmerising and hypnotic scoring of the soundtrack
• that everyone in this film acts
• the way these three separate, yet so directly connected lives intertwine
• that at least one reviewer really hates this film

Perhaps there can be no beauty in the absence of death? Perhaps this is a necessary fate, that those who are unable to conform must sacrifice themselves to our collective triviality?

"It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses."  Virginia Woolf

A book tag - something the matter with my brains

A book tag from a highly respected Goldfish

1. Take the nearest book and go to page 123.
2. Go to the fifth sentence of the page.
3. Copy down the next three sentences and tag three people.

The nearest book is a three volume set of The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh with Volume III being closest. Page 123 contains a letter written by Vincent to his friend, A.H. Koning, thought to be from January, 1889, only one month after the loss of Vincent's earlobe to a razor.

"I received your postcard in the hospital at Arles, where I had been quartered following an attack of something the matter with my brains, or otherwise fever, which had nearly passed off already.

And as for the causes and consequences of said illness, I think I shall be wise to leave the solving of these problems to the fortuitous discussions of the Dutch catechists, that is to say whether I am mad or not, or whether I have been mad, and am still mad, in some imagination of a purely sculptural nature.

And if not, whether I was already mad before that time; or whether I am so at present, or shall be so in the hereafter."

If you feel mad enough, and you're not all tagged out then I'll point this at Sketches, Library Faerie (if you're looking) and RomanScandle but everyone else is welcome to join in.

Listening to: Pink Floyd, "Speak to Me", from Dark Side of The Moon
Wondering: whether I have a sculptural imagination ...

Finished it!

I finished Skallagrigg last night.

Having read some tales of hopelessness, of war, concentration camps and genocide, I thought I'd become hardened to difficult and emotive subject material.

Man, was I naive!

Skallagrigg isn't about any of those forms of seemingly remote cruelty. It's far more piercing because it's set much closer to home, in everyday society. The main thread that guides the story is in fact, a computer game, but the book isn't about technology or any virtual reality. It's about people, an incredibly powerful story of cruelty, love and hope, and ultimately the resilience of the human psyche. Sprinkled amongst it's pages are some beautiful bubbles of laughter and moments that simply brim with happiness, yet even now as I write, I find myself shedding tears.

William Horwood's strength here is that he doesn't offer the reader a passive role. He pulls you right in, exposes you to cruelty to the extent that you become as reliant on hope as do his helpless characters.

Although I've finished the book, I know that it hasn't yet finished with me. Skallagrigg is right at the top of my list of books to re-read over the Winter.

I still want to write properly about this story but for now I need to rejoin the life I know and that I really shouldn't take for granted.

The Jools Report

Jools Holland's Later is the late night, honey yoghurt desert of British music TV viewing. Pretty much the only thing I watch (well, until Green Wing comes back). What I love most is that he always has such a variety of artists.

The show is never dull even if the bands are, because Jools creates quite wonderful juxtapositions. You may have to shift to and fro' between thumping heavy metal, spanish guitar, blues, gospel, jazz and bright African clothing music.

Every now and then I'll do a little report about what was on, just to give myself something to look back on during those barren months when he's off-air.

Last night's show kicked off with Muse kind of poppy, I'm sure lots of people will like it. They did have a nice-ish sound with the singer trying be another Thom Yorke. They have been described as various things but basically this is a slightly rinsed out version of Radiohead and they do seem to have dabbled with one of that bands producers. The bass player is a double for the evil prison warden character out of Midnight Express. The second song, Map of the Problematique, had at least a little originality with heavy banging noises, loud guitar and piano all mixed in with the singer's wailing screams. I did wonder though, if the song was more about showing off his shiny guitar than about musical innovation. But don't let me put you off, if you like the kind of stuff that's in the charts right now, you'll love this. It might even grow on me given time.

I haven't worked out how to enjoy Amy Winehouse yet and the sound did seem a bit flat - maybe her engineer had the cold? Her guitarist had one of those big round Chuck berry electric guitars though, so that was good. She's described as "a distinctive '20 a day' voice ... jazz ... contemporary, quirky" and she did sound much better in a short vocal-piano duet with Jools than on her set.

The Gipsy Kings made an excellent shift. Four or five flamenco guitars, a bass and singer, and a mixed Cuban-Spanish sound. Apparently these guys have sold over eighty million records. I wonder if that's a lot? Very upbeat and happy, probably too happy for me but very nice. They do that funny guitar playing where you strum a bit then hit your fingers off your guitars in a strange and jolly form of self-flagelation.

I really love it when Jools interviews people, it's so thin that it's gorgeous. Here's his interview with John Legend

Jools: "What sights did you see in London?"
John: "None, I was working."
Jools: "Where do you keep your grammy awards?"
John: "On my piano at home."

Yup, that was it, two questions, (chuckle) - he's a funny wee thing.

The Raconteurs were quite noisy but I thrived on this stuff in my youth and can still happily listen to it. Quite a heavy sound with some tiny reminiscences of Cream and Ted Nugent although by no means in that class. Their second song, wandered a bit along the edges of monotony but then perked up with a piece of Keith Emerson inspired synthesiser that made me think right back to ELP. They were all bent over their instruments for this song, trying to project that heavy thrashing image. I do hope they weren't suffering from simultaneous constipation.

Found John Legend quite difficult, and a bit plain. he's described as R&B but I've heard a lot better R&B than this. Still, the drummer was wearing a pretty cool blues brothers hat and one of the backing singers showed off a pair of knees that were pointing together in a visually, very fascinating way. I guess it must have been her pin tight dress. With this kind of music, I can see why he needs the odd visual distraction.

The highlight for me, was an Irish band called Duke Special. Long scraggly hair, an open sided piano, clarinet and something that looked like a broken violin with bells on being used as a double bass. There's definitely a vocal resemblance to Neil Young here, if that's possible with an Irish accent. The sound is a bit James Blanket, or was it Blunt, but with all the glossy bits thrown out. Just plain songs but with a slight edge. Worthwhile and one to watch. Apparently this guy has done a cover of The Doors People Are Strange. Now there is a classic song, boy would I love to hear that on stage.

Amy Winehouse and Duke Special both have the kind of sound that works best live rather than on shows or in the studio. Definitely worth catching.

and also reading ...

William Horwood, Skallagrigg. I'm only part way through.

Horwood is a master storyteller and he's written a piece of very serious fiction but in a sense this isn't fiction at all. He's takes reality, the kind some might prefer to hide from, he rips off its mask and thrusts it out. He gives you nowhere to hide.

This is a compelling and very beautiful story. It's about life and love and hope, but it's so many other things too, layered together. I don't know of a way to tell you more right now so I'll stop. I am going to challenge myself though, when it's done, to find a way to describe it.

I've cried here and I have to warn you, this book does not come with an escape plan.

If you haven't read Skallagrigg, don't be thinking of dying just yet because this is a book.

-- Edit: I've now finished and written a little more about it here --

reading ...

Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas, is a kind of horror thriller. I'd say the book is fairly light reading, well for horror fiction that is, but it's well written and the author certainly has a few tricks up his sleeve to keep the reader interested. The first chapter though is slow though. It doesn't come right out and grab you by the curlies, although it soon picks up pace. As horror fiction, it must be working because I've given up reading it late at night.

Gus Gus

I sometimes get called "honey". It's odd to get called "honey". It makes me think of sticky things, or impossibly happy American households, or the next Hollywood blockbuster, "Honey, I licked the lodger". Mind you, it's better than some of the other things I've been called that are more slimy than sticky.

A very, very long time ago when I was a teenage wild thing and a struggling underage pub customer, people called me "Gus". I mean what a name, have you tried that on your lips? It sounds like the stuff that might squirt out if you squeezed that spot, the one on the end of my nose, between your fingernails. Or worse, what might be released, following an ingestive delay, as a result of curry washed down by three pints of Guinness. I used to hate being called "Gus".

Which brings me to the subject of this post, Gus Gus. While it may be tempting to court panic on the basis that there might be two of me, I'm actually referring to a band called Gus Gus. I was wondering whatever happened to them so I did a quick internet search (I try not to call them 'G--gle' searches 'cos that's product placement and although I'm sometimes naughty, I don't like placing products), and found their website.

Now because I haven't got anything else to blog about today, but felt like blogging nonetheless, I'm going to tell you about it.

You see, it's quite cool really. I'm not saying you should go there, but should you suffer from a little nag of musical curiosity, you'd find some talk of pineapples and a chap called President Bongo and his Uncle Siggi.
But what's interesting is that I can navigate through to the audio and listen in to 2 minute, in-browser MP3 song extracts. In case you were visited by that little nag, I must warn you - these are seriously funky song extracts.

It turns out that this band I used to listen to back in the 90's has started their own record label (they used to be with 4AD). There's no more effective way to describe it than to let them do it themselves:

"PINEAPPLERECORDS is a record company from Reykjavik, Iceland. It is run and owned by electronic soulmusicians calling thems(elfs) gusgus, a band that loves Elvis. Pineapplerecords won't be able to tell you why or how they will only put out hit singles but they will surely be able to tell you how to fry them pineapples: Cut down the pineapple, fry in butter on low temperature for 15minutes, soak in rum and light up ... flambeé! Serve, eat and dance (take 1 hour checking out birds before cutting the rug)."

Now I'm not entirely sure which 'birds' need to be checked or quite why the rug needs to be cut, and some of them do look a little odd, but I just learned how to cook a pineapple! Isn't it great?

I can even go to the This is Normal album and listen to the first record I ever heard of theirs, Ladyshave. It still gets me smoochin' with myself across the dance floor and wobbling with funky vibes, in fact I'm doing it right now!

(was that product placement?)

I bought books

This post is about books. Scary books, controversial books, challenging books, and wonderful books.

Sorry but it got quite long. I suggest a coffee, a chocolate biscuit and a seat. And look, you're not allowed to jump to the picture at the end (which isn't really there), see what I bought and then tootle off. NOT allowed!

The day started off badly, running on a faulty autopilot. Bookshops are in 'big town' and trips to 'big town' involve a car journey. After thirty minutes of driving daydreams, something seemed quite wrong with the view out of the window. It was ... it was ... I was heading towards the wrong 'big town'!?! Sometimes, just sometimes I really don't like my peanut sized brain! Quickly did a U-turn, feeling quite guilty for this unnecessary little addition to global warming, all my combusted fumes helping to pollute the sky.

The sky in return, wasn't at all happy. It turned grey, then black, then it rained, a torrential rain that slows traffic to a crawl. But nothing was going to spoil my book day! I'd brought a cagoule for my rucksack (it's true, I even took a pic to prove it).

So although my trainers were soaked after a few minutes and rain was dripping into my eyes, rucksack and precious tokens were snug and dry. I had gift tokens worth £22 that would only work in W.H.Smith and a £10 book token to be spent anywhere. With nine books on my list this meant £3.55 per title, or some fierce choices or even scarier, having to spend actual cash! Cash, you see, is in short supply right now.

There was one priority, one book that I really wanted! William Horwood wrote a duology called "The Wolves of Time". Now it's not about people (actually the final volume is and it's not as good), it's about wolves but look, these wolves have characters that most wobbly humans would die for. The story is a journey, and it's about courage, trust and love, murder, betrayal and hope. I bought this five or six years ago, and it's been lovingly and regularly re-read since.

So, after reading the Goldfish's excellent review of a book called "Skallagrigg" by the same Author, I was fascinated to see what a versatile and courageous writer he seems to be. There's a catch though - you can't buy Skallagrigg on Amazon unless you pay for a rare and ridiculously expensive used version.

This didn't bode well - but - today was my special book day and having spent time and effort researching, I decided to be optimistic. The shelves in Seriously Big Bookshop One, were ordered by genre and seeing as I didn't know whether the titles on my list were crime thrillers, horror stories, fantasies or general fiction, it seemed sensible to ask an assistant.

" 'Skallagrigg' by William Horwood, do you stock this?" After a minute spent trying to spell it for him, he said, "I'll have to go look on the computer, it'll be about 5 or 10 minutes", and off he went. Meanwhile I started looking for Dean Koontz. Haven't got a clue about Dean Koontz so I checked crime, then fiction, then not sure where I was but ... found it! "Odd Thomas". At first the writing seemed mechanical, mentioning lawyers and police, slightly hard work for me but then I flicked randomly to page 139:

"From the hamper, Stormy produced a tupperware container filled with shelled walnuts that she had deep-fried and seasoned lightly with both salt and sugar".

Walking slowly back along the aisle, reading more, an exciting bit of storyline was coming, this was getting interesting, then ... I almost stumbled into the assistant. He ... he ...

was holding ... A COPY OF SKALLAGRIGG Yipeeeee!!
I jumped up and down child-like, "Yesss, brilliant, Wow!"
I was being loud, people were looking, I didn't care.
I wanted to cuddle him but he recoiled so I slowly calmed down, realising it might be better for him if I emulated a sane adult, "Thank you, I had hoped but really didn't expect this. Thanks really!"

Now I knew - knew that today - today I would find and buy every single book on my list! Knew it with a certainty!! Do you ever get days like that?

The next item was a challenge, "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov. The Amazon reviewers loved or hated this novel, they said things like, sinister, disturbing, paedoph---. Now you see why it might be a challenge. (I cut the paedo word short because I don't want Google thinking this post might be a discussion of that particular topic.)
But they also said:

"the book took me a long time to read, far longer than many larger novels ... alliteration, puns, word-play, allusions, metaphor, simile, poetry, lyricism, humour, wit, sarcasm".

Considering my limited attention span and lack of literary education this seemed a doubtful choice and possibly over ambitious, so I started reading, and something surprising happened, listen ... page 166:

"A combination of naïveté and deception, of charm and vulgarity, of blue sulks and rosy mirth, Lolita when she chose, could be a most exasperating brat ... Sweet hot jazz, square dancing, gooey fudge sundaes, musicals, movie magazines ..."

Carrying on, the words were honey flowing into my head, like an injection of rich vanilla fudge. Although there were snippets I didn't understand, it was wonderful. I could picture myself sitting for hours tracing through these pages, with a table and a large dictionary. Not sure how I'll deal with the challenge of the subject matter, but how could I not buy this book?

A problem was brewing, these paperbacks didn't all fit into my £10 token. I chose "Skallagrigg", got a penny in change, then thought for a minute. Rarely do I find good material to read in a stationers - previous gift tokens have left me with a large collection of pens and envelopes. But I took my optimism off to W.H.Smith anyhow ... to be pleasantly surprised: they had both Koontz and Lolita.

Browsing through the shelves, took me past a small girl at a window looking out from a title called "Roots of Evil" by Sarah Rayne. Anyone know this author? I hate being swayed by cover images, but this one has been doctored to look particularly haunting. It drew me because her facial features reminded me of Jody Foster. The back cover read:

"Lucy ... discovers the truth about her family's dark and often poignant history - a history which spans the glittering concert halls of 1920s Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz."

Auschwitz. That word has some meaning, and a challenge, for me. The challenge is a strange, complex thing, nothing to do with xenophobia or being Jewish. Maybe I'll blog about it one day, if I can find the words. It also seemed to be about a film called Alraune and there's some blurb inside the cover about this being a real film though I haven't heard of it.

Page 251, I read:

"Mariana Trent was trying to get through the tiny window, crying out to the people below to help her. It was appalling to see her like this, the silk skirt rucked up above her knees, her legs cut and bleeding from the jagged window-frame, and her face crimson and shiny from the heat. There was a terrible moment when Lucy thought her mother's head looked exactly like a giant baked apple in the oven - just at the moment when the apple-skin had turned scarlet with the heat and was starting to split, and all the juices were running out".

Ouch, a jolt of emotive shock treatment, that was a bit raw! But the challenge had already bitten, the title joined the other two, the only purchase of the day not recommended by a blogger.

Three books, £22 worth of tokens, three pennies in change, I went off smiling and happy, to Seriously Big Bookshop Two. This one had a café, and lots of stairs to climb to the fiction floor, the aim being to find "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts. Considering the title and knowing from the reviews and from Sketches that this was set in India, it seemed I may have met a stumbling block. Maybe I couldn't buy this book here?

Still, I took my optimism to the enquiry desk, "Hi, I'm looking for a something called Shantar... um, Shantar .."
Took out my list to check the spelling and show him but he just looked at me and said, "Shantaram."
"You've heard of this book?", I asked surprised,
"I've read it", he said.
"You've read it? Really? What's it like?"
"It's a great read", he took me right over to the shelf and pulled it out.
I could hardly believe it, but of course, this was the day when I was going to get everything on my list. Now I loved finding this book but I have a bone to pick with Sketches. There are nine hundred and thirty-three pages and the writing's small, and it took the author thirteen years to write!! I would risk a literary hernia here, so it seemed wise to sample it over a coffee.

On the way, looked at Bill Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything". Liked it a lot but the first thing I read was: "it isn't easy being an organism".
Now that's the kind of thing I'd say. This will sound pretty silly but the more I read, the more this similarity left me thinking that I might blog less, because his dry wit is so like mine (although he's accomplished and I'm a peanut), that I'd end up unintentionally plagiarising. Had no choice but to put it down, even though it's the kind of book I'd love. Daft, aren't I?

I strolled past a non-fiction shelf, and saw but didn't stop to read. "Who Won the Oil Wars", published by a suspiciously named Conspiracy Books. Why does it use the past tense, is it a foregone conclusion now? "PetroDollar Warfare", "Blood and Oil in Central Asia", a whole stream of oil based views.

A political reaction crept into the first draft of this post, polluted it, polluted my happy post, I have since stripped it out!

Picked up a black paperback that had crept into my peripheral vision, an impulse, and kept walking.

The café was busy, couldn't get a good seat. You know, the tables upstairs where you can disappear into the folds of the shelving and furtively read, or observe other book-junkies (why did I say that? can't call myself a book-junkie), so I was confined to the main floor, a table already cluttered with someone else's leftovers - and the coffee was slightly too watery, too bitter and not remotely hot.

The black book was "Lila: An Inquiry into Morals" by Robert Pirsig (who wrote "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"), and I'd grabbed it mistakenly thinking it might be light reading. Ouch! What weighty subject matter. But then I've always been curiously attracted to philosophy, a moth-like fascination with enlightened ideas. Read this for a while wondering if I could cope, this kind of stuff might take months-years to read.

I put it down and picked up Shantaram. Page 208:

"Bombay's lepers ... At other times they set up their camp on a swampy patch of vacant land or some outfall for industrial waste. When I first visited them with Abdullah, that day, I found that they'd built their ragged shelters on the rusty stones of a railway siding near the suburb of Khar"

I became curious about Bombay (now Mumbai) and it's lepers, but then something odd happened. It went on to describe a railway depot:

"a vast shunting area - an open space marked by dozens of railway lines and their confluences. At the outer edges, high wire fences enclosed the space."

This description, it jogged a memory, a forgotten memory, of me standing in a huge railway depot one night. India, over twenty-five years ago. It was Jammu Railway Station, and I was lying between stationary goods carriages in the dark, on some filthy, sooty ground, some distance from the main station. I had dysentery. I was trying to get out of the place. I'd forgotten this memory.

There was absolutely no doubt now, about Shantaram, but I had to wake myself from this odd recollection. There were more things on my list and time was passing.

I'd only managed two sips of coffee. Nowhere to take my mess and no space on the serving counter, so my own cluttered leftovers were added to the junk on the table for the next customer.

Having run out of tokens, I paid for Shantaram using hard cash then headed back to Seriously Big Bookshop One. Now, to avoid leaving you with the idea that I have a fascination with bookshops, I'll tell a fib and say that my body needed the exercise.

Back out, into the rain, a fifteen minute walk then up the stairs to Richard Bach's "Illusions of a Reluctant Messiah". Opening this, I read about someone walking on water then swimming in rock. A spiritual but seemingly non-religious, exploration. The format was small and thin, reminding me of a miniature book of poetry I once saw by Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese author, but the price was the same as the largest paperback I'd bought so far. Cash was running short now and there was still something else to buy so this would have to wait. Tried to put it back on the shelf - a tight fit on a packed shelf - but it wouldn't go. After a minute of unsuccessful squeezing it popped back out and landed on the floor, flipping open and releasing my folded book list which I must have left inside! Dearie me, that was close, how far would I have gotten without my book list!?

Found Patrick White's "The Tree of Man" and studied it. There was something about this title and that something was nagging at me. Trying to remember, but not really a memory, more like a feeling. I think I have this book! One corner in my acre of junk storage at home, is devoted to boxes of reading material and I think Patrick White is in there. No memory of having read it though. I put it back down and resolved to search through my junk.

My last visit was to children's 8-12, reached via a journey to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, was one of those little sights that stops you in your tracks. The first shelves any basement book-buff gets to see in this shop, are Islam and Judaica, right next to each other. A large green copy of "History of Islamic Philosophy" was sitting almost alongside Anne Frank's Diary. I had been wondering what might constitute, 'living dangerously' for bookshop staff. Maybe this poignant juxtaposition of cultural reading is the result?

Was quite tempted to flick through "History" but it was an almost three inch thick humungous monster of a paperback. Perhaps some knowledgeable person can explain it to me, over lunch and a couple of lifetimes.

Foraging, I browsed and picked up "Introducing Psychological Research", a pet subject of mine (cough, choke). Um, no, what was interesting was the quite fascinating image on the front, a colour and shape piece by Kandinsky. Hadn't seen this before. See how easily I get distracted?

Finally, I found my last book, a fantasy novel by Garth Nix called "Lirael". Flipped it open, page 169:

" 'Not even time to cast a diamond of protection', Sam muttered to himself. He had never actually been into Death by himself before. He'd gone only with his mother, the Abhorsen ..."

Anyone familiar with Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" trilogy will know why the idea of "going into Death" can make refreshing and unusual reading. I knew now that I'd love this book. But there was (another) catch. It was the second in a series and the first title, "Sabriel", wasn't on the shelf.

Again I tracked down an assistant, who, after helpfully checking her computer said, "Yes, there's one in stock", but then she couldn't find it either. We hunted through adjacent shelves with no luck. She looked at me with a "Sorry" in her eyes.
"No!", I thought, this can't be allowed to happen, it's my special book day!! I desperately tried to think of a spell I could use, maybe a 'triangle of finding' ... instead I pulled a face, popped my eyes out, squeezed a pair of fluffy eyebrows together and tried to look childishly disappointed and upset. She recoiled as if some evil wizzard of fiction had suddenly come alive, but it seemed to work, "Actually we do have another children's section. Wait here and I'll go and have a look". She turned and half-walked, half-ran.

Meanwhile I browsed. Where did all these Philip Pullman titles come from? "I Was a Rat", "The Scarecrow and His Servant", "Count Karstein". None of these are mentioned in my editions of "Dark materials" or the Sally Lockhart series and I'd never seen them before. Why has no one told me of this wonderful, heavenly place called Children's 8-12? I was just about to pick up "Scarecrow" when the brave assistant, the gorgeous assistant I'd just fallen in love with, appeared and presented me with the last copy of "Sabriel".

So now what?

Here are 3,396 pages of new fiction to read. That's new fiction, and doesn't include the re-reading I had hoped to get in, of "The Wolves of Time", "His Dark Materials", "The Silmarillion" and "Lord of The Rings", totalling 3,810 pages. Nor does it include the 7,078 pages of "The History of Middle Earth" and "The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh", both of which I promised to try and get through this century.

With a grand total of 14,284 pages, I feel like a tortoise who has set himself the task of climbing Mount Everest.

How can I possibly fit all these words into such a small brain, a brain which regularly exhibits the consistency and intellectual capacity of a teaspoon of peanut butter?

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllp!!!

And ...... what to read first?

Oxyrhynchus papyri lady

The other day BBC2 ran a programme about decoding papyri found in the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus which include extensive transcriptions of ancient Greek literature. I think the program might be a repeat of a repeat from 2002.

Two things happened. It was a fascinating program, and I fell head over heels in love. One of the contributors interviewed was a lady with a warm and very wonderful personality, who was giggling while telling us of the transgressions of an Oxyrhynchus' inhabitant and his attempts to seek incantations and magical remedies for revenge and sexual relief.

Great history yes, but I've fallen in love with her beautiful laugh and its been making my toes wiggle.

To a beautiful papyri lady: in the unlikely event you should ever read this post, all I'm trying to say is that you made me smile and cheered up an otherwise dreary evening.

Thank you.

Listening to: Nick Cave, "Somethings gotten hold of my heart"
Feeling: historically curious (no, really!)

Rust-red ripples

The angle and strength of the Sunlight brought out the ripples on the water nicely. Not sure quite how healthy the red stuff was, it was coming out of a waste pipe on the shoreline!

I've got more like that on Flickr ... but ... after what seems like just a few moments really, 4% of my entire monthly bandwidth has been used, so I apologise in advance if you pop across there and find my images blocked. I've had to move the main pic above to Photobucket to spread the strain.

I'd scribbled down some notes about my impressions of Flickr, but they got a bit techy so I won't bore you. Here's a summary: it's free, easy to use and has lots of flexibility and good licensing options. I find the Terms of Service leave a bad taste in my mouth but I'll let others form their own opinion. Oh, and you'll run out of space very quickly unless you cough up some pennies.

Going off on a complete tangent, I noticed something really scary (in a nice kind of way) last night but I can't tell you about it, frustrating.

Listening to: FC Kahuna - "Hayling"
Mood: happy ... depressed ... happy ...

You knock me out

I'm adding Grace Slick to my 'Listens to' list. She's sending shivers up me spine.

Haven't seen any of her artwork but that voice! It's got inside my head and its bouncing around and knocking things over in quite a wonderful way.

I'm going to have to start my Glorious list soon so I can share some of these teensie weensie moments.

(hmmm, teensie weensie isn't in my dictionary so I don't know if its spelt spelled right)

Posted by: a momentarily bouncy Bunny

Bakerman is bakin' bread

The night train is coming,
got to keep on running

Sometimes my blood goes on the boil.
Sometimes I mope.
Sometimes I want to expire.

Bakerman by Laid Back chills me down every time.

You got to cool down,
relax,
an' take it easy

Mood: chilled

great id-id-id, nope it's gone

Had a great idea for a post, but by the time I'd logged on I'd forgotten what it was. So here's a piccy instead. Somewhere I occasionally take my head to feel better.

My memory's broke, anyone got a spare?

Listening to: Brian Eno playing something esoteric
Feeling: tired

My exotic dolls

Jools Holland has just been on and I just have to share this temporary blip of happiness.

First off, The Automatic "What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster?" What a great piece of jingly, jangly guitar, super.

The Fratellis - these guys are one to watch, this stuff sounds great, and they're from Bunnyhome.

A quick word on the Dixie Chicks. I've added them to my Glorious list (more on that later). Don't get me wrong, I'm not a strong country pop fan and I won't be running out to buy their new CD, but they've been having a really hard time in their home country recently. Death threats and other quite nasty behaviour and more recently cancelled tour dates due to boycotts of their concerts, and all for expressing an opinion about their president chappie.

Well where I stand the ability to express an opinion is pretty fundamental. Yes, that means you can stand up after this post and say that Bunnyman is dreary and flat and boring and pants and I'll never end up on Gogle because, well because my blog is just rats pee, and I'm just a big rabbit dropping.

Anyway, so the Dixie Chicks are going on my Glorious list.

WOW, what do you think of Gogol Bordello? Wild streaks of brash yellow fun and gorgeous accordion. As Phil Jupiter put it, "it's like the Pogues and the Clash coming together and having a huge fight in Eastern Europe".

So I'm struggling to say whether I thought The Automatic or Fratellis or Gogol Bordello were the best band tonight, but it's impossible really, they were all brilliant.

They all got pipped at the post though by The Dresden Dolls. Jools didn't like this pair much, but what a simply magnificent piece of gaudy, loud and exotic, colour. Yes, I know their sound wasn't good tonight, but trust me, they do sound much, much better than this.

That's it. Wonderful!