Circelily

Uncomfortable Plot Summaries

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:47:05 GMT

www.postmodernbarney.com/2009/04/uncomfortable-plot-summaries/

This is half a year old, but new and giggleworthy to me.

My faves:

300: Gays kill blacks.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Peasant girl develops Stockholm Syndrome.
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA: Redneck trucker kills Chinese immigrants.
FALLING DOWN: Life is difficult for white men.
GONE WITH THE WIND: Rich, white slave owner enjoys getting raped, miscarries.
ROCKY: White man beats black man.
W.: Unspeakable disaster afflicts America. Then terrorists attack.

and I grdgingly have to accept:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: Teenage serial killer destroys town in fit of semi-religious fervor.

So I know I haven't written anything about Canada

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:41:07 GMT

And I will share lots about exciting Ontario odds and ends.

But---

I got all 3 seasons of Veronica Mars for 36 quid. :::does the Dance of Sad Geeky Joy:::

A nifty precis of the Privilege Discourse

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:25:58 GMT

Comes from rahirah rahirah.livejournal.com/411832.html who has crisply encapsulated the arguments that leave me frothing but too easily tied up in knots until I'm inarticulate.

Oh dear god - I'm addicted to Veronica Mars

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:25:07 GMT

Awkward

Guardian SF/fantasy novels Meme

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:19:41 GMT

I missed doing this in the New Year and just came across it now so I thought I'd try it. And, hmmmm. I appear to be underwhelmed by their selection.

SF/fantasy novels everyone must read

The Guardian has come up with a list of 1000 novels everyone must read. (well every Guardian reader anyway). This is the Science Fiction & Fantasy component.

The ones in bold I've read; the ones that are underlined I loved; the ones that are in ~~strikethrough I hated~~. Italics mean I’ve heard of and may try.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

Brian W Aldiss, Non-Stop (1958)

Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1951)

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (2000)

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

Paul Auster, In the Country of Last Things (1987)

JG Ballard, Crash (1973)

JG Ballard, Millennium People (2003)

JG Ballard, The Drowned World (1962)

William Beckford, Vathek (1786)

Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory (1984)

Iain M Banks, Consider Phlebas (1987)

~~Clive Barker, Weaveworld (1987)~~

Nicola Barker, Darkmans (2007)

Stephen Baxter, The Time Ships (1995)

Greg Bear, Darwin's Radio (1999)

Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination (1956)

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953))

Poppy Z Brite, Lost Souls (1992)

Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (1798)

Algis Budrys, Rogue Moon (1960)

Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1966)

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (1871)

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1960)

Anthony Burgess, The End of the World News (1982)

Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars (1912)

William Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959)

Octavia Butler, Kindred (1979)

Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872)

Italo Calvino, The Baron in the Trees (1957)

Ramsey Campbell, The Influence (1988)

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)

Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve (1977)

Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus (1984)

Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)

Arthur C Clarke, Childhood's End (1953)

GK Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)

Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)

Michael G Coney, Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)

Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)

Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves (2000)

Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales (1996)

Samuel R Delany, The Einstein Intersection (1967)

Philip K Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

~~Philip K Dick, The Man in the High Castle (1962)~~

Thomas M Disch, Camp Concentration (1968)

Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum (1988)

Michel Faber, Under the Skin (2000)

John Fowles, The Magus (1966)

Neil Gaiman, American Gods (2001)

Alan Garner, Red Shift (1973)

William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954)

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (1974)

M John Harrison, Light (2002)

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (1851)

Robert A Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

Frank Herbert, Dune (1965)

Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker (1980)

James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)

Michel Houellebecq, Atomised (1998)

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled (1995)

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)

P. D. James, The Children of Men (1992)

Richard Jefferies, After London; Or, Wild England (1885)

Gwyneth Jones, Bold as Love (2001)

Franz Kafka, The Trial (1925)

Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon (1966)

Stephen King, The Shining (1977)

Marghanita Laski, The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864)

Ursula K Le Guin, The Earthsea series (1968-1990)

Ursula K Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961)

Doris Lessing, Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)

CS Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56) (loved at first, then problematic)

MG Lewis, The Monk (1796)

David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)

Ken MacLeod, The Night Sessions (2008)

Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black (2005)

Michael Marshall Smith, Only Forward (1994)

Richard Matheson, I Am Legend (1954)

Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)

Patrick McCabe, The Butcher Boy (1992)

Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)

Jed Mercurio, Ascent (2007)

China Miéville, The Scar (2002)

Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain (1997)

Walter M Miller Jr, A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (2004)

Michael Moorcock, Mother London (1988)

~~William Morris, News From Nowhere (1890)~~

Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)

Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor (1969)

Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)

Larry Niven, Ringworld (1970)

Jeff Noon, Vurt (1993)

Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman (1967)

Ben Okri, The Famished Road (1991)

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)

Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club (1996)

Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey (1818)

Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan (1946)

Frederik Pohl & CM Kornbluth, The Space Merchants (1953)

John Cowper Powys, A Glastonbury Romance (1932)

Terry Pratchett, The Discworld series (1983-

Christopher Priest, The Prestige (1995)

Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials (1995-2000) (loved at first, then problematic)

François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)

Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)

Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space (2000)

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)

JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)

Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (1988)

Joanna Russ, The Female Man (1975)

Geoff Ryman, Air (2005)

Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry, The Little Prince (1943)

José Saramago, Blindness (1995)

Will Self, How the Dead Live (2000)

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818)

Dan Simmons, Hyperion (1989)

Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker (1937)

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992)

Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)

Rupert Thomson, The Insult (1996)

JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)

~~JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954-55)~~

Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)

Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan (1959)

Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764)

Robert Walser, Institute Benjamenta (1909)

Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes (1926)

Sarah Waters, Affinity (1999)

HG Wells, The Time Machine (1895)

HG Wells, The War of the Worlds (1898)

TH White, The Sword in the Stone (1938)

Angus Wilson, The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)

Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun (1980-83)

Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)

John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids (1951)

John Wyndham, The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)

Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (1924)

Higgledy Piggledy

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:39:48 GMT

I had hoped to go to 2 London parties then sneak off to Eygpt this weekend but a housebound cat needing daily antibiotics has put a stop to that. Lovely as my friends and neighbours are, I could not ask that of them.

Said cat went in for first dental treatment, with the expectation that they would remove one tooth, or call if more serious work was needed.

Instead I got no call and they whipped out 8 teeth including all his remaining top molars. All! I was gobsmacked but now I think I'm emerging from shock as I intend to make a formal complaint. I'm really quite angry that they did not consult with me before proceeding. I would have not opted for that all at once, even if delay of some would have only bought him a couple more years of toothiness and cost more in the long run. Poor Funks.

But saw a longlost friend yesterday who said she's going to Latitude with a bunch of mates next week. As travel has always been the factor preventing me from Latitude so far, I've lept at the chance. So now I'm doing at least one festival a month, May to Sept. Hee. But Florence and the Machine are not at this one, so I think that her Sept tour is my best bet to see her.

Life. It's a funny old game.

Because I never write about Glastonbury

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:09:39 GMT

In all the time I’ve been going, I don’t think I’ve ever written about Glastonbury.
Even talking about it, I am conscious of not conveying how it feels, what it’s like, how it’s shaped my life, my attitude and my values. And I may fail here as well. But that’s no reason not to try.

Here are the consistencies:

I have always bought a ticket – I just felt that it was such a privilege to be there and if Eavis was kind enough to create it, the least I could do was pay my way. Student, unemployed and working – always paid.
I have always agreed with Eavis’s verdict at the end of every festival – best festival ever. The most recent is always the best. You want to yearn for the good old days, then stay away and nostalge all you like.

The sheer force of the creativity and dedication that hundreds, even thousands, of people bring to the festival awes and humbles me. Wicker sculptures, living arches, wooden scorpions, stone dragons, steampunk scrap metal edifices belching flame, every rubbish bin painted, silken flags, beaches, gardens, bike-powered mobile stages, glow-lit pools. Are only some. This year. Because every year brings new evolutions, new imaginations, new artisans motivated and inspired by past festivals and current interests. It floods me with serotonin and oxytocin.

It is the festival of the Moment. Always personal, but also often shared, sometimes communal. This year I was blessed with many.

Wednesday morning, 6am. Hometown Train station. Met festival buddy for this year.
Weds 2.30 pm – Castle Cary Train station. The 15th bus was ours. Cider bet won.
Wed 4.30pm – top of the site, tent erect, pink wine in plastic bottle, in circle of friends with site spread out glinting in the sunshine.
Wed evening cider bus. Squeals of excitement with each fresh hug, each reunited person. Happy appley drunken grins as we compare sunburn.
Wed night. The mad hyper joy of the first perambulation. I’m here, we’re here, this is happening. Febrile excitement exudes from each and every soul, producing a thrilled and thrilling thrum underscored by the bass of the music pumped from the food stalls as the lights scurry and skip in all directions.
Thurs day. Girls go gallivanting. The look on Mandy’s face as whisked her from the thronged tracks into the permaculture garden. Riff’s delight as she discovered the solar-powered phone charger.
Thursday. Bliss of Tiny Tea Tent shade as the world swelters and the conversation turns to the Glastonbury death rumours. We wonder whether it really will be Cliff this year.
Thursday. District 6 Beer tent. Look up from texting new festival buddy to see him emerge with pints. Meet lovely new Glasto crew.
Thursday afternoon. Flag hill. Loving the poi as the day’s fierce heat fades.
Thursday evening. Enclosed in awesome math-designed and hand-erected Geodesic dome as the thunder storm roils and rages.
Thursday night. Above the ribbon tower as a glowing Glastonbury sprawls before us. Room in the bus shelters as the rain returns to shatter down on the zinc. Momentary colourwash poi.
Friday morning. Slow Club triumph over over-officious and under-organised security by coming outside the Guardian Lounge to play, just after it stops raining.
Friday morning – tea at Tree House cafe with Riff just as the sun emerges. Find log sunlounger and kick off boots as hip-hop karaoke competes with Supergrass-in-disguise playing covers.
Friday later. Against the Pyramid middle barrier. Laugh in delight and yell along as Lily Allen liquorice-whips her Dad with He Wasn’t There, then silences the cleavage-heckling boys with Not Fair. Sing with me: “There’s just one thing/ that’s getting in the way/ When we go up to bed/ you’re just no good/ It’s such a shame”. Oddly enough, the crowd-choir turned soprano at that point.
Friday next. Succeed in finding 3 sets of friends on Pyramid Hill between Lily Allen and The Specials
Friday night. Between The Streets at Jazzworld and Bloc Party on the Other Stage, I find a brilliant gypsy folk band playing in a tent to 3 people. Go up to the front and dance. 2 songs later, tent is full of dancers and I slip onwards to Bloc Party.
Friday night / Saturday morning – kaleidoscope : trash city (steampunk and firespouts, Warhol-and-blondie NY, tranny bars and scrapmetal), bonfire bar, Shangri-la (warren of subterranean Japenese slum alleys, and spaces, green light and fritzing screens, industrial electronica and anime, disco dancing and up the site in the pearlesque pre-dawn. Transient kisses and the long misty/mystical walk to the furthest point away where my tent waits, silently for me.
Saturday. Woken by Beatles covers and sit in pancake circle, loving my friends.
Saturday morning – we head off for Rolf via Yeo Valley for £1 pint of yogurt. Yum.
Sat noon. Cabaret fields. Escape from the Rolf-crush in front of a cabaret stage with lovely shady roof . Lovely African band are playing and after we play Glastonbury Bingo. A calming couple of hours while away.
Sat afternoon. Pyramid. Find Rainbows and Vimeses for Spinal Tap. Hurrah. Jarvis plays bass on Big Bottom. Then Dizzy Rascal is fun and I am energised.
Sat –after Dizzy. Kidnap Rainbowgirl and introduce her to the child-free delights of Cajun food and Healing Fields.
Sat later. Wander up to the Tipi Field where my accidental cheekiness is rewarded by temporary adoption by the Brighton Tipi posse. Stay til the shadows catch up.
Sat dusk. Drift into the healing fields, firecircle when the sun is a ball of red, water circle as the circle dips, then on the grass for the best possible juxtaposition of tree. As I finish pulling on tights, Ian appears.
Sat moonrise. Wander into wonders – handfasting, glowing labyrinths and dragon pointing at the moon - in the Greenfield with Ian as we have a snapshot of the festival we spent together and a shared contentment of where our lives have gone, separately, since. We re-glimpse our soul-bond and it is enough. It is just right.
Sat night. Franz Ferdinand – it’s a party. Glaswegian girls and I meet, disco-dance, gossip, giggle, yell along, dance, hug, kiss and part. It is the embodiment of hilarity.
Sat night. After walking up the hill and getting my ten minute dose of Bruce, the campsite is a giggle. We banter and chatter til the cold chases us up to tents as the wash of site-chatter tips us into sleep.
Sunday morning. Make tactical error and drink some vodka as I take down my tent in blazing sunshine and Quo bombast. 2 hours later, am finally packed and headed for lock-ups.
Sunday afternoon -330 pm. Remember I need to eat and head for green fields caff. Eventually dine on roast beetroot and sticky fig cake. Revive.
Sunday Afternoon – Pyramid – look for friends without mobile and doze to Tom Jones. Find friends before Madness, then lose them again.
Sunday dusk – Pyramid enclosure. Settle at the back against the barrier, covered in newspapers for a short shower, then Nick Cave glowering, prowling and predatory, slices through the cheese of the day. Yummy mummies painting children’s faces and waiting for Blur, blanch as he scatterguns murder and profanity. We exchange grins as we howl.
Sunday night – the fervour and the crowds build until Blur explode through. 15 years drop away for me, and for them, as Tracy Jacks produces pogo madness once more. For my money, the best Pyramid-closer ever. The crowd singing “Oh my baby” from Tender to lure the band back reduces Damon to tears. He’s not alone.
Sunday night – after Blur – I’m so happy I burn. And am awash with luck. Find Chris, get night clothes, bid camp farewell (too hyper to stay for bonfire), find dome, find stone circle, find underground stage as the rain returns, enjoy thunder and singsongs, emerge as the rain leaves, change sandals for boots and bid farewell to this year’s Glasto buddy and the fantastic(al) dome.
Monday morning – the sky is already light as I leave the dome and meander for the last time through the site, saying goodbye to The Park, the flags, the Tipi field, the Stone Circle. Shangri-la is mud and rivers running through the alleys, as desperate strays with no pupils left continue to lurch and sway. Flame still belches in Trash City, but has been forced to pale by the brightening skies. I gloop through the mud next to the now-accessible dancehalls and bordellos, but do not enter.
Onwards, onwards. Farewell to Avalon, and Jazzworld. Goodbye to cabaret and theatre fields. So long to Babylon.
Upwards, upwards. Goodbye sweet Pyramid, bonfire party still going full swing. Goodbye farmhouse filled with the Eavises to whom we owe all this. Goodbye longdrops, longhill, longview. Goodbye my sleeping friends, and thank you. Thank you and goodbye lock-ups.
Hello sunshine. Hello bus. Hello my journey into next year.

Glasto here I come

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:46:47 GMT

Now off to pack for a 5 am start on the trains tomorrow.

Boing boing boing

Psychoville

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:26:44 GMT

Just seen the first episode of Psychoville thanks to the genius of iPlayer - my very first time with the latter! Utter joy - oh LOG I missed you so. And the final cherry on the arsenic sundae: at the end of the episode it said: "More Like this: Last of the Summer Wine Season 30." I couldn't make it up *gryn*

Praha ha ha

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:16:19 GMT

I am awhirl. Giddy with the new. Loving the bimbling even as ankles sore. Planning Black Light Theatre. Golden Tiger tamed. Castle and Boathouse Hostel lie in wait tomorrow. Just because it sounds quite sweet and I'm a sucker for rivers. But I am possibly low on blood sugar and high on Pilsner sugars so maybe I should go and remedy that. Then proper sentences might emerge. But don't count on it.

Many yays and a wah

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:49:23 GMT

After Welsh camping, I set off on one of the most beautiful bus journeys ever, from Brecon to Cardiff. As my 4am bus to London was due to leave from the same place, I trotted into the Hilton in front of me and deposited my heavy backpack. Yay for 5-star hotel, esp when you're neither paying nor staying. Plenty of time to go searching for lamb, beer and drowsy rivers at the gorgeous Y Mochyn Du (Black Pig) before stubbling across a Welsh language open mike night and then an indie club where this happy loon danced for hours. 2 am was still too early to retrieve bags so I decided to visit a casino for the first time in my life. It was unexpected - the majority of the 60 or so people there at Wednesday morning 3am were of far-eastern origin, with a massive room dedicated to mahjong, and many poker-like games taking place. There were more people playing computerised roulette that the baize table versions available, and the slot machines were unlike any I'd seen before. An informative (and warm) experience for the price of half a cider...

Back to the Hilton, the lovely guy of the desk offered me a cup of tea and a window seat to wait to see the bus come in. So nice. Once on the bus I even managed to contort myself onto a double coach seat and sleep for a couple of hours, awaking to the rush hour excitement (cough) of kensington through to Victoria with an ever-more-frazzled driver. Finally having to hoist the backpack again, after a few wrong turns I got myself onto a Cambridge Circus bus to become, on the dot of 9 am, the 8th person queuing for that day's Doll's House. And as a cherry on top, got my cousin's text to say she could come after all.

After a delicious performance at the Donmar, London blurred into London things, but 3 precious experiences must be singled out:
1. I was introduced to the Islington Fantasy Centre, a week before it closes its doors after 40 years. Erik Arthur regaled us with personal experiences of every speculative author of the last half decade while I clutched Ellen Datlow anthologies to my chest and regretted every moment I had missed. It reminded me of the first bookshops I ever knew, yellowed pages and infinite imagination. Wah.

2. By pure chance, I stumbled on the British Silent Film festival, and they were showing an absolute corker: Palais de Danse, 1928 naughtiness and menacing mostaches. Phwoar dastardly. With an absolutely brilliant 4 piece orchestra improvising seamlessly.

3. Arcadia, organised with panache by the_elyan so long ago, whose witty, pretty, fizzy brilliance put even Doll's House in the shade, and has made me seek out everything Stoppard. And new and re-acquaintances with a very lovely group of people was the cherry on a martini night.

And now home, where CAB Volunteering is beginning to take shape, and all things Cajun cause me delight.

Kisses to all who helped make the last couple of weeks so delightful xxx

Hello from sun-drenched Wales

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:33:24 GMT

Having made the 100% Right Choice - blown out the interview and hot-tailed it to Hay, I have been rewarded by the most glorious heatwave for my week in Wales. Sarah Waters and Immodesty Blaize, jazz trumpets and Julian Clary... have been deliciously followed wtth blue skies, blazing sunshine, babbling brooks, mountain peaks with a view to Bristol, warm surfs and luxuriant green, green green. Tumbledown castles in evey village and town. Woken by ducks and lulled by delicious and ridiculously cheap ale. Did I mention the blazing sunshine?... I am now a happy conker, shiny and brown. British libraries with their free Internet for all. I loves my island I do. /slightly sun-dazed and emotional.

Jobhunting - thy name is irony

Thu, 21 May 2009 15:08:25 GMT

Got an invitation for an interview today - for next week Friday when I was hoping to be in Hay from Thursday. Have asked if appointment can be changed but til they get back to me, my London follow-on plans are in disarray. Argh - cheap early tickets I will lose.

Bloody hell that week went fast

Mon, 11 May 2009 10:15:01 GMT

It's very strange to wake up on the 11th May and think that it's closer to 2 weeks than one since you left work. And it has frittered so fast and easily *gryn*.

I've pootled around on researching how to do maximum travel, on minimum budget, while signing on every fortnight that I am actively seeking work (which I am, I am - as long as it doesn't start before September).

A summer off after 10 years non-stop employment. Fair by anyone's standards.

So far I have - cycled into the city for the first time ever, booked a tent, some tickets and a South Wales wanderer for Hay. I should now book a £1 ticket from Newport to London on the Friday to be timely for Arcadia on the Saturday. For which I have not yet even begun to sort out where I'll sleep. And I still owe The_Elyan. Eeek.

Festivalitis starts this weekend - woohoo - and my plan to nip down to London for a one-dayer on Thursday to queue and then watch a matinee of Doll's House came upstuck because I hadn't clocked that that is opening night. But this was clearly fate, because now I have unexpected delightful house guest. And I think I can pull it off next Thursday -- if anyone else is interested in doing the same, let me know.

I've also arranged - finally - for long overdue work on my house to be done , fixed, outta here. Now I'm just trying to work out how to sneak off to Prague and Venice for a week in between Jarvis popping in for a visit on 14th June, and Glastonbury. 13th June, I have semi-committed to a Nawleans garden party. People wot I've met in person - please consider this an invitation - people, cocktails, zydeco, and hopefully, hopefully, sunshine.

In other treats news, my redundancy present to me is the most expensive clock radio ever... £50! ... but now I wake up to 6music. Adam and Joe, I missed thee. It'll last me 20 years so £2.50 a year is a bargain :-)

July is another country. Well, acksherly, it is most likely to be this country, pootling and festivalling. I feel like the luckiest spoon in Runcible. Certainly the giddyest. (it seems wrong to deprive giddy of its "y". So I won't.)

Hay Hay Hay

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:15:27 GMT

Hay on Wye - gotta gotta go.

Sarah Waters and Julian Clary are on the last Saturday. Oh yes! Right - I'm going to take my tent and go prob from Thursday.

OH giddy glee

Laughing on the bus

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:50:44 GMT

Today has been a joy. I've spent much of it spontaneously erupting into giggles.

Stop. Send back the white coat! It's not that it's all become too much for me. Rather, a series of happy coincidences have produced a gem of a day. First, I rolled out of bed to respond to a text alerting me to the fact that David Tennant and Catherine Tate had taken their show on the road. Or rather, given Jonathan Ross an Easter holiday and today's Doctor Who an extended plug. Both of these things are unmitigated goodness as far as I'm concerned and they were natural and fun. Their attempt to host the regular convoluted quiz, involving a frog clock, was particularly worthy of snorting tea through one's nose.

Then, victuals for Easter Sunday were gathered from market and local shops (in an unusually timely way) allowing me to treat myself with a pint of amber nectar and the Guardian in my favourite pub. Bookended by a book on the bus. Namely Jeff Vandermeer's Shriek: an Afterword. This should be read by anyone with siblings as it is one of the most perfect evocations of all the complexity of love and rivalry through the inspired device of a self-absorbed brother annotating the biography of himself and his journals by his equally precocious sister. The inserted responses of brother to sister's writing, variously barbed and petulant, keep making me involuntarily splutter, triggering those bus glances. Oh JV, I love thee so.

In praise of smoked fish

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 12:04:16 GMT

I could eat smoked fish morning, noon and night - which is a bonus if I got stuck on the mythical deserted island (but not desert island, because I would need vegetation for fuel to smoke it of course.

I have just lunched on the M&S multipack of hot smoked trout (mmm), salmon (yum) and mackerel and suddenly all is delicious with the world and my brain starts working. If a little randomly.

Oscar Meme rides again

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:54:54 GMT

Snaffled from friend_of_tofu , Oscar-nominated films wot I've seen.

1920s

1927-1928: Wings; The Racket; Seventh Heaven

1928-1929: The Broadway Melody; Alibi; The Hollywood Revue of 1929; In Old Arizona; The Patriot (I have a nasty feeling this is one of the KKK ones)

1929-1930: The Big House; Disraeli; The Divorcee; The Love Parade

1930s

1930-1931: Cimarron; East Lynne; The Front Page; Skippy; Trader Horn

1931-1932: Grand Hotel; Arrowsmith; Bad Girl; The Champ; Five Star Final; One Hour with You; Shanghai Express; The Smiling Lieutenant

1932-1933 Cavalcade; 42nd Street; A Farewell to Arms; I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang; Lady for a Day; Little Women; The Private Life of Henry VIII; She Done Him Wrong;Smilin' Through; State Fair

1934: It Happened One Night (all time Top 10); The Barretts of Wimpole Street; Cleopatra; Flirtation Walk; The Gay Divorcee; Here Comes the Navy; The House of Rothschild; Imitation of Life; One Night of Love; The Thin Man; Viva Villa!; The White Parade

1935: Mutiny on the Bounty; Alice Adams; Broadway Melody of 1936; Captain Blood; David Copperfield; The Informer; The Lives of a Bengal Lancer; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Les Misérables; Naughty Marietta; Ruggles of Red Gap; Top Hat

1936: The Great Ziegfeld; Anthony Adverse; Dodsworth; Libeled Lady; Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; Romeo and Juliet; San Francisco; The Story of Louis Pasteur; A Tale of Two Cities; Three Smart Girls

1937: The Life of Emile Zola; The Awful Truth; Captains Courageous; Dead End; The Good Earth; In Old Chicago; Lost Horizon; One Hundred Men and a Girl; Stage Door; A Star Is Born

1938: You Can't Take It with You; The Adventures of Robin Hood; Alexander's Ragtime Band; Boys Town; The Citadel; Four Daughters; Grand Illusion (La Grande illusion); Jezebel; Pygmalion; Test Pilot

1939: Gone with the Wind; Dark Victory; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Love Affair; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Ninotchka; Of Mice and Men; Stagecoach; The Wizard of Oz; Wuthering Heights

1940s

1940: Rebecca; All This, and Heaven Too; Foreign Correspondent; The Grapes of Wrath; The Great Dictator; Kitty Foyle; The Letter; The Long Voyage Home; Our Town; The Philadelphia Story

1941: How Green Was My Valley; Blossoms in the Dust; Citizen Kane; Here Comes Mr. Jordan; Hold Back the Dawn; The Little Foxes; The Maltese Falcon; One Foot In Heaven; Sergeant York; Suspicion

1942: Mrs. Miniver; 49th Parallel; King's Row; The Magnificent Ambersons; The Pied Piper; The Pride of the Yankees; Random Harvest; The Talk of the Town; Wake Island; Yankee Doodle Dandy

1943: Casablanca; For Whom the Bell Tolls; Heaven Can Wait; The Human Comedy; In Which We Serve; Madame Curie; The More the Merrier; The Ox-Bow Incident; The Song of Bernadette; Watch on the Rhine

1944: Going My Way; Double Indemnity; Gaslight; Since You Went Away; Wilson

1945: The Lost Weekend; Anchors Aweigh; The Bells of St. Mary's; Mildred Pierce; Spellbound

1946: The Best Years of Our Lives; Henry V; It's a Wonderful Life; The Razor's Edge; The Yearling

1947: Gentleman's Agreement; The Bishop's Wife; Crossfire; Great Expectations; Miracle on 34th Street

1948: Hamlet; Johnny Belinda; The Red Shoes; The Snake Pit; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

1949: All the King's Men; Battleground; The Heiress; A Letter to Three Wives; Twelve O'Clock High

1950s

1950: All About Eve; Born Yesterday; Father of the Bride; King Solomon's Mines; Sunset Boulevard

1951: An American in Paris; Decision Before Dawn; A Place in the Sun; Quo Vadis; A Streetcar Named Desire

1952: The Greatest Show on Earth; High Noon; Ivanhoe; Moulin Rouge; The Quiet Man

1953: From Here to Eternity; Julius Caesar; The Robe; Roman Holiday; Shane

1954: On the Waterfront; The Caine Mutiny; The Country Girl; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers; Three Coins in the Fountain

1955: Marty; Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing; Mister Roberts; Picnic; The Rose Tattoo

1956: Around the World in 80 Days; Friendly Persuasion; Giant;The King and I; The Ten Commandments

1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai; Peyton Place; Sayonara; 12 Angry Men; Witness for the Prosecution

1958: Gigi; Auntie Mame; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; The Defiant Ones; Separate Tables

1959: Ben-Hur; Anatomy of a Murder; The Diary of Anne Frank; The Nun's Story; Room at the Top

1960s

1960: The Apartment; The Alamo; Elmer Gantry; Sons and Lovers; The Sundowners

1961: West Side Story; Fanny; The Guns of Navarone; The Hustler; Judgment at Nuremberg

1962: Lawrence of Arabia; The Longest Day; The Music Man; Mutiny on the Bounty; To Kill a Mockingbird

1963: Tom Jones; America, America; Cleopatra; How the West Was Won; Lilies of the Field

1964: My Fair Lady; Becket; Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb;Mary Poppins; Zorba the Greek

1965: The Sound of Music; Darling; Doctor Zhivago; Ship of Fools; A Thousand Clowns

1966: A Man for All Seasons; Alfie; The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming; The Sand Pebbles; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1967: In the Heat of the Night; Bonnie and Clyde; Doctor Dolittle; The Graduate; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

1968: Oliver!; Funny Girl; The Lion in Winter; Rachel, Rachel; Romeo and Juliet

1969: Midnight Cowboy; Anne of the Thousand Days; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Hello, Dolly!;

1970s

1970: Patton; Airport; Five Easy Pieces;Love Story; MASH

1971: The French Connection; A Clockwork Orange; Fiddler on the Roof; The Last Picture Show; Nicholas and Alexandra

1972: The Godfather; Cabaret; Deliverance; Sounder; The Emigrants

1973: The Sting; American Graffiti; The Exorcist; A Touch of Class; Cries and Whispers

1974: The Godfather Part II; Chinatown; The Conversation; Lenny; The Towering Inferno

1975: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Barry Lyndon; Dog Day Afternoon; Jaws; Nashville

1976: Rocky; All the President's Men; Bound for Glory; Network; Taxi Driver

1977: Annie Hall; The Goodbye Girl; Julia; Star Wars; The Turning Point

1978: The Deer Hunter; Coming Home; Heaven Can Wait; Midnight Express; An Unmarried Woman

1979: Kramer vs. Kramer; Apocalypse Now; All That Jazz; Breaking Away; Norma Rae

1980s

1980: Ordinary People; Coal Miner's Daughter; The Elephant Man; Raging Bull; Tess

1981: Chariots of Fire; Reds; Atlantic City; On Golden Pond; Raiders of the Lost Ark

1982: Gandhi; E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; Missing; Tootsie; The Verdict

1983: Terms of Endearment; The Big Chill; The Dresser; The Right Stuff; Tender Mercies

1984: Amadeus; The Killing Fields; A Passage to India; Places in the Heart; A Soldier's Story

1985: Out of Africa; The Color Purple; Kiss of the Spider Woman; Prizzi's Honor; Witness

1986: Platoon; Children of a Lesser God; Hannah and Her Sisters; The Mission; A Room with a View

1987: The Last Emperor; Broadcast News; Fatal Attraction; Hope and Glory; Moonstruck

1988: Rain Man; The Accidental Tourist; Dangerous Liaisons; Mississippi Burning; Working Girl

1989: Driving Miss Daisy; Born on the Fourth of July; Dead Poets Society; Field of Dreams; My Left Foot

1990s

1990: Dances with Wolves; Awakenings; Ghost; The Godfather Part III; Goodfellas

1991: The Silence of the Lambs; Beauty and the Beast; Bugsy; JFK; The Prince of Tides

1992: Unforgiven; The Crying Game; A Few Good Men; Howards End; Scent of a Woman

1993: Schindler's List; The Fugitive; In the Name of the Father; The Piano; The Remains of the Day

1994: Forrest Gump; Four Weddings and a Funeral; Pulp Fiction; Quiz Show; The Shawshank Redemption

1995: Braveheart; Apollo 13; Babe; Il Postino (The Postman); Sense and Sensibility

1996: The English Patient; Fargo; Jerry Maguire; Secrets & Lies; Shine

1997: Titanic; As Good as It Gets; The Full Monty; Good Will Hunting; L.A. Confidential

1998: Shakespeare in Love; Elizabeth; Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella); Saving Private Ryan; The Thin Red Line

1999: American Beauty; The Cider House Rules; The Green Mile; The Insider; The Sixth Sense

2000s

2000: Gladiator; Chocolat; Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; Erin Brockovich; Traffic

2001: A Beautiful Mind; Gosford Park; In the Bedroom; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; Moulin Rouge

2002: Chicago; Gangs of New York; The Hours; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; The Pianist

2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; Lost in Translation; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; Mystic River; Seabiscuit

2004: Million Dollar Baby; The Aviator; Finding Neverland; Ray; Sideways

2005: Crash; Brokeback Mountain; Capote; Good Night and Good Luck; Munich

2006: The Departed; Babel; Letters from Iwo Jima; Little Miss Sunshine; The Queen

2007: No Country for Old Men; Atonement; Juno; Michael Clayton; There Will Be Blood

2008: Slumdog Millionaire; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Frost/Nixon; Milk; The Reader

I have to count them now? I make that 217. Little Miss Oblong-eyes.

89 pre-1970 - TNT in my teens and just what's available these days. Plus a film module at University - 1939 and 1962, eh. There may be a few extra that I saw but can't remember by name, but in that case I may as well not have seen them.
27 70s - Again - all of these were after the fact, but late 70s were much more likely to be on american TV in the 80s. The early 70s I caught up with in the 90s. And sadly they were mostly horrid. (Five Easy Pieces -grr)
43 80s - Blimey -I watched everything. Except Godfather 2
34 90s + 24 00s - everything was available but I was a lot more picky. And Oscar's and my tastes divurged widely. Notice the 100% lack of Tim Burton movies in that rolecall for a starter. Although Milk is just a matter of not yet.

Wednesday morning 3am - Help me?

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:06:02 GMT

Is there any way I can find something to do with lovely people in London between 11pm and 3 am on a Wednesday morning in March?

Background:
I'm flying out of Heathrow at 620 am next month. On a Wednesday. Seeing as that means I have to be at the airport at 430am after working on Tuesday, there's no point getting a hotel, which was my first intention.

So I'm wondering if I can make the following plan fly:

Arrive in St Pancras either 10 or 11 pm. Go somewhere on the N9 Night bus route :
- Hammersmith, Lillie Road, West Brompton, Earls Court, South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Aldwych.
Catch bus about 3am to terminal 2.

So - do you reckon it's possible? do-able? something you'd like to join me on? or just something where you can point me to the appropriate all night pub, club, cafe, cinema where a suitcase is not too much hassle?
Or am I nuts and best going for the "go to Heathrow at midnight and hang around" back-up plan?

Help me.

Birthday shenanigans

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:14:41 GMT

Prague failed magnificently to happen. Again. I'm dooooooomed. Last time, Prague flooded. In August. So it's not the date, it's me. If I actually make it there, it will probably make a volcano erupt. Where no volcano was before.

This time takeoff was due in the only 3 hours EMA was closed last week. Ryanair promptly cancelled. Lovely friends rallied and booked us into a spa with a special deal for 2 nights all-inclusive. And it was not the sort of spa that featured lettuce leaves and lemon water, oh noes. 3 scrumptious meals a day, a massage, a ... ahem... exciting superspa and little LEDs on the ceiling of the steam rooms to gaze at.

And then I dragged them to Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist and a cheesy disco in a metal pub on my birthday proper.

So it was great but 100% Not to Plan.

I've kept the czech money. Because now it's personal!

Initialed Authors

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:01:05 GMT

I'm always intrigued by authors who choose to be published using only their initials, and in the last month selected 2, one fantasy and one crime, partly to see if they could guess their gender and partly to speculate wildly on why they made their choice.

GM Ford conveniently had the first 2 books of a series available and I quickly ran into trouble. The women characters were harridans out to prevent the happiness of men, with the exception of the central femme. Who turned out to be just a kitten really, and solely motivated by the luv of her man. Ugh. I moved on to skim-reading after the first 2 chapters and the first chapter of the second book and had to stop. I was actually praying for the author to be male because the thought of being in the psyche of a woman that self-loathing was just so horrid. Phew - he was. Avoid.

The other was the fantasy - KJ Bishop. I quickly got the sense of Jeff Vandermeer intrigueyness (I've written it, therefore it's a word) , with that sense of steadily increasing warpedness, but more engaging and with less victimy leads. It felt female. When I got to the line "It seemed no man could conceive of her as prey," no shadow of a doubt remained.

Now confirmed on the interwebs, so I'm feeling both the smugness which comes of being right and the sadness that I still struggle with finding male authors readable. Terry Pratchett is wonderful, I haven't given up on Jasper Fforde and Philip Pullman. Elmore Leonard was fab. Erm. That's all I can bring to mind for novelists. I used to like John Irving and Piers Anthony and Jack Vance but was turned off all of them by their inability to portray a woman as a character rather than an adjunct and/or object . I do find likeable male writers scattered around in other forms - television particularly, theatre too. Mike Leigh and William Goldman in films.

But some recommendations for male novelists (any genre) that prove me wrong and get rid of this sour taste in my mouth would be wonderful.

P.S. The Bishop book is The Etched City. It is scrumptious and moreish - and a first novel! Fab.

PPS I got rather distracted from the speculation as to why. But interested in others' thoughts.

Happy Birthday Ash

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:32:04 GMT

Happy Birthday ashfae !!!

Still Paris-swooning

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:43:39 GMT

Last night, I gave into to the irresistable temptation to watch Before Sunset. For vicarious walking around Paris. How can I have never been before? I'm dismayed and elated all at once.

And also, why oh why does a lovely romance like this appear less than once every 5 years? So many bright writers and sparky actors in the world, and Adam Sandler movies and woman-shrinking bilge like How to Lose a Man in 10 Days get churned out. Why world why?

A Spangly Christmas to all

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:16:30 GMT

Off on the traditional hire-car Christmas adventure, absolutely revving with excitement.

I get to see lots and lots of my favourite people in the most beautiful place in the world.

I hope all your Christmases are also just as shiny and joyous as can be. And that I see a few of you in the next 10 days.

Merry Christmas xxx

Hee, he said fanny

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:59:46 GMT

Cultural gender analysis from a man. Not only is this unusual but hilarious www.comixology.com/articles/167/Moby-vs-Hill