Latest Entry
Jun 15, 2010
If I ever get past the procrastination stage (and not even begin to consider how I’d word the dedication page to make you realise), I still don’t know how I could write descriptive text. When I try to write it, it seems over the top and sentimental. But when I read amazing passages like the one below from the very mad book The Bridge
I am in complete awe of the author’s ability.
At my back lay the desert, ahead the sea. One golden, one blue, they met like rival modes of time. One moved in the immediate, sparkling in troughs and crests, lifting white and falling, beating the shelf of sand, and the tide as breath . . . the other moved more slowly, but as surely, the tall advancing waves of sand stroked over the waste by the combing hand of the unseen wind.
See what I mean? By the way, the iBooks application on the iPad makes it amazingly easy to clip and bookmark your favourite section of books, just in case you don’t own one… yet.
Recent Entries
Jun 8, 2010
OK, so I have an iPad. And it’s totally beautiful. However 50% of my time on the iPad is spent playing the amazing addictive “DoodleJump” game. The other 50% is a re-re-re-reading of Life of Pi, to see if I am still completely in love with Richard Parker (I am) and whether it’s possible to read a book properly on a screen (it is).
This quote made me think of so many things…
His sole comment on the event was a cranky meow. “I love you!” The words burst out pure and unfettered, infinite. The feeling flooded my chest. “Truly I do. I love you, Richard Parker. If I didn’t have you now, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t think I would make it. No, I wouldn’t. I would die of hopelessness. Don’t give up, Richard Parker, don’t give up. I’ll get you to land, I promise, I promise!”
Such a perfect declaration of love. Makes the botched goodbye even more poignant. I wonder if Pi also dreams of meeting Richard Parker again?
As for my book, well, the image above sums that up pretty well, made me laugh so much!
May 2, 2010
Oh I forgot to mention… I also watched The Road last night. I truly loved the book, probably because it was about the end of the world and I am quite excited about the whole apocalypse thing. The film was excellent with such amazing imagery of a ruined planet… I was I could have watched it without having read the book. Aragorn looked really great and the bum-worshippers out there will be very happy with one scene (-:
The only complaint about the entire film was the stupid bloody beetle. In the book there is not a single living plant or animal. Even the ocean is dead. However in the film there is a scene where they find a little beetle and it flies off. I can only assume they did this for the stupid American market who like happy stories… but surely none of them would be happy with one damned beetle! Grrrr.
May 2, 2010
I just finished This is How
by M.J. Hyland and really loved it, it made me realise how long it’s been since the excitement of beautiful books like The Life of Pi.
The story is set in, um, the 60′s I think and follows Patrick, a guy in his early twenties who simply wants someone to love. Unfortunately though he’s not quite all there and has a tendency to over analyse situations – and never positively. He’s one of those people who could have 100 great things happen and 1 bad thing could wipe them out completely.
As things progress in the book, Patrick tries to get pretty much every female character he meets to fall in love with him, whilst he perceives every male character to be against him or mocking him. There is also a very odd regular gay undertone with nearly every male character in the book that is usually just hinted at but really fills the pages with a strange unspoken tension.
Things go seriously wrong though in one of the moments when he’s not all with it and he ends up in prison. From there, it’s simply a downward spiral for him as he deals with the results of his terrible mistake. The first half of the book seems to be about how Patrick never has any freedom from his past, but in the second half he realises what he has lost and how his freedom is gone forever.
The story is one part of the book that is good, but the best thing is some of the beautiful throwaway lines showing how detached Patrick can be from the real world that the author litters the book with…
“But he screwed other women. He screwed them like rabbits, He used them up like cheap whores. He probably screwed Georgia.”
The judge calls for order, asks the prisoner to stop shouting.
I hadn’t known I was shouting.
It’s a great book although I’m not sure if you’d like it, if it had tigers in it then it would have more chance of your approval I think.
Apr 23, 2010
I found this on a blog with the oh so amazing title “The rising tide will not let you forget me”. How perfect. I love how he appears to be looking into the lens. Did he make it? Of course.
Fantastic original image by The Fuzzball on Flickr.
Apr 12, 2010
Yeh Yeh, I know, I haven’t posted for ages. Think of it as me being pressured off the internet by sites I have to avoid now, or something.
Anyway, I’ve always loved Carl Sagan, what an awesome head of hair! OK, that and the fact that he was just the most amazing science TV presenter. Maybe something that Brian Cox is on route to. In fact, Brian Cox also has an impressive head of hair doesn’t he. Hmmm, maybe reincarnation is more plausible.
The point of my rambling? Well, simply this beautiful video and voice over from the man himself… watch it and remember we’re all just insignificant dots on another insignificant pale blue dot. This doesn’t mean we’re worthless, it means we should sieze life by the balls and live it as it’s all we have and the universe doesn’t care. Remember it’s what you don’t do or say that you regret.
Pale Blue Dot
Feb 21, 2010
Finally I got to see Avatar this week. As some of you know, I have a cinema phobia in that the only acceptable behaviour (according to me) is to sit very very still and very very quietly. If people could actually go and see a film and die during the trailers then that would be pretty much perfect for me. So therefore seeing the highest grossing movie of all time in Chichester wasn’t going to be acceptable, in fact there would have been a murdering going on (by me, when someone created 10db of noise 5 rows away from me by eating a stale piece of popcorn).
So I went to see it in 3D in the IMAX London and boy was it worth it. I fell in urrr, “like” with Neytiri after about 15seconds and think that painting yourself blue and wearing a dish cloth is a great idea to get noticed. Such a shame it didn’t have an awesome soundtrack by someone like Clint Mansell though.
However, the highlight of my trip to London (apart from eating the best beef in suet pudding pie in Roast) was going for a fantastic walk through the London that all of us know is there but none of us can find.
To do this… I booked a two hour trip with London Walks. The have an amazing range of walks, from Eccentric to Hidden to Jack the Ripper to Beachcoming (this one involves you meeting at low tide and search for ancient artifacts with an expert guide!). I went along on the Eccentric London walk and within 5minutes of meeting the guide (Peter) I had more brilliant information stuffed into my brain than I could ever know what to do with. It seemed like he could look at every single building and tell us (there were 20 of us) something unique and interesting. Here are some highlights…
- The phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” comes from when St Pauls and St Peters (that’s Westminster Abbey) used to compete against each other for donations
- When “George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham” sold his land he insisted that his title remained in the local area. So not only is there Villiers Street, George Court, Duke Street and Buckingham Street… but also “Of Alley”!!! (see the photo above)
- Trafalgar Square has some American land on it where the statue of George Washington is. He said he’d never stand on English soil so his statue is on American land!
- The smallest Police station in the world used to exist in Trafalgar Square – and the building is still there
Sigh, that list is really disappointing as there were HUNDREDS of amazing, interesting facts during the two hour walk. I spent the rest of the day looking up at the buildings wondering what stories they held. Next time you visit London make sure you go with London Walks, I promise that it’s even nearly as good as the Apple store. Nearly.
Feb 7, 2010
Well, that might be a little flippant as I don’t mean real war, I mean something far more important… Modern Warfare 2. I have several really important issues that I’m sure other people are experiencing…
- In a ground war match, there are approximately 16 people. 8 of which are apparently on the same side as me. So Why does the git on the opposing team always seem to target me with a missile fired from a Predator at an approximate cost of $58K. Is there a special achievement called “Drive Cloudzilla Mental” that I don’t know about? Does everyone else playing Modern Warfare 2 already have this achievement?
- When the rare event occurs of me calling in a supply drop there is nothing worse than being killed before collecting it… and watching someone else get my booty. Arghghghgh it drives me mental.
- Almost as bad as this, is when your supply drop lands and one of your own team tries to claim it. Bugger Off! You can clearly see me lurking in the shadows waiting for this gift from above so go and stick a hellfire missile up your ass!
- When I’m stood at a window, waiting for some fool to walk in front of my sights below… don’t come and stand at the same window with me! There are plenty of bloody windows in the maps, get your own!
- Knifing someone quietly in the back is a joyous experience. I do understand that if I ever get mixed up with the law and they find my blog with that phrase on it then the Daily Mail is going to have a field day… but it’s true.
- How on earth are people good at this game? Is it because I’m not 12? I’ll start a game and be checking out my uniform, complaining about the dust in the air and thinking about getting my gun ready and someone will call in a nuke already! How on earth is that possible?!?! There don’t seem to be any actual “how to be good at Modern Warfare” guides on the internet… so if any of your have any proper advice then let me know! I guess one of my main mistakes is “see movement in front of me, start firing, hope the person is an enemy and walks in front of my sights before my clip empties”, maybe?
- The brushie brushie image is of no relevance but is all that is good about the internet.
Jan 29, 2010
I love Ponies, but I hate Horsies
OK, so that might not make a lot of sense, but visit those two links for great cartoon strips by The Oatmeal. He has a superb style and could probably survive for over a minute chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor. He also has some good advice like “5 very good reasons to punch a dolphin in the mouth” and “I believe printers were sent from hell to make us miserable“.
Jan 27, 2010
Remember how awesome The Time Travellers Wife was? Well this book is by the same author and it’s not quite as good… but still a gorgeous story. Two identical twins in their early twenties from USA come to live next to Highgate Cemetery and get haunted and can’t break away from their past to live in their future. Hmm, well actually that covers the story pretty much, but what the author manages to do so perfectly is develop such “wonderful but damaged” characters. My favourite has the be Martin, a man who has severe a severe case of OCD but is still such a rich and adorable guy – I was so pleased how his separate story developed as he tried to master his obsessions.
As the story develops you can see that so many of the main characters are looking both forwards and backwards and loving people in their past and future and you can’t see how any of the issues will ever resolve themselves. In the end the issues sort of do get sorted out – and in the last lines of the book one of the characters makes a decision that I’m so glad they did otherwise I might have hate the book (I won’t give it away but he did the right thing!).
The end of The Time Travellers Wife was truly beautiful, but one of the characters in Her Fearful Symmetry has quite a sad ending… and I can’t work out if that gets resolved by the last few lines of the book. Sigh, it’s impossible to explain any of this without giving the story away so I’ll shutup. I’m off to London soon and am definitely going to visit Highgate Cemetery and look out for the ghosts riding on the crows. Oh and I absolutely need a Little Kitten Of Death!!!
