Reading etc.

Saw it on DVD at the weekend. Brutal.  What may have been artistic ennui on the big screen was plain old ennui on the little screen.  Didn’t help that herself was in roaring mode so we had to keep going off and tending to her. After a while we didn’t even bother pausing because shag all was happening anyway. Also because we’re still wrestling with pause and fast forward on the DVD and the Princess isn’t old enough to explain it to us yet.  Locotes, I blame you for raising my expectations.

More LRB personals:

“Heaven knows, I’m miserable now.  Emotional wreck, club-footed, anxious M, 33, living a half-life in a garret in London, seeks solace in the brawny arms of a charming man, 30 -40.  I’m afraid I loathe opera but love Morrissey, dodgy Brit sci fi, Barbara Pym’s novels.  Lower those expectations at box no. 12/15”

The pile of newsprint has built up in my absence.  We receive the following through our letterbox:

The Economist (weekly)

Saturday’s Irish Times (weekly)

The LRB (fortnightly)

The BCT magazine (don’t ask – monthly)

Test achat (a consumer magazine – please don’t ask – monthly)

Musee des beaux arts newsletter (quarterly)

Because this lot are not enough to keep us going we also get

The Observer (weekly)

Le Soir (weekly)

The European Voice (well – I have to look for my jobs somewhere – weekly)

The Bulletin (see above – weekly)

As assiduous readers will know, and if you’re reading this, you’re assiduous, I’ve been away for a week and the accumulated weight of stuff is threatening to crush me.

Mr. Waffle wants to know if we’d like to subscribe to the “The New Statesman”.  I don’t think so.

It is subscription renewal time. I will have to pay.  Is it worth it?  If I do decide to renew, I can give two free subscriptions to friends. Who is worthy?

In other book news. Next volume of the Shadowmancer man’s books was better but still not great. Reread “Pride and Prejudice” which is as brilliant as ever. Also finished rereading “A Short History of the World” by H.G. Wells and for a brief period knew who the Persians, Medes and Elamites actually were and what their role in history  was.  Bitterly regretted that University Challenge was over for the Summer and I had no chance to triumph. This is a great book- a readable summary of everything. Also, given that the author died in 1936, quite hilariously politically incorrect.

Am now reading “Notes on a Scandal” by Zoe Heller which is excellent, very funny and poignant and not for the reasons you might think. Still on chapter one of “The Bridge over the River Drina”.

I just got an email from a potential employer summoning me to an interview next Thursday.  That’s right when I’m supposed to be relaxing on the French coast. Cursed loudly and then remembered that the rest of the household is trying to sleep.  Blah.  Will have to speak to Messrs SNCF about cancelling/changing train tickets and bet I won’t get the bloody job either.

Also got the following in the same bumper crop of emails, from my greatest living fan, my friend C:

“Last few blogs v. good, I liked the structure of the ‘More Belgian than the Belgians themselves’. Try to cut down on cliches, though, good to have a few but you can have too many – one entry with ‘great unwashed’ and ‘alone and palely loitering’ etc.

You know my criticisms are all constructive, don’t you?”

Is she going off me?  Will I become entirely unread?  Am cut to the quick and await with bated breath a full retraction going forward.

I see that google has acknowledged Bloomsday. James Joyce would doubtless be delighted.

A particularly difficult choice this time but I’ve decided on:

“Collector of albums with palindromic associations (M, 33) seeks aibohphobic F Abba fan with copies of ELO’s Ole; Black Sabbath’s Live Evil (also the album of the same name by Miles Davis); Evil Live by Misfits; Ufo Tofu by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones: Aja by Steely Dan and Aoxomoxoa the Grateful Dead. It’s a niche request, but I figured I’d find someone in here. Box no. 11/03”

I swear I am not making these up. I couldn’t.

Just finished the latest Marian Keyes. Very good but not as good as it would have been if she’d had me and the Princess in for a cup of tea to discuss the writing process.

Read “The Road from Coorain” on my mother-in-law’s recommendation.  She is a big fan of biography which as she pointed out to me, presents particular problems.  I mean how many books of biography is the average person going to write?  So she finds a great book and she knows that there will never be more than one or two subsequent volumes, if that.  Unless, I suppose, you like the Beckhams.  “The Road from Coorain” didn’t do it for me but it was far better than the other thing I read last week.  On the basis of rave reviews, I bought two volumes of the “Shadowmancer” series at once.  It’s alright.  For teenagers and a bit too overtly religious – epic tale of a struggle between good and evil described somewhere, with accuracy, as a cross between His Dark Materials and Jamaica Inn.  Author is a vicar and so is the baddy in the story, so clearly the author has a sense of humour.  It is a bit worthy though.  Lots of biblical quotes which I suppose might be new to teenagers in godless England, but certainly aren’t to me.  A bit puritanical too – he is down on cards and beer.  However, further evidence of humour comes from the author biog at the front of the book.  He is described as follows:

“G.P. Taylor has spent the whole of his life searching for the the hidden secrets of the universe.  He lectures on the paranormal and folklore and lives in a secluded graveyard.”