Other Stories

Nota Bene

Some things to note:

1. I have having some technical issues. Things don't appear when I want them too. There should have been posts between Thursday and now. They've disappeared from everywhere, and at the moment I don't have time to re-type.
2. Technical issues, part the second: my sidebars aren't updating.
3. I have been in Scotland all weekend, with a sum total of 10 minutes internet time. Scotland was alright. Scottish. Spent most of the time with my mum, which was largely very enjoyable. Slept in my old bedroom and rued the day when I was 15 and painted my room DARK purple. Felt oddly compelled to go out and buy some nice, neutral paint. Apologised to my mother eleven years on for being the most appalling goth and forcing her to have a purple room in her house. That said, I haven't lived at home since I was 17, and she still hasn't got around to repainting it herself.
4. Guiltily eschewed essay reading and finished Clear by Nicola Barker instead. Loved it. Loved it more than I loved Darkmans. (CLAIRE! I know I forgot to point out to you how commuter-unfriendly Darkmans is, but trust me on Clear. It's paperback! And only 340-odd pages! If you enjoyed Darkmans, you won't regret this, I promise.)
5. Did make serious progress with old Herbert G W, though, and I aim to finish it tonight or tomorrow. Still not loving it, but can now say with absolute certainty that The Island of Dr Moreau is the best Wells I've read, tinge of racism not withstanding.
6. Lewis, 9pm Sunday nights on ITV, is amazing. Last night they blew up a house just along the road from me.
7. I have recently become massively addicted to this bread.

That is all. I am beavering away at battling the gremlins, and normal service short resume shortly.

Books and Beer

I have been very, very, very busy. Unfortunately I can't really tell you about any of it.

Sorry.

But, yesterday I was delighted to receive a copy of Gents by Warwick Collins, sent to me by the lovely people at The Friday Project. I read the first few pages last night when I got in from uni, and so far so good. I'm very impressed. More when I've finished it.

Also through my letterbox fell a book I bought half for university purposes and half because it just looks really interesting: The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in late Victorian England.  The cover is beyond terrible, but I have high hopes for the book itself.

This weekend is the bi-annual beer festival at my local pub too. I am very much looking forward to parking myself at the bar and supping some locally brewed cider. Do you brew cider? You know what I mean. Lovely lovely.

I promise I'll be a better blogger next week.

Pleasing things: Dickens, Gray, and Cadbury's Wispa

Forgive me, please, for a rambling post today. I am not feeling very well (cue violins). So, a short selection of random fancies for your delectation.

Lovely lovely Radio 4 are dramatising a lesser-spotted Dickens work, a serial that didn't quite make it into the book form of his other novels. I had never heard of Mrs Lirriper before I heard the plug on the radio during a nightmarish 360 mile drive on Friday evening, but it certainly peaked my curiosity. Sadly a hangover from hell prevented me from doing anything on Sunday other than lying on the sofa under a duvet and randomly complaining to no one in particular so I forgot to listen to the programme itself. However, Listen Again is a beautiful thing, and I intend to sit down and give it my full attention later this afternoon.

In the meantime, though, I am thrilled to discover that Hesperus Press - they of the forgotten classics - have published Mrs Lirriper in handy book form. Huzzah for them, and I'm going to go in search of it at lunch time. 

Also on my book-buying radar is the new book from wonderful Alasdair Gray. Another huzzah! So says the synopsis:

"Men in Love, like The Arabian Nights, is about a storyteller whose stories contain other stories. As in Alasdair Gray's Lanark, 1982 Janine, Poor Things, and The Book of Prefaces, this one has many styles of narrative and location. Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Victorian Somerset mingle with Britain under the New Labour Party, viewed from the West End of Glasgow. More than 50 per cent is fact and the rest possible, but must be read to be believed."

I really am quite excited by this, and y'all know how much I love Alasdair Gray. So much to read, so little time.

And here's my other tip of the week. Take a gander at Jonathan Coe's essay in this Saturday's Guardian about the Virago Modern Classics, and how they brought him to read largely forgotten female novelists when at the time his favourite novelists were BS Johnson, Flann O'Brien and the aforementioned Mr Gray. I also love Virago's list, and reading this piece has made me want to go back and re-read some of the authors mentioned.

"...who on earth were these people? Dorothy Richardson, FM Mayor, May Sinclair, Rosamond Lehmann ... I could see only two things that these mysterious writers had in common. They were all women, and I'd never heard of any of them."

And last, but certainly not least, in today's ramble, something entirely unrelated to books:

The Wispa is back. I have eaten an alarming number over the last few days.

Please, Cadbury, bring them back for good. And bring back the Wispa Gold while you're at it.

**An Update (again, unrelated to the above)**

I have been updating my list of 'Books Read 2007' because I realised that there had been a few missed off the list for some reason. Updated to the best of memory. Because I'm a pedant, ok?

Bank Holiday Joy

Oh, how I love Bank Holiday weekends. Just think, if I'd still been in Glasgow, it wouldn't have been a Bank Holiday at all. So there are some plus sides of being down here (of course I won't be saying that on the 2nd January when I have to go back to work).

Anyhoo, I managed to pack quite a lot of joy into one weekend. On Friday I survived the hell of wearing stupid shoes and went out for dinner at the rather posh Gee's in Oxford, with Dad and Boyfriend. It was the first time they'd met, despite the length of time I've been with Boyfriend (largely because of Dad living abroad) so I was a little nervous. I needn't have been though, they got on like a house on fire. I was beyond thrilled. And! I had steak and chips, and the chips came in a BAG. I loved this detail more than is decent. Drank a lot of wine, laughed a lot, then took dad to my local. He had a couple of brandies, and it being a Friday night some friends were in, so Dad was introduced to loads of people. All in all, it was quite fabulous. Phew!

Went to London on Saturday and walked for miles. Went out for a very late dinner, and walked from Westminster to London Bridge along the South Bank (the South Bank is possibly my favourite place in the whole world), stopping at Gabriel's Wharf for pizza and cheesecake and Peroni. Took ridiculous photos of each other pulling faces. I went to Foyles at the RFH and bought books because they were open late (more Bookery books: What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn and The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies). On Sunday we walked round Soho, loitered in Denmark Street looking at guitars, loitered in Charing Cross Road looking at books, then went to the pub, drank cider in the afternoon and listened to some live music.

I came up with a plan. (All hush hush)

Came back to Oxford in time to grace the Open Stage night at the local with our presence. Drank more cider. Thanked God for having Monday off.

Monday came. Boyfriend plied his trade. I read. (I can heartily recommend Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips -- not quite finished it yet, but should have by tomorrow). We did the Test the Nation IQ Test. Boyfriend had a grump because I scored higher than him. Heh :) I wrote this.

And that was that. Bank Holiday Joy.

Artichokes, books, and trashy TV

Things I have learned today:

• I like artichokes
• I don't like smoked mackerel pate
• Too much sans serif font makes me dizzy
• That I am more motivated than I thought I was
• That my friends don't think I'm a geek for taking pictures of my bookshelves and posting them on Facebook. This is because I'm friends with a lot of fellow booky types and they understand.

Things I am looking forward to:

• Going to Gee's with Dad and Boyfriend on Friday night (Yum yum -- one of my favourite restaurants)
• Picking up the lovely box of books from the post office
• Starting on the lovely new books (mostly Booker types)
• Going to London on Saturday afternoon
• The reinstating of my friend and my Wednesday Night In Front Of The Telly With Food
• The X Factor. I know, but I'm addicted already. I refuse to be ashamed.

Things I am not looking forward to:

• Errr... not very much, for once. I think all is well. This is good.

This is an entirely pointless post, for which I apologise. No, actually, sod it, I don't. You don't have to read it. I mostly wanted to tell people that I like artichoke, when I thought I didn't. This makes me unnaturally happy. Small things. They keep you going.

Anyway. I am taking delivery of a few books, as I said: Darkmans by Nicola Barker; The Gathering by Anne Enright; Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips; and Gifted by Nikita Lalwani. I also have The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies and What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn on order.

Must. Stop. Buying. Books.

Insult of the Day, and Other Stories

Some random titbits for your delectation:

• I read my favourite insult ever last night, in Bleak House (oh that I were still wrapped in duvet, reading it just now). I urge you all to go out and use it at least once today. John Jarndyce was talking about himself but it would work equally well if you were to lob this particular phrase at someone else. "I am a cod's head and shoulders..." Isn't that fantastic? So deliciously random.
• Speaking of fish, I'm going to my favourite fish restaurant for lunch today, for a colleague's birthday. I'm a big fish fan, and the fish soup of this emporium is to die for. I'm very excited.
• I had the oddest dream last night. Angus Deayton stole my dad's car and I ran after him yelling obscenities. Then I phoned 999 and said that Angus Deayton had just stolen my dad's car, but they wouldn't believe me. So I was sitting in a multi-story car park, having a bit of a cry about my dad's stolen car, and then I woke up. What the hell was going on in my psyche?
• And speaking of my dad, a vaguely embarrassing thing happened yesterday. I share a fairly small office with 4 other people, and our answerphones are such that if someone leaves a message, everyone in the office can hear it, both at the time that the message is left, and at playback. While I was out getting lunch yesterday, my dad rang, and left a message for me, apparently unaware that four complete strangers were sitting listening to him. He used his nickname for me, which I'm not repeating here. Now my colleagues are calling me by my dad's pet name for me. It's embarrassing in that primary school sort of way. Ho hum.

That is all. Back to whatever you were doing.