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.

Costa Prize Winner...

Congratulations to Glasgow writer (and stand up comedienne) AL Kennedy for scooping the Costa Prize last night, for her novel Day.

It is the story of a World War II veteran who has to confront his demons when he is an extra in a Prisoner of War movie. Apparently (I say apparently, for I haven't read it... yet) the novel is Kennedy's response to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The judges called it a "masterpiece", and even said there were "shadows of James Joyce" in it.

Now, I'm rather happy that she won. I've enjoyed the novels of hers that I have read. But the judges comparing her to James Joyce is surely a shot in the foot? Can't help thinking that some people might be put off if they think it's like Joyce.

*shrugs*  Just a thought.

Old Men in Love - Alasdair Gray

I finished Old Men in Love by Alasdair Gray last Thursday, but it had taken me a few days to properly digest it. I shall say here and now that all subjectivity is flying out of the window because I am a fully paid up, card-carrying, flag-waving Grayophile. He suggests in the last chapter of this book, albeit through the fictional voice of his most ferocious critic, that this will be his last novel. After all, as he says, he is "72, and in poor health".

But like so much in Gray's work, can we really believe what we read? Fact interweaves with fiction at every turn, real names are used in unreal situations. If I can say nothing else about Alasdair Gray's fiction, it is that it certainly creates its own alternative world. I hope it's not his last book, but I shall have to prepare myself for the worst anyway. :(

This isn't a straightforward narrative. It never really is with Gray. This is a collection of the last papers of John Tunnock, a retired Glasgow school teacher who has lived in the Hillhead area with his two aunts all his life, until their deaths. Free of having to care for or answer to them, Tunnock starts picking up "young things" and bringing them back to his old-fashioned home. Meanwhile, he is trying desperately to write his magnum opus of a historical novel, and the bulk of Old Men in Love is made up of the fragments of his work so far: first in ancient Greece, then Renaissance Italy, then Victorian England. In all of the fragments there are old men in love. Socrates in love with knowledge and goodness and (arguably) beautiful young men; Fra Filippo Lippi in love with art and an ex-nun; Henry Prince in love with God and with himself. Tunnock is not really in love with anyone - he just flits from one appallingly inappropriate sexual encounter to the next, all the while gradually showing that he is quite the misogynist (a reaction against the strong women he was surrounded by during his upbringing, perhaps?). Or at least, that's my interpretation. Mixed in with this is Tunnock's (Gray's?) vision for a socialist, independent Scotland. Maybe it's that vision that Tunnock is truly in love with.

As ever, Gray has illustrated his work throughout, and it is as stunning as ever. My favourite illustration is an intricate line drawing of Hillhead, in the West End of Glasgow, where Gray and Tunnock live, and where I used to live. There is a surprising amount of joy to be had in being able to pick out what used to be your bedroom window in a drawing like that.

Old Men in Love will not be for everyone, but it is for me, and barring a miracle I can say with all confidence that this book is my read of 2007.

Alasdair Gray interview, part II

Here's part two of the Alasdair Gray interview, originally posted over at the BBC Collective site.

Here Gray talks about the relationship between painting and books, and about what influenced him when he was younger.

Alasdair Gray interview, part I

My abiding love for all things Alasdair Gray is well known in these parts. Today at Other Stories we have for you part one of an interview with the great man himself originally found over at BBC Collective.

I just love this interview. I have watched it far too many times already.

"I promise you I don't go around picking up YOUNG THINGS in Byres Road..."

Part two tomorrow.

The Book Meme

The latest post over at Eve's Alexandria couldn't have come at a better time. Here I was struggling with my thoughts on Darkmans, trying to force the words into some kind of coherent structure, when up pops this book meme and I saw my escape. Here are my answers... (Darkmans tomorrow, promise).

Hardback or Paperback, and why?

I honestly don't have a preference. There are obvious pros and cons to both. Hardbacks (especially the Nicola Barker monster) are more difficult to read in bed, and if you fall asleep mid-sentence, you're more liable to take out an eye on a sharp corner. The dust jackets are easy to rip and damage if you're not careful (though this is solved by taking the cover off, obviously. I tend to do this if reading a HB). But they look so pretty! The excitement of buying a new hardback on the day of publication isn't quite the same as a new paperback. But paperbacks are portable, and cheaper, and can be pretty in their own right.

You see? I'm torn (paper! torn! ha! I'm a comedy god). Can't decide. I'm more irritated by poor paper quality than what kind of covering the book has.

If I were to own a bookshop, I would call it...

Why, I'd call it Other Stories, of course.

The name of this blog is, for those of you who haven't figured it out already, from my favourite collection of Ali Smith's short stories: Other Stories and Other Stories. Go look at it here. It's really very good indeed.

My favourite quote from a book is...

Well, I'm not very good at memorising quotations. Also, I don't think I can have just one favourite. There's definitely some Woolf in there though...

"Each had his past shut in him like the the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could only read the title" Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf

There's also the passage from Mrs Dalloway, quite near the beginning, where she pictures being at a lake with her parents, and going up to them carrying her whole life in her arms, saying "this is what I made of it". I wish I could remember the exact wording. Whenever I read it, it leaves me a little breathless.

The author (alive or dead) I would love to have lunch with...

It would seem most obvious for me to say Virginia Woolf, but I won't. For one thing, I'd be too awestruck to form a coherent sentence, and for another, I don't think she was terribly fond of lunch.

In that case, I will plump for Elaine Showalter. She is alive, which is a bonus. She has written on all manner of feminist and Victorian and Victorian feminist goodies. That, frankly, ticks a lot of my boxes. Showalter it is.

If I were going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, apart from an SAS Survival Guide, it would be...

Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Better still, a one-volume complete works of everything Dickens wrote.

I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that...

Hmm. I've been thinking long and hard about this. I honestly don't think there is anything. As long as I've got a decent light and a comfortable chair (and preferably a duvet, though this is impractical on public transport) then I'm good to go.

The smell of an old book reminds me of...

My two favourite second-hand book shops in Glasgow. Voltaire & Rousseau, and Otago Books. They are one of the things I actually miss most about my home city. Is that weird?

If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title) it would be...

I'm not quite sure I understand the question. If I could the lead character in a book that already exists? I presume so. Uh.... I'm not really sure, but I think I'd like to be Sugar from The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. Without the prostitution, obviously. I just think she kicks arse.  Man, I LOVE that book. That's due a re-read.

The most overrated book of all time is...

Oh there are several. The Catcher in the Rye, which I read as a disaffected teenager in the hope of relating to another disaffected teenager. I didn't. I hated the book, and only read it in one sitting because I was so desperate to finish the bloody thing. Have tried reading it again since, and gave up after 25 pages. I didn't actively hate On Thr Road so much as wonder what all the fuss was about.  Oh, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas left me utterly cold. So you drove about and took a lot of drugs. Whoop-de-doo.

Contrary to how this looks, I don't hate all American novels. Honest.

Local Papers

I was thrilled this morning to discover that my favourite local rag, the Barrhead News, has its own website.

It is the local paper from the town I had the misfortune to grow up in, and is full of lurid stories like "Town Link to Brutal Murder", "Granny Flees Sick Thug", and, er, "Dog Jibe Made Me Hit Woman In Face".

Unfortunately, it didn't have my favourite recent story online, which I discovered in the paper itself last weekend while up at home: "Rammy in Post Office". The standard of reporting is such that they use the word "rammy" in legitimate news stories, which makes me laugh more than is really decent. "A 23 year old man allegedly caused a rammy in the post office..." I had to cut the story out and bring it home, I loved it so much.

They also insist on referring to the police as "cops", which makes me wonder whether they are operating under the illusion that they are in New York, rather than a slightly scummy town stuck in between Glasgow and Paisley.

I myself have appeared in those hallowed pages a number of times, though thankfully never to do with anything violent. There was a rather nice arty shot, I seem to remember, of me aged 10 with my cello and Grade 1 certificate. (Apparently I was the youngest pupil my cello teacher had had that passed a grade exam, hence the photo.) Then there was the time that a school friend and I had a story printed in *gasp* the Mandy comic. About the same time as the cello thing, I think. Obviously 1992 was a busy year for me. Never out of the bloody paper.

Always the same photographer, I seem to remember. His name was Drew. Where are you now, Drew?

A couple of years ago they also had a couple of pages devoted to the smaller villages close-ish to Barrhead/Paisley (like Houston, Inchinnan, Erskine, Kilmacolm etc) that were written by a delegate from each village. There was one particular issue, sometime around 2003, that had the front page headline "SCALPED!", which told the fairly horrific story of some poor sod who had been set upon in a local Barrhead park with a large knife. When I flicked a few pages on, and got to the "Down Your Way" pages, the biggest stories were a dead swan found in Inchinnan, and an eldery lady having lost her door keys in Erskine. I think my parents moved to the wrong town.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and do a count of how many of my old classmates have been in court this week...

**AN UPDATE**

Am thrilled to discover that "rammy" is in the OED.

Glasgow, doctors, and gothic loveliness

Right, I promise this is the last time I change my blog design for a while. I just get restless.

So, returned yesterday from weekend in the Motherland, complete with a bitching cold. Feel basically dreadful today, and my demon tonsils are threatening gruesome infection. Sorry for the detail but am tempted to do a home tonsilectomy (??) with ice and nail scissors at this rate.

Moving on! Had a fabulous weekend, reading-wise. The interminable train journey on Friday offered the perfect opportunity to finish Dr Haggard's Disease, which has scored highly on this year's reading list. Not quite perfect, but certainly high up.

I also re-read the quite spectacular Poor Things by Alasdair Gray, and dragged Boyfriend up to Park Circus for a small spot of literary tourism as much of the action takes place at 18 Park Circus, and in the 'West End Park' (or Kelvingrove as it's now known). This held no particular interest for Boyfriend, though I did point out that it was at least in part pay-back for the amount of times I've gone to Saville Row with him to point at the roof. Since we're going to London for the weekend this week, I dare say I'll be seeing it again. Any suggestions for literary hotspots greatly appreciated.

It was quite a nice order to read those books in. Dr Haggard's Disease is about a doctor driven mad by his love for the wife of a colleague. They have had a short affair that she has ended when her husband found out, and Dr Haggard has fled to the coast with a broken heart and a morphia addiction to start a new life away from memories of their affair. Then her son turns up, after her death, and Dr Haggard is driven to a new obsession. It's a modern gothic story written beautifully, and has left a certain indelible print on my memory. The image of Dr Haggard running across a field in a black fur coat is an image that I keep coming back to. To say more would ruin things. Needless to say, I'm eager to read more by Patrick McGrath (though not yet - my To Be Read (TBR) pile is increasing steadily again...).

The gothic doctor-ness leads nicely into Poor Things, a story set in Victorian Glasgow. It purports to be the re-discovered story of Archie McCandless MD and his friend Godwin Bysshe Baxter. Godwin is an odd chap, but a brilliant doctor, and Archie tells the story of how Godwin has taken the unclaimed corpse of a 25 year old pregnant girl who drowned herself in the Clyde, and brought her back to life with the brain of her nearly-full-term infant. All very gothic and Frankenstein-esque. At the end of the story is a letter from the woman, declaring the tale to be nothing more than fiction, so it's up to the reader to decide which version of events is the true one.

It's fantastic. I loved it every bit as much as I did the last time I read it, a few years ago. (And this time I won't lend my copy to someone and never get it back). 

Friday Random Round-Up

I am tired and not a little hungover, so forgive the bullet points.

• My mum's hangbag was stolen yesterday afternoon, from her house, while she was in the garden. My mum is in her late 60s and quite visibly frail. Who DOES that? I am furious.
• I am half way through Dr Haggard's Disease, and it is so lining itself up as one of my Books Of The Year.
• I am getting the train up to lovely Glasgow in an hour and a half. The up side is that I have several hours of unadulterated reading to look forward to. The down side is 40 minutes sitting at Carlisle station.
• My dad is apparently moving to Oslo now. Which is good, because I've never been, and I'd really like to. Unfortunately it's about £8 for a beer, but hey ho.
• My head hurts. Damn cider. Felt like a good idea at the time.

That is all. See you next week!

Collection of random thoughts

Morning. First off, a disclaimer: I have a headache, I'm tired, I didn't sleep well last night, house guests mean that I am sorely lacking in any space (they invited themselves for a longer time period than I would have invited them for) to move or think, and I need a flipping holiday. Just so you know.

So, nothing of any real consequence, but a mere collection of whimsies. More than usual, I mean.

Nice piece on the Today Programme this morning about bloggers of the political variety and the effect they have in America, as well as a discussion on whether bloggers could have the same impact over here. Conclusion: we are a couple of years behind the US when it comes to blogging, so maybe in the future, but then again, maybe not because we have the BBC News Website, a veritable news monolith that "everyone" looks at. They don't have an equivalent in the States. Man, my grammar was astonishing there. Conjugate THAT!

I've had basically no time to read this week, and it's making me twitchy. I can't be anti-social and go and hide in the loft with Jonathan Franzen though, no matter how much I would love to. When did I get so busy? With house-guests until next weekend, then a weekend in Glasgow after that, I am very, very much looking forward to my bank holiday weekend away with Boyfriend.

Speaking of whom, I have been receiving an education in the advantages and disadvantages of vinyl versus CD/iPod. Boyfriend's Father and Step-Mother have recently retired, sold up, and gone on a year-long tour of Europe in a mobile home so they can decide which country they want to settle in. Which sounds like a pretty nice way of deciding which country to live in if you ask me, but that's besides the point. All of this means that they have quite a lot of belongings that need storing in the meantime, and it has fallen to Boyfriend to take custody of record player, speakers, reel to reel tape deck, and a mountain of records from his youth (and before). Since Boyfriend is moving in with me at some unspecified point over the next few months, it seemed to make most sense to install all of the above in my loft, which is to be "his domain", and which has the space he is lacking in his own place.

Anyway, Boyfriend has been getting misty-eyed over some of the records now residing chez moi, not least an Eric Clapton single, which had a token on the sleeve to cut out and send off for tickets to see the man himself live. There was something sort of poignant about the sleeve with the triangle cut out of it. Also, the Boomtown Rats single that he wrote on the front cover of when he was a teenager. Some of his records are older than me, not to mention the tapes of him playing with his dad's band when he was about 15. A veritable trip down memory lane.

Most of a whole Sunday was recently spent going through all the records, interesting for me because I have had very little exposure to vinyl. I was born in the 80s, by the time I started listening to music it was all cassettes and boom boxes. I am of the MTV generation. My parents, though music fans (blues and jazz a speciality), had no time for vinyl and my dad was one of the first to get a CD player. As soon as he had hurriedly got everything he wanted on CD, he got shot of the vinyl and the record player. The only vinyl record I remember with any clarity was an LP of Disney songs, bought to entertain me as a toddler. The rest of my childhood was waking up on a Sunday morning in my dad's flat in the West End of Glasgow, his blues albums playing on CD at alarming volume, my dad's singing along enthusiastically, if not tunefully.  Mum, on the other hand, was the jazz fan, and she had a suitcase of cassettes behind the sofa that was pulled out every evening to be pored over on the living room floor, till she decided what she wanted to listen to. She only got a CD player a handful of years ago, when the cassette player finally gave up the ghost.

I digress, sorry, I blame the headache. So, my vinyl education. Things I have learned:

• Yes lyrics. Oh dear sweet mother of god. See also: Emerson Lake and Palmer.
• Vinyl sounds a bit rubbish compared to CD. Witness Boyfriend alternately playing Abbey Road on vinyl and on CD to prove this.
• I now know how to choose to play different tracks on a record. I did not know before the other weekend. Boyfriend thought it was cute that I had to ask. Though I did have to set up his iPod for him.
• My cats are fascinated with the record player, and Zadie kept putting her front paws on the turn table, only to wonder why they seemed to be moving of their own accord.

So, I am learning. Every day is a school day, as my father says. Though, I have to say, I think I'll stick to my iPod. The sound quality is better than any of the above, and at any given time I have nearly 2000 songs in my pocket.

I have recently been having a CD clear-out. I realised that my piles and piles of CDs largely consistedly of really godawful mid-90s heavy metal, which I loved at 14, but which now mainly makes me crack up laughing. God bless Amazon marketplace, for I have sold over 40 CDs in the last week. The rest of the CDs that I am keeping are going up to the loft, which I means downstairs I have more shelf space for books. I may know close to bugger-all about vinyl, but I do know my books, and I fear the shelf space will be filled imminently...

Sorry for this massive ramble today. It was all written in a stream of consciousness, except with slightly more full stops. I need a holiday, for a week or something, where I don't have to run around seeing people and doing housey things. I just want to go somewhere quiet with a pile of books, no mobile phone, and a duvet. Is that really so much to ask?

Alasdair Gray

I feel an Alasdair Gray re-read-a-thon coming on.

I recently got embroiled in a discussion somewhere in the literary blogosphere about the pros and cons of the metaphorical passages in Lanark, which has just been re-issued by Canongate for its 25th Anniversary. It's worth it for the cover alone, but anyway. I now have a hankering to go back and read not only Lanark, but everything else too, not least Poor Things, which remains my favourite piece of Gray's writing.

I came to Gray in June 1999, in between high school and starting at Glasgow University. Being a hateful, swotty, study-geek as I was then (actually, I still am, who am I kidding?) I enrolled in the summer school offered by the university, which gave us young uns a chance to taste university life for 9 weeks before starting properly (and also to build up a small body of work to fall back on as a way into the uni should we not get the exam marks we needed). We could do three subjects of our choice - I did English Lit, Philosophy, and Film and TV Studies. This was ultimately a good thing because it (a) proved to myself that Film and TV was boring as all hell, and to this day I have no idea why that course is so over-subscribed and (b) I really liked Philosophy... so much so that when it came to starting uni proper I changed from doing English and French - which I had originally applied to do - to doing English and Philosophy. I dropped Philosophy in time for Honours, but that's another story.

Anyway, in our summer school English Lit class, we were given a handout of the first two chapters of Poor Things for an exercise. I was immediately intrigued by the chapters I read in the class and on the way home after the class I stopped into John Smith's bookshop on Byres Road (RIP) and bought a copy of the book. And I stayed up till 4am reading the damn thing. I was spell-bound, and promptly bought Lanark, and have bought and read more since (though not everything...yet).

Imagine my glee, then, when my dad was buying a flat in the West End of Glasgow and I accompanied him while he was viewing. The flat he ultimately bought had been owned by a well-known Scottish writer who was a friend of Gray's... there were original drawings and paintings by him all over the flat. I was completely star-struck. Completely. It was amazing.

So, I think there will be some Gray being read very soon. This could be the solution to my problem of what to read after Bleak House - I'm almost finished it and fear I will be bereft once I close the book. Also to be read soon is In Search of Adam by Caroline Smailes, and published by the nice people at The Friday Project. I had been watching the buzz about this book build across the book blogs and was ever-more intrigued. So when Scott Pack offered signed, hardback, first edition copies for sale via his blog, I was powerless to resist. It arrived last week and I'm looking forward to it.

(An addendum: Alasdair Gray has his own blog here.)

Everyone Loves a Cult Hero

I am particularly loving this story from The Guardian this morning. Anyone who watched any of the news footage on Saturday/Sunday about the burning car being driven into Glasgow Airport, will have seen this guy about twenty times. It seems he's been turned into quite the cult hero... fantastic.

"Rumours that the airport is to be renamed Smeaton International Airport appeared to be unfounded at the time of going to press."

Genius.

Earplugs

Where does one buy earplugs?

For I feel it is time to confess a dark secret, one I have been harbouring for years but haven’t felt the courage to confess to anyone but my very closest friends. A secret that makes me feel like an abject failure as a book geek. Yes, that’s right…

I can’t BEAR IT when there’s noise when I’m reading.

Now, you’re forgiven for reading the above and thinking that this problem is but a mere trifle, and hardly something to waste time thinking about. But unless a book has so gripped me that I have to remind myself to breathe, eat, or sleep, I find it really hard to block out background noise. TV and radio must be switched off. Phones are ignored. Conversation is discouraged. I just need that first half an hour to get myself back into the world of the book at hand, before noise can start to filter in without disturbing me.

The reason I bring this up is that I have two train journeys on two consecutive days this weekend. It’s my mum’s birthday, and I am taking a small jaunt up to Glasgow to take her out for dinner, and generally spoil her a little bit. Up on the Saturday, down on the Sunday, six hours-ish each way: perfect reading time, especially with my MA reading list burning a hole in my bedside table. But as I hinted at yesterday, the Lytton Strachey book, Eminent Victorians, is one of those books that needs that little bit extra concentration, and I really want to put it to bed this weekend. But, the weekend is the prime time for a multitude of very noisy children to be abroad upon the rail network, and I fear that my hatred of noise when I’m concentrating will scupper me. So, ear plugs are my only hope. I don’t care if I look like an idiot. I just want to read my book in peace. Is that so much to ask?

PS, have already tried using my iPod headphones as makeshift earplugs. Doesn’t work. I need something of industrial strength here.

The unread pile increases... again

As much as I love Glasgow, it's nice to be back in Oxford. Other Home, I suppose you'd call it. :)

My brief time in the Motherland was wonderful, though hectic. Seeing family, seeing friends, and especially seeing one of my oldest and dearest friends, who is emigrating to New Zealand next month. I still can't believe she's going, but I'm very, very excited for her. Will miss her though. Ah well, I'll just have to go over and see her... what a pity... ;)

And I got to indulge in one of my favourite things in the world: second-hand book shopping. I have always found it perplexing that Oxford doesn't have better second-hand book shops, what with the university and all. There are a couple Oxfam bookshops, and a Mind shop, but they don't have much character to them. Glasgow has some lovely second-hand bookshops, and I make it a point to do a sweep of them whenever I'm in town. The order in which I go through them remains unchanged since I was at school and used to come through to the West End to see my dad each week: start of with Caledonia Books on Great Western Road, before heading round to Otago Books (now called Thistle Books, but will always be Otage Books in my head), then finishing the trinity with Voltaire and Rousseau. An odd calm always befalls me in those shops, being surrounded by all the books, and all the possibilities and all the words somehow relaxes me. That sounds hideously pretentious, but it's true. It's the smell of the paper and the curious old editions. It's wondering the history of each book, and wondering where they came from.

So, of course, my promise to myself earlier this year that I wasn't going to buy anymore books went flying out of the window at some considerable speed, as it has on several occasions already. What can I say? Hello, my name is Kirsty, I'm a bookaholic.

And I picked up some bargains, let me tell you. My first purchase of the day was a copy of Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, which for some reason I've never had or read. But I'm delighting in re-reading Jane Eyre, and will be hankering after more of her gorgeous prose before long,  I am certain. Then I picked up a hardback edition of Margaret Atwood's Curious Pursuits, a collection of odd bits and pieces of writing - journalism, reviews, odds and ends. I have very nearly everything by Atwood, and am getting ever-closer to completing my collection. Next on the list was another Joyce Carol Oates book, Expensive People. I am really loving JCO at the moment, and this had the added bonus of being a modern gothic-y thing, which always appeals to me. I also found the first Jeeves Omnibus by PG Wodehouse. I've never read any of the stories, but have fancied them for a while. Into more serious realms, I bought the first volume of Ian Kershaw's acclaimed biography of Hitler. It's a while since I read any history, and this biog had such rave reviews that it seemed liked a good place to start. And lastly, my favourite purchase of the day: a mint first edition hardback of Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. It's a beauty, an absolute delight.

So, the unread stack reaches ever-dizzying heights. As well as my wanton self-indulgence in the second-hand shops, I have also just received my preliminary reading list from Birkbeck, so I've that to make a dent in too. As luck would have it, Jane Eyre is on the list. I know I'm taking a while over it, but it's a combination of having been ridiculously busy recently so I've been falling asleep much earlier than usual, and also that I want to savour it. I'm in no rush to finish it. All in good time.

The illustrations are still irritating me though.

Glasgow, and why I love it

Glasgow is my home city, except I never called it that before I didn't live there anymore. I never thought of it as home until I'd left.

Allow me to explain. My mum is English and my dad is Scottish, though he had lived in England from the age of 6. They only moved to Scotland out of a sheer fluke that my dad's job was relocated there a couple of years before I was born, it was no great return home for my dad or anything. So, all my half brothers and sisters were still in England, all my aunts and uncles and cousins, my granny, all in England. Basically, I never saw my family except at the odd Christmas, the occasional holiday trip south. This was fine, I'm not complaining, I'm just setting the scene.

I hated school. I was bullied because for whatever reason I ended up with an English accent (from my parents I suppose) instead of a Scottish one, and because England meant holidays and no school, I guess I idealised it in my child-head. It became the place that I was going to escape to when I grew up. I was going to go to university there, get a job there, make my life there.

It didn't really happen like that. I ended up at Glasgow University, which I adored. I did my postgrad in Stirling. I moved to the West End of Glasgow when I was 17 and stayed there until I was 23. It's a wonderful part of the city, really vibrant. But even though I had got over the childish way of thinking of escape, I still wanted to move to England, for no other real reason than I had just always wanted to. Anyway, there are basically no jobs in my chosen field up there.

So, in 2005, I moved to Oxford. The biggest shock was that I actually desperately missed Glasgow - I didn't think I would and it took me by complete surprise. It's only when you're at a distance from a place that you fully appreciate it, I think. I think that now, at any rate.

Glasgow is a fantastic city, much maligned. We have fantastic writers such as Alasdair Gray and Louise Welsh. We have incredible art galleries such as the newly refurbished Kelvingrove and the Gallery of Modern Art (if you ignore the mini-goths lurking outside it). There are great pubs and shops and some really beautiful parks. And it's where I'm from. As much as I never wanted to admit it for all the years I lived there, it's my home.

I'm writing this post in advance, because tomorrow I'm disappearing to the Motherland for almost a week. I can't wait, I really can't. I know it sounds stupid, but I always shed a small tear whenever I drive past the sign saying "Welcome to Scotland".