Other Stories

Tourists, books, and Victoria Wood

It's Monday morning and for once I feel fairly buoyant.  The weekend was a complete success, other than the cold, which I have been tactfully ignoring. I have one gripe though: tourists.

Now, I know that Oxford is a beautiful and historic city, and that this means that lots of people want to come and look at it. But do they really have to move in packs? Packs that suddenly stop in front of you, taking up the entirety of any walking space there might previously have been and look up the way with mouths agape? On Saturday I was trying to walk up Broad Street to meet Academic Friend for lunch and it took me forever to cover a relatively small stretch of ground thanks to tourists meandering and stopping and generally really pissing me off. Added to this was the fact that there was an animal testing protest slap bang in the middle of the road, so there were quite a few people ambling about with awkward placards, plus triple their number in police officers (complete with cameras) and bloody riot vans everywhere.

By the time I got to the Bod I was fuming and muttering under my breath. There I met Academic Friend who was likewise suffering the curse of the tourist. Apparently you can get a guided tour round the Bod, including the reading rooms. Lovely for the tourist. Not so lovely for the people who are (to use Academic Friend as an example) sitting trying to work on their, you know, doctoral thesis that's due in a very small number of months. Tourist parties were at such a level that Friend was giving up and going home to study, for it was quieter than the library in which she had been generally peered at by sight-seers. Unsurprisingly, the first portion of our lunch was generally spent ranting about tourists.

In other weekend news, I read two books (The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham and The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas), made a further dent in Sweeney Todd, which had been sitting idle for a couple of weeks, and had glorious night of Chinese food, beer, and much dancing with my beautiful friends. I have also been devouring the DVD of the TV series Victoria's Empire, where Victoria Wood goes around the countries that used to make up the British Empire. It really is a treat, and I'll be talking more about it in days to come.

Bernard's Letter

It's YouTube week over here at Other Stories, mainly because the chance of me finishing Darkmans and writing about it by Friday are slim to none. So, sit back, and amuse thyneself with this rather excellent clip from the quite magnificent Black Books.

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.

Newsreader Takes Stand over La Hilton

This is a rather fantastic piece of footage, that I first saw over at The Osterley Times. American news readers Mika Brzezinski objected to the fact that her producer wanted to lead with the story that professional waste of space Paris Hilton had been released from prison. So she took matters into her own hands:

I got particularly irritated with the guy to her left, who mocked her. I wanted to give him a bit of a slap.

Quote of the Day

"I loathe it when I hear a young girl, or very often a middle aged woman, say 'I'm not a feminist, but I do want to earn as much money as the man next to me'. Well, you know, that's what feminists fought for darling. Say thank you."

~ Sheila Hancock on Grumpy Old Women

Hell's teeth...

First off, I saw this on Dolly Mix this morning:

http://www.dollymix.tv/2007/06/walmart_thinks_a_someday_a_wom.html

Grrrr... OFFENSIVE? Offensive how? These people sold (still sell? I don't know) ammunition for guns yet they won't sell a tshirt with a slogan about a female President... It fair got my dander up.

Also, I saw about 10 mins of the repeat of last night's Big Brother while eating breakfast this morning, and witnessed one housemate (the one whose ambition is to marry a footballer so she doesn't have to do anything with her life other than shop) declaring that she HAD to have some toast, because her period was going to start in two days. Err... what did I miss? Toast? Really? Why toast specifically two days beforehand? I was confused. If anyone can enlighten me then please do... I just thought it was a bit random.

I eat toast all the time. I love toast. It's one of my favourite things in the whole world.

In Praise of On Demand

My digital TV service has this gizmo that lets you watch certain programmes whenever you like. For instance, it has the entirety of the very first, 1988 (I think), series of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which is one of those programmes I wish they'd bring back. It also has this service whereby certain channels put some of their recently broadcast programmes up so you can watch them whenever you like, for free, for a week after they were originally shown.

This is _genius_. Not only can I indulge my unashamed Celebrity MasterChef habit ("lovely plate of food"), but it also means that I got to watch The Story of the Novel, which Channel 4 have been repeating in the afternoon recently. It's a 3-part documentary charting the rise of the novel, and on Tuesday they showed the second part: Victorian Literature. It was fantastic, had loads of respected and interesting commentators (John Carey, Hermione Lee, Sarah Waters), and some nicely read excerpts from the books.

I would heartily recommend it, along with the other two in the series. If you have On Demand, then you can catch them any time before Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, depending on which episode you fancy having a gander at.

Random, Orange Prize, Random, Links

I am slightly on the frantic side today so forgive the scant posting.

First off, congratulations to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who won the Orange Prize (or Orange Broadband thing whatever it's called now) last night for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun. I haven't actually read the book, so I haven't really much to say on the subject, but I've read wonderful things about the novel. Hurrah for her.

In utter contrast to last year's shortlist, when I had read all but one of the novels, this year I haven't read a single one. I do own two of them, but only by accident (I'm a member of one of those mail order book clubs, except I keep forgetting that I am and don't send back the thing saying I don't want the editor's choice, and then they arrive, I have to pay for them, and I've ended up with some random books). They are: Booker Prize 2006 winner The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, and A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. I have to admit I haven't really got much intention of reading either of them, so they are by default on their merry way to the charity shop box currently languishing in the spare room, waiting for me to remember to put it in the car next time I'm going out.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but if you want a more informed chat about this year's prize, I recommend you read the lovely Sarah Crown's post on it over at the Guardian Books Blog.

And while you're over there, have a peep at this week's live blog on The Apprentice. It's another of my TV weaknesses, and the Guardian blog is wonderful.

Gosh I'm in linking mood now. If you have an idle minute, please say hello to the following:

The BronteBlog (who linked to me recently, which was lovely of them)
Scott Pack (who also linked to me recently, and even said I was worth bookmarking, so he's lovely too)
little.red.boat (by the person who usually writes the Apprentice blog)
gettingitoffmychest (who I found through dovegrey reader's site; it's a very moving blog about one lady's fight with breast cancer)
Seen Reading (which I mentioned earlier)
Digested Reads (another Guardian thing - I promise I'm not on commission - puncturing the pride of authors everywhere)
The Times Big Brother Blog (their tag line about watching it so you don't have to is particularly handy, because I haven't been - blog's still worth reading though)

I think that'll do you for now. Enjoy!

Relief

Apologies for a few days of quietness. You will all be relieved to hear that the essay was completed and sent in in good time - I'm sure you've all been ringing your hands in desperation since Friday. And the fairy cakes were very tasty, though I never got round to icing them.

I had an exceptionally lazy weekend with Boyfriend, who was forced to watch the entirety of the Eurovision Song Contest with me on Saturday night. Wogan just gets better as the quality of the songs deteriorates each year. Scooch were just horrendous, as I'm sure you all know, and frankly it was a travesty that we got any points at all. I hadn't heard the song all the way through before, and was aghast at it - the innuendo! "Would you like something to suck on landing, sir?"

Err, no, actually. *Shudder*

The sooner I wipe that one from the old memory banks the better, frankly. On Sunday night, we went to the new open mic night that my local pub - the best pub in the world, incidentally - has just started. Numbers were low, but hopefully it'll pick up in the coming weeks. Boyfriend played a few songs, and was generally fabulous, and one kind gent told him that his version of 'Blackbird' was the best one he'd ever heard apart from The Beatles. I was all proud. :D I have promised to sing next week, God help us all.

Apart from that, I have largely just been very nervous about the MA interview, which is the real reason for my silence. Finally, it happened yesterday afternoon. My train from Oxford was delayed so was nervous wreck and had to get a cab from the station because I wouldn't have made it on time if I'd taken the Tube... burst through the door with approximately 3 minutes to go only to find out they were running late anyway, so I needn't have panicked. And the interview was great, actually. I made to say some sensible things, and I seemed to make sense, because they're letting me onto the course. :D I am *ecstatic*.

So, all the worrying and preparation has left me very little reading time over the last few days, though I have been ploughing into the new Penguin illustrated version of Jane Eyre, largely because it was relevant to my uni application so I felt like I could get away with it.

Jane Eyre is one of my favourite books anyway. I know it's been read to death, and it's probably a really obvious favourite to have, but I have loved it since I was little. I first read an abridged version when I was maybe 8 or 9, then read the full version in my early teens. It cropped again when I did my first degree, and I've read it again since. And now. Every time I go back to it I find more to love.

The illustrated edition, though, was a pure indulgence. The goth-y, Tim Burton-esque drawings appeal to my repressed teenage gothdom, but unless that applies to you I really wouldn't bother. Even I have ben irritated by some of the illustrations just being a bit, well, wrong. For instance, on the cover you see Jane (presumably) outside a burning house - I assume Thornfield. But Jane wasn't there when the house burned down, she just came back to find an empty shell! You see what I mean. Small irritations. And the photo of the illustrator on the back is just a bit pretentious.