Proof that a bookshop can duck trends

I would much rather shop at a bookshop with this top-seller list. Sadly, I am a bit further away than I would like to be from this particular haven of book joy. Damn.

Book meme response

I haven't thought about this too much really, not least because I was out last night (see another post):

1. One book that changed my life - The Open University degree prospectus (because it led me to go to Summer School 16 years ago [ scroll to question 5])

2. One book that I have read more than once - Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves (though I could equally say The Sandman...)

3. One book I would want on a deserted island - I'd probably go for a book of Buffy Scripts just because it would also provide me with visual entertainment as well as I watch the programmes in my mind's eye. But certainly some kind of script book.

4. One book that made me laugh - blimey, this question was much harder than I expected. Clearly I am a miserable reader who likes to cry, be driven to tension, and horrified/mystified because there is a real dearth of funny books in my collection! There are some usual suspects that have made me laugh - Al Franken being one - but a lot of things that have made me laugh have had a strain of black humour in them. I certainly laughed when reading The Dying of Delight by the lovely Clare, but I also cried to that as well. And I'm taking it that unintentional laughter doesn't count, right? Otherwise it would probably go to The Da Vinci Code...

5. One book that made me cry - still gotta go with His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

6. One book I wish I'd written - the definitive study on Peggy Guggenheim (though some may say I might yet do that...)

7. One book I wish had never been written - plenty I wish had never been read, but written? Certainly there has been as much that has been misinterpreted and mis-used as has been written out of hatred. I would think the most unforgivable book would have to be vile, nasty, and virulently anti-semitic 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.

8. One book I am currently reading - Pop Fiction (yes, I am revising the Chick Flicks essay)

9. One book I have been meaning to read - Julian Barnes "Arthur and George" (still haven't got around to it; though it does prompt me to ask for my videotape back from HLW...)

Any takers for this meme?

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Went to see the above film by and starring Tommy Lee Jones last night. To be honest, the film was merely an excuse to meet up with a former PhD student from Nottingham, but it turned out to be a masterstroke of scheduling as we would probably not have seen the film otherwise. You see, we originally planned to meet up some time ago but everything kinda got in the way and it got shunted to August. And since we wanted to see a film at 6 and eat afterwards, that pretty much dictated which film we saw.

But what a fab little film: you can well see the hand of Guillermo Arriaga. It was darkly funny, moving and intelligent. It had a good level of political awareness and the characters were well-drawn and acted. And it had the divine Melissa Leo as well. What more could you ask for?

That we had an unexpectedly good film on our hands, AND had a really nice meal afterwards - outside! in Nottingham! - just made it a wonderful evening. And that saying about small world is so true: both my PhD friend and her husband were at Wolves Poly as art students and hence both knew my former tutor, colleague and now friend with whom I met up in Birmingham just the other week. Small world indeed...

Opening Line: 4 August 2006

"Those fingers in my hair"


Song title for this lyric please, and possible artiste?

UPDATE: indeedy Chrissie..., you know me too well and even why this was on my mind!

Funny eh?

I was just looking back at a previous book-related meme I responded to in April 2005, where I muttered I was due for another re-read of the Sandman books.

Guess what I was just finishing reading when I went to London recently?

Yep, I was on "The Wake" - the final of the Sandman books as I was just finishing the series again.

Pricelessly entertaining: Doctor Who in the 60s, 70s and 80s

Having just been watching "The Unearthly Child", I was probably in just the right mood for this, thanks Paul.

Lots of nostalgia (not least for the music) but also some very witty captioning: I liked the bit about Vicki's planet...

Guess where I will be in October...

Possibly in London.

Possibly visited the Donmar Theatre.

Possibly being deeply swoony.

Ah, someone must know my birthday is in October...

I believe I MAY book a ticket or two for The Cryptogram...

POSTSCRIPT: Of course, you can also tell from this post I was a little excitable about this prospect. "Possibly visited..." Hmmm, seems he causes me to lose the ability to type in the English language...

The down side...

Bugger.

One can only hope that this guy's optimism proves my England-based team capable of sparking such enthusiasm (even if it would be better if they don't get so carried away...)

Book meme

Joe has a great book meme from Deana.

I'll think about this a bit...

Opening Line: 3 August 2006

"A million old soldiers will fade away"


Any takers for this song and artiste?

PS another nice bit of news I caught this weekend...

3 points. Nice start...

Timing

Whilst we were away, we took to having BBC1 news on pre-breakfast. Cue action:

BBC TV: "... and tomorrow we'll be talking to Billie Piper..."

Lisa, previously busy packing to go out for the day, immediately drops her task and turns to TV screen in time to catch gratuitous clip of Doctor Who...

And cue hysterical laughter from Cloud for my sudden and instinctive actions.


Next day, we're watching News24. Then suddenly Cloud changes channel to BBC1. He SAYS it was just coincidence, but I think higher powers were in charge of the moment: he turned over just as they were about to introduce the Billie Piper interview segment which included not only a set report for "The Ruby in the Smoke" but also yet more gratuitous Doctor Who clips (including the throat-clenching, tear-stirring moment when David Tennant says "quite right too" with that lump in his throat cracking his voice).

Lovely. Except that I've now been back again to rewatch that beach sequence and I'm all teary again. Shucks, the DVD set is gonna get a lot of hammering come Xmas...

Opening Line: 2 August 2006

Come along now... you can ALL sing along to this (and probably mime as well)

"Clean shirt, new shoes"


Name that song and artiste...

UPDATE: Stu-N got this. Maybe the timing of the day was wrong for Joe to get it!

Tiddly-om-Prom-Prom

Fantastic! We had this piece, followed by Tasmin Little playing this piece, followed by this. For those reading this in early August 2006, you should be able to either hear a repeat or listen again. Highly advised!

For us, this was our first visit to the Royal Albert Hall for anything, never mind a Prom. For Neil, it was his first visit to a classical concert, something I hadn't realised at all (unless there is something we've forgotten, though he did see the Welsh National Opera doing Electra some years ago at Birmingham Hippodrome, courtesy of me being Arts Reviewer for the Student Union paper at Wolves Poly).

Anyway, it was very exciting and even though we were way up high, we had a terrific view and the sound was great. We only had ONE person's mobile go off (after the interval), but I hope they felt suitably horrified. It was a great night and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I have to say that once I had Time Out magazine in my hand, my first thought was 'what Proms are on whilst we are here? And is there anything Russian?' (since I know Neil is very fond of Russian composors). And lo, the Prom for Monday was All-Russian!

Really, they must have known we were coming!

Weekend Review

It's been a big weekend with much travelling and much activity. The upshot of which is that I am determined that despite all the hundreds of things I have to do / am obliged to do over the summer, I really want to get back to London again.

Anyway, Friday kicked off with being lovely and hot and Cloudy Neil drove us over to Walsall. Of course, in the heat, I realised part way through the journey there was a danger of smelling cooked flesh (me, burning in the blazing sun through the car window!) so I had to lather on the suncream quick: but otherwise it was a relatively good and quick journey considering it was Friday. Our ultimate destination was, actually, a piss-up in a brewery: Highgate Brewery in fact, which was great and we had a tour. We were there for a grand occasion of a birthday party and the beers were followed by a curry. There were about 30 there: it was your average kinda do - a couple of MPs, high ranking university professors who work as industrial advisors, political activists... you know the kind of thing...!!!

Anyway, it was utterly fab, the drink flowed all night, the speech by the birthday boy Nick was brilliant (recalling the 'Teddy Bears Pick Nick') and we all staggered back to the hotel at 1am(ish).

Saturday morning and it was time to head back to Nottingham to pick up an afternoon train to the smoke for another occasion: this time to see off a couple of friends who are off to Australia. Yes, yes, we DO think it's something we said since just about everyone we know is migrating to the opposite end of the planet and you just can't get much further away whilst still on earth in habitable lands.

We were ready in loads of time and had a lovely trainride down to London and St Pancras Station. Wow, it is looking good these days... I wish I had took some pictures of it! (Maybe next time!)

We wandered past Mornington Crescent up to Camden and the Sandman pub (well, that's how I think of it...)

A jolly good time, with yet more extensive alcohol, was had by all there. Funnily, having had two of the teddy bears (plus Nick) at the Friday night do, we also had two teddy bears (minus Nick) on Saturday... well, Neil was the central bear and another of the three bears was there on each occasion. Shame we couldn't have had a reunion. There are though it seems no surviving images of the three with or without Nick. I'm not sure whether that is good or bad. I only know I could not make it up that this would be part of my Neil's back history. Or that for years afterwards one of the canteen staff from Wolves Poly would always say when she saw Neil 'you were one of them bears weren't you?!'

After falling back to the hotel in London, we started Sunday with pursuit of breakfast. We passed this (thank you Dave Gorman! I didn't have the nerve to photograph it!) and ended up having a very nice breakie amidst preparations for the Soho Pride day. Fabulous! Balloons over heads in Balans. Wonderful! Okay, so we were there because our favourite haunt Brunos is closed on Sundays, but it was still nice to find a nice place for Sunday brunch. After that we started the long walk. We took in a stroll here, and a walk through here, before ending up here. We then wandered over to here where I booked us tickets to one of these.

We then went here and here before realising we had walked a ridiculous distance and we needed to get a tube back. We then decided to go to Covent Garden to eat, in pursuit of a nice restaurant we had visited last year. Hmm.... our sense of direction sent us in completely the wrong direction for quite some time, but eventually we found Cafe Pasta on Monmouth Street. Lovely food, and a nice atmosphere. We strolled to the South Bank to admire the Eye at night and then walked back up Whitehall and back to the hotel.

We took in some culture on day three (after all the alcohol!) and went to see the magnificent exhibition on at the National Gallery - Rebels and Martyrs. Very good, if male-centric, but very well selected and hung with some real obscure gems alongside the more familiar works. A treat: go and see it! We then dropped by the NPG and I had to go and see the Beatles on the Balcony exhibition. Cracking little show, even if I knew most of the images from my years of Beatles' obsessiveness.

After bookshop wandering, we headed for an (as-ever) delicious meal at Pizza Paradiso in Store Street. Lovely risotto and a panna cotta to end all panna cotta. We then took the tube up to South Kensington and went to have some more culture (see separate review). Brilliant stuff. A real thrill! Then we trooped back by tube to central London and wandered the South Bank - sadly nothing on with the 'Watch this space' activities. Almost wish we could be there next weekend for this but we're scheduled to be at the cricket in Derby.

By today we'd realised we had walked miles. But even so, it was back to Bar Brunos for another slap-up breakfast in one of the few places you can guarantee to hear a Cockney accent nowadays in central London. Then we did a bit more of the NPG (including the always-interesting BP Portrait Award Show), some slow wandering, and a mooch back to the hotel to collect our bags. And it was all over... back to Nottingham...

And yes, I did wear stripes... (if Blogger would let me post the picture I would... it will come!)