Shocking news...

I'm alive.

The blog hasn't been updated because I was busy, and didn't really have anything interesting to say.

I still don't have anything particularly interesting to say, but due to personal circumstances, am back having a bit more time.

Long, rambling, rather pointless musings to follow.

Book Review - Engleby

Engleby - Sebastian Faulks

A substantial departure, Engleby is the first of Faulks' books that one imagines has some tinge of autobiography about it, the protagonist being of the same age and education as himself.

An engaging, but not attractive persona, Engleby is a pedantic and supercilious commentator of all that goes on around him, yet singularly unaware of his effect on others. The majority of the novel is an interesting meander, but it is not until the final third, in which Engleby's part in the preceding events is revealed, and his subsequent mental breakdown, that there is any emotional impetus. Touching on many different themes including class, education and politics, it is when the novel is looking at psychosis that the story really has something to say, as Engleby thinks about his own awareness and self-medication of mental illness.

As ever, Faulks has a beautiful style of writing. Sparing, yet lush in the atmosphere it creates, the phrasing is simple but draws the reader on, further into Engleby's experiences and mental processes.
Faulks' biggest success is in making one feel for a character that is massively unprepossessing. A distinct change from his previous novels, Faulks would do well to maintain this level of quality.

Easter Treats

A couple of youtube choices for your Thursday night viewing pleasure.

The Simon's Cat animations are small pieces of joy, with beautiful comic timing

http://www.youtube.com/user/simonscat

and this song is really really wonderful. It's almost a shame it hasn't been released a couple of months later, as it is the perfect summer song, and I'm worried I'll be sick of it my then. Ho hum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz-FoGp3p0s

And a picture of cute chicks chucked in as well.

Happy Easter!

Normal Service Will Resume

How has the blogosphere survived without me?


A mixture of no internet at home, lack of inspiration and sheer laziness has meant I've not posted for over a month.

I'll try and start again, it was a good habit to get into.

What Do You Mean I Don't Know Anything?

As this seems to be the day for all media commentators to be predicting who’s going to win the Oscars, here’s my judgements, as someone who has seen one of the films nominated for the big prizes (Juno). But I read enough reviews and interviews and other people’s opinions that I reckon I’m more than qualified to judge.

Best Picture

Will Win: No Country For Old Men
Why: Quick, the Coen brothers have started making good/serious films again, let’s encourage them by giving them the big Oscar. Besides, it’s making important points about masculinity and violence, but it’s still cool and full of fights.

Should Win: The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
Why: It’s real life! It’s sad! It’s based on a true story! It’s amazing he did it! It’s real life! It was hard for the actor! It’s based on a true story! Etc etc.

Best Director

Will Win: Coen Brothers
Why: See above

Should Win: Sarah Polley
Why: A woman has fooled the money men in to letting her direct a film. It’s not going to happen again for ten years, so we should give it to a woman while there’s one in contention.

Best Actor

Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Why: No-one’s seen There Will Be Blood, but we’ve seen the posters with Day-Lewis looking scary and anyway, he’s a method actor, he really suffers for it you know. And he shouts. Loads. Which anyone knows is a sign of a great performance.

Should Win: Dunno…has anyone else even been nominated? Johnny Depp
Why: He’s pretty innit.

Best Actress

Will Win: Julie Christie
Why: Oh my god! Look! There’s an old woman in a film! Am I dreaming? She’s still there! You mean it isn’t just a two-minute role? She’s still kinda attractive…for an old woman. Let’s give her a prize.

Should Win: Ellen Page
Why: She was in the only film I’ve seen of the nominations. And she was good. It would be nice for one of the performance prizes to go to a less serious piece.

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Javier Bardem
Why: We haven’t really heard of him properly before, he has funny hair (see Nicole Kidman and the funny nose) and giving it to Philip Seymour Hoffman is a bit like prize day at school, and the prize going to the same swot Every. Single. Year. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Should Win: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Why: He’s bloody brilliant in everything he does.

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Tilda Swinton
Why: She’s a bit scary looking, and has an aura of ‘artiness’, despite paying the bills by appearing in children’s films.

Should Win: Absolutely no-one
Why: As a protest about the ridiculously few good roles for women this year. Just because we’re going back to a 70’s aesthetic in film-making, doesn’t mean we have to return to the misogyny.

Publisher steps blinking into the light

As someone who spends a considerable amount of the day on the Project Gutenberg site, I’m quite excited that HarperCollins (US) is launching a test “Full Access” Program whereby whole books by leading authors can be viewed free for a month online (but not downloadable).

The idea is that just as readers in a bookshop will reader some of a book before buying it, online shoppers will be able to read as much of the book as they want, before following a link to buy it (the online copy will have the print option disabled).

There are some big literary names included (Paul Coelho pictured, and Neil Gaiman) and follows on from a HarperCollins initiative called The “Sneak Peek” program, which, you’ve guessed it, allows a ‘sneak peek’ at excerpts from some books two weeks before publication.
Of course, the company freely admit that they don’t expect many people to read the full book online, and will be monitoring how this program affects the sales of these books, but it is nice to see a publisher who is actively engaging with the internet, instead of seeing it as a behemoth come to bring the destruction of the publishing industry.

It contrasts with a new Random House project being tested, which will see small sections of books offered for a fee. As far as I can see, this approach is doomed to failure. The struggle and failure of newspaper websites that charged for content shows that there is an unwillingness to pay for online content, when we would be happy to pay for the same content in print.

Ultimately, the book publishing industry is going to have to evolve (just as it always has), to deal with changes in society. Despite the image of the stuffy traditional industry, publishers are now huge multinational companies, well able to make a contribution to changing media. Let us hope that there are more initiatives like this, as otherwise the doom and gloom will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When I Were A Lad...

Gawd bless Wikipedia. Without it, when reading an article such as this, I would get to a reference such as ‘Savonarola’, realised I had no idea what it meant, assume the piece was too high-brow for me, and move on. Now, I can find out within two minutes that Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican priest, known for religious reform.In moving on from that article I would have missed out on an interesting opinion piece. In it Simon Jenkins (former Editor of The Times), argues that the current pining for the ‘Golden Age’ of journalism is harking back to a period that never was, and that the corporate ownership of newspapers that we currently have is not the awful thing some have claimed it to be.

He contends that in fact, investigative journalism is in far healthier spirits than before and is “probably better and certainly bolder” than we have ever experienced, providing examples such as The Sunday Times exposés of cash for honours, and The Guardian’s research into Saudi arms deals, as well as less one-sided coverage of war. Moreover, when you look at the newspaper industry compared to internationally, it has a great more diversity that elsewhere.

What, however, the piece skates over is the dichotomy of standards we now have, where the broadsheets are doing all he claims they are, but the tabloids are descending further and further into celebrity tattle and muck. He does accept that newspapers are “often sloppy, inaccurate and short on dignity”, but makes no comment on the intrusiveness of the gutter press, and they way in which they have now become a major part of, and often the creator of, the stories they are covering. Tabloids in the past have had a crusading role in supporting the working classes who made up their readership, yet now look down, belittle and condemn these same people. Perhaps because they aren’t buying papers anymore.

I would agree that newspapers provide a great regulatory role on our government and other organisations, but just as he argues the lack of a golden age in the 1950s and 60s, so I would disagree massively with a Golden Age attributed to a period in which a footballer cheating on his wife is front page news for a week.

Music Wot I Like

Emmy the Great is a singer-songwriter in the vain of what some like to call 'anti folk'. Which for us normal people means a bit like Regina Spektor and The Moldy Peaches. Could there be a more perfect combination?

An angelic voice, an interesting style of phrasing and the odd crudity (not to mention a dash of tweeness) make for some amazing songs, and there's an honest emotional punch to many of her best songs that hangs around with you all day. In particular Easter Parade, Gabriel and M.I.A really work for me.

I predict that after having been on the breakthrough predictions list for the last couple of years, this is the year it will finally happen. She provides backing vocals for the fantastic Lightspeed Champion album, and is about to tour with Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly.

Essentially, she's amazing and I love her.

Henry Conway

I wonder where he gets his hair done?

A particular amount of comfort

Oh goodness gracious me. All my high hopes for the next Bond movie have been dashed, with the announcement of the name. Quantum of Solace.

Now really. Being a little bit of a Bond geek, I have read the short story of the same name. There is NO action whatsoever. It's not even like The Spy Who Loved Me, where Bond is just a secondary (although significant) character. That story is full of action. Read the story summary on Wikipedia here, and tell me whether that sounds like a good story to base a film on. No actually, because it might make a nice indie film. Does it sound like a story that will make a good Bond movie?

And then there are the secondary considerations. Who on earth is going to want to sing the theme tune? Are you really going to be able to say in 10 years time "oh no, my favourite Bond film is Quantum of Solace" without everybody looking at you with pity?

Of course, as my favourite James Bond is Timothy Dalton, there will be those who will revoke my right to comment, but I will anyway...this title sucks.

Heath Ledger

There's nothing to say that hasn't been said by other people, but I'm very shocked and saddened with the news of Heath Ledger's death.
I loved Ten Things I Hate About You, he was one of the few I actually had posters of in my room. In the last couple of years he'd started to show real potential, and it's just so sad that this will never be fulfilled. I can't help feeling the new Batman is going to make or break how he is seen in years to come.

And now for something completely uninspiring...

Despite being a fairly old news story now (9th Jan), this is a subject that has been bubbling along at the back of my psyche recently, and so I have decided to share my views on the 4th plinth debate. Going past Trafalgar Square everyday as I do, it is a subject I muse on day after day. No really, I do.

Of the 6 proposed installations, I'm not sure I can really say I love any of them Anthony Gormley has a good track record, after his beautiful rooftop male sculptures in London last year, and his Angel of the North, but the proposal to have a series of volunteers on the plinth doing what they wish, albeit, one would hope, within reason (health and safety measures included, as seen above), seems a little gimicky. Similarly Tracey Emin's lemmings peering over the edge, and Jeremy Dellers burnt out car (representing the 'spoils of war') do not have any of the power of the first installation Ecce Homo (right) by Mark Wallinger. But then, the current occupant, Hotel 2007 by Thomas Schutte is not a particularly powerful piece, although it does add some colour to the square. Shonibare's model of Lord Nelson's ship Victory, with printed fabric sails (left) could make an interesting choice, but really, I do think the public could be provided with something more...inspiring. Of course, I have no idea what this could be. But that's why i'm not an artist, i'm just a blogger writing to myself. Goodness Tuesdays are hard.

"Obviously you're not a hockey player"

Having just tried...and failed miserably...to do the Empire Movie Quotes Quiz, it has reminded me of one of my pet annoyances. I am unable to remember quotes. There are only two quotes I can be relied on to get right. "I love Lamp" and "Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can", but any others I am doomed to get wrong. Just be a word or so, but apparently this makes a difference. For the last couple of years, I have been cursed with male friends - because it is always men, who can quote entire films, tv series and albums at length and verbatim. I lived with 3 boys, who could converse entirely in Napoleon Dynamiteisms.

I cannot describe to you how frustrating it is, when I try to join in, be amusing and show off my wide knowledge of popular culture, only to be humiliated because I have somehow got one or two words not quite right, even if the basic meaning remains the same.

I try, I really do. But who can expect me to remember "Oh Ron, there are literally thousands of other men that I should be with instead, but I am 72 percent sure that I love you", without getting the percentage wrong? My friends, that's who. My brain is simply too full with the stresses of everyday life to have room for all this nonsense. I shall just remain quiet, and one day find friends who aren't sad and geeky. I just don't have the skills.

Strictly Come Reading

Book publishing is going to get its own reality show in March, when six celebrities will be in a 'Apprentice' style reality show, where they will be attempting to write a crime novel for the Quick Reads series

'Murder Most Famous' will be hosted by Minette Walters, writer of The Ice House, amongst other books, and I don't quite know what to make of it.

It could be fabulous. It's certainly an interesting proposition, and good bring up any number of interesting ideas. Of course it's going to get the normal accusations of the BBC dumbing down, and I do in part agree. Yet on the whole, I think any programme that attempts to engage readers of books is a good thing. And i'm dying to read what Kelvin Mackenzie produces. Really I am.

Music I Like

The not very exciting title of this post is likely to be repeated a few times, as I point out a few songs I have noticed and loved.

The Hype Machine (button to the right) is my main source for these pieces of joy, and so it is I found this. Eels doing a cover of Can't Help Falling In Love. Doesn't just the idea of it make you incredibly happy? Well now go and listen to it.

The man is tackiness incarnate

I really do find Paul Burrell difficult to stomach. Admittedly nobody seems to be coming out of the Diana inquest looking good, But there is just something about the man that makes my bile rise.
Australian Princess is quite fun though.

Why can't we be more like the French?

I saw Spamalot last night, and the funniest part is when King Arthur insulted by the french guard. "I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Just wouldn't be as funny in a Cornish accent.

Can you imagine Brown dating Kate Moss? Do you want imagine it? Aren't you imagining it right now? Them, in sexual activity. See? You can see it. And it's not nice. Whereas Sarkozy and his possible new wife Carla Bruni seem like a nice glamorous couple, and the thought of them in the sack really isn't unpleasant. I've got to stop this now.

And then there's this. France's leading news broadcaster is exposed as a complete idiot by an anonymous book. What do we have? News at Ten and bloody Sir Trevor 'I'll talk really slowly if it's important stopping at random intervals to express the gravity of the situation' McDonald coming back. We should have glamour and scandal, instead we have stodge and boredom. I want to be French. I'm sure I'd be a lot thinner if I was.

And we've had french biscuits in the office this week, they're yummy.

Link

David Lodge on Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man.

It's a book I struggled through many years ago, but reading this, I should perhaps revisit it.

Ride a white swan

Bjork has been attacking paparazzi again. I don't really have a comment about this, I just wanted to show this picture. And say that I quite like it.

Recommendation

This is perhaps a little late, given it is only running for another month, but I saw War Horse at the National Theatre on Friday, and it was fantastic.
Aimed at children, but not at all childish, I sobbed most of the way through (embarrassing my more cold-hearted companion). The life-sized horse puppets were extraordinary. I'm not sure whether you can pre-order tickets anymore, but you can certainly queue in the morning of the show you want, as we did. It really is worth it.