About half an hour ago I spotted Ben Hammersley wandering around on the fifth floor of the Guardian Unlimited building. I know he writes for the Guardian, but we don’t often get writers slumming it over this side of the road :)
Month: January 2005
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Amazon Link This is number two in my attempt to read fifty books this year. It was certainly a very simple read. The prose is very plain. I’m told that this is part of its charm, but I find it hard not to see it as a limitation of the author. It’s not that I… Continue reading The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Concept Album
Who remembers concept albums? In the 70s we all listened to them. There was no shame in it. But then punk rock came along and opened our eyes. We all realised what a pile of pretentious nonsense they were all and they were all consigned to the back of the wardrobe with all the other… Continue reading Concept Album
Lou Reed
I’m still slowly working my way through ripping all of my CDs to .ogg files. Yesterday it was the turn of Lou Reed. I’ve got some really good Lou Reed albums (Transformer, Street Hassle and New York) but I’ve also got some dross that I bought in the late 90s when I had too much… Continue reading Lou Reed
Photographic Memory (cont)
I wondered last night about searching for “informational” photos of Balham in Flickr. So this morning I decided to look for all the photos on Flickr that had been tagged with “balham”. All I found was a set of photos of someone’s halloween party that seems to have taken place in a pub somewhere in… Continue reading Photographic Memory (cont)
The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad
Amazon link Guess what? Life in Afganistan under the Taliban was a bit shit. Particularly if you were a woman. And since the Taliban have gone it’s only got a little bit better. Seierstad spent a few months living with a family in Kabul soon after the Taliban were removed and this is her interpretation… Continue reading The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad
Read More Books
Last year, the number of books I got thru was appallingly low. I read more X-Men comics than I had in any year in the last twenty years, but I doubt I read more than fifteen or twenty books. So one of my resolutions this year is to read more. I’ve set myself a target… Continue reading Read More Books
Photographic Memory
Interesting discussion in the pub tonight about how people use cameras now that everyone[1] has one in their phone and therefore in their pocket all the time. It seems that people are using them as a photgraphic memory. Want to remember the opening times of your local supermarket over the christmas period? Don’t write it… Continue reading Photographic Memory
Comments Back
Whisper it softly, but I’ve turned comments back on. Actually, they were only off for about twelve hours. But it seems to have done the trick. Since I turned them back on I’ve had one piece of comment spam (as opposed to hundreds every hour). If you get overwhelmed by comment spam then simply removing… Continue reading Comments Back
Greater Intolerance
Lucy Mangan makes a plea for greater intolerance in the world. Now that the season of goodwill has passed, let’s make a plea for greater intolerance (carefully directed) in the world. The next time a woman (and it is always a woman – men have many flaws but at least they prefer to seek the… Continue reading Greater Intolerance