Studio Living

Oh!

Terry Pratchett's going to be meeting Binky a bit sooner than he expected... that's really sad. I mean, as he says, he's not dead and won't be for a while, but it's horrible to think of such a lively mind doomed to slip into the darkness. *shudder*

Holiday reading

I go on holiday on Wednesday. To Switzerland, Italy and Austria by train - I'm calling it the Cake Tour 2007. And for the last week people have been asking me if I've started packing yet. No! Why on earth would I do that? So I can get to my destination and have my clothes even more creased than they will be anyway? So I can run out of pants because they're all in the suitcase? Good grief, half the clothes I'm taking with me weren't even clean at the weekend.

What I have been obsessing about for weeks is my holiday reading. I have an abject horror of running out of books. I try to work on the principle of one book per day, even though it may break my back with the weight. This is what I'm taking with me; a hotch-potch of books that I've had lying around for ages unread, books that I've borrowed, books that I'm running out of time to read and books that I just want to sit with a hot chocolate, by a river, enjoying again.

• Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility and Emma (re-reads)
• Ian McEwan, Saturday and Atonement (it was only yesterday I realised I had two Ian McEwans in the pile. Saturday is a borrow, and Atonement I whipped off the shelf of Crockatt & Powell realising that if I don't read it before the film comes out it's all going to be spoiled)
• F Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night and The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Other Stories (another author double-header, but these have been hanging around on my shelves for years. They must be read!)
• Martin Amis, Money (I bought this in a charity shop in Muswell Hill. I don't know why)
• Jonathan Coe, What a Carve Up (I bought this in Shakespeare and Co in Paris two years ago. I pissed myself over The Rotter's Club, no idea why I haven't opened this one yet)
• Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (it was on sale in Foyles. Blame the people who were an hour late to meet me. In those situations I can buy entire bookshops in one go)
• EDIT: Twunt that I am, I forgot Catherine O'Flynn, What Was Lost, the first to go in the bloody pile (an impulse buy a few months ago on the recommendation of the omniscient Crockatt & Powell; it's now appearing in every book prize longlist going).

I'll let you know how I get on...

End of an era

Am in post-Potter listlessness... finished the damn thing yesterday and have been sleeping a lot to make up for staying up on Friday night and, you know, crying a lot doesn't help. Am not going to say why because some people (Kate) are lagging behind, but let's just say I'm not happy with certain bits of it.

It's that feeling of a closed chapter (to continue a literary metaphor) and I'm mooching around the flat not entirely sure what to do with myself. I'm trying to re-read bits of books 5 and 6 but I read about certain characters and get alternately cross and sad... maybe I should try do something grown-up like get drunk and have mindless sex, to remind myself that it's a children's book and actually doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Shush now, it makes me happy

Doctor fur yr lolz!

Yeah, anyway.

(Courtesy of Marie, who I believe is the person I talk about here. Her new book sounds ace...)

State of the union

This has been an odd week for me. It may colour everything I'm about to write. I dunno. Decide for yourselves.

I've been weaning myself off the drugs and took the last one on Monday. On Wednesday I got hit with the withdrawal symptoms that I was kind of expecting; except they haven't gone. It's been five days. My brain is processing everything a fraction of a second slower than it should be - which perhaps doesn't sound a lot, but just think about how much your brain takes in every moment. It feels like being a bit drunk, that slight delay between reality and realisation. When I'm walking, or if I move my head quickly, I get disorientated because my brain doesn't catch up with the movement fast enough. I don't think I got withdrawal when I came off before. So I'm left to compare it with the brain-fogginess I got when I originally went on them, which lasted exactly two weeks. Could be fun...

I've been reading a book called The Road by Cormac McCarthy for a book group. It's incredibly depressing. Set in a dystopian future, it very believably plumbs the depths to which humanity can sink. And it's relentless, an intimation that this is what human beings are like when you peel us back to our core; selfish, unfeeling, cruel. I can't really go into the detail without giving away the plot, but as the train drew into the station every morning and evening I'd replace the bookmark and haul myself out of my seat with a heart that grew heavier the further I read.

Then to wake up on Friday to the news of an attempted car bombing on Haymarket. (And may I go off on a slight tangent here? That's attempted bombing, news media. Not a bombing. Thanks for scaring the bejesus out of all my relatives who then sent me text messages to see if I was OK. Of course I was OK, nothing bloody well exploded! And now I'm going to be subject to the usual exhortations of "be careful" and "stay safe", as though London is some terrible place with bombs going off on every corner. I'm a little tired of it. What, do they want me to bunker down in my flat and never leave? Shall we calculate the odds of being killed or injured by a bomb? It does happen, but it's been happening since before I was born with the IRA campaigns. Do ETA stop us going to Spain? Do Islamist fundamentalists stop us flying anywhere? No. Then stop making it sound like I can't even go to work. The biggest danger posed to me by cars in London is being run over, or pollution.)

Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes. The attempted car bombing in London. Seriously, was this just about the most pathetic attempt to bomb a city ever? (Cheers, Rachel.) First - leave the car(s) in the middle of a crowded central London street, covered by CCTV and surrounded by people, bouncers, emergency services. It won't get spotted. No. Neither will one of the cars get towed for being illegally parked. Do they not realise that you can't park for more than five minutes in central London without being ticketed or towed? Then - manage not to create an explosion. For fuck's sake. Girls on a school trip manage to create explosions with hairspray cans and a lighter. You need: a material that's combustible, and a spark. What about all these bomb-making manuals on the internet I keep reading about? And for good measure - use nails to create maximum damage. Only, don't pack them into the 'explosive' device where the blast would force them up and out. Scatter them on the floor. Basic physics then states that when/if the bomb explodes, the force of the blast will drive them not into the air but into the ground. It's just about considering the direction of the force of the blast.

I almost wanted to offer my congratulations to the guys who drove into Glasgow airport, in light of the only people being hurt being the people in the car. At least this time they've worked out how to cause a fire - chuck a lighter at some petrol. And now the UK's on the highest level of alert possible. Which is slightly ridiculous since the 'critical' security alert means an attack is imminent - and the security forces had no idea these car 'bombs' were planned (well, given the level of preparation there probably wasn't that much chatter happening) so I guess the only reason the alert level has been raised is because the government doesn't want to be seen to be on the hop. *sigh* Morons and political manoeuvering. More of the best of humanity on show.

And then came Doctor Who. Yeah, I know it's fiction, but so's The Road - let's leave the cultural snobbery to one side. If you saw it, you'll know there's a real hokey sequence towards the end to save the day - and it is hokey, but it's also beautiful. The best of humanity. A small shaft of light in the recent unrelenting bleakness. God knows there's a need for as many of them as possible, Saturday night TV or not. Maybe light entertainment fiction is the only place to find them, cos they sure aren't apparent in the real world right now.

Viva la independents!

I've just cancelled my order for Harry Potter 7 with Amazon, cos Liz has pointed out that Crockett and Powell, my favourite bookshop in the world, are doing a great thing with their HP sales. It's full price, but £9 from every sale goes to the primary school at the bottom of the street to stock up their library. God I love these guys...

Library thing

Because you can tell a lot about a person from their book collection.

Austen season

It was inevitable that the ITV Jane Austen season wouldn't go past without comment, right? I'd only read Northanger Abbey once before this month, but I should have known better - Austen gets better the older and more cynical the reader gets (ie, she's incredibly bitchy and I love it). Anyway, Northanger Abbey is now my favourite Austen novel and Henry Tilney is my favourite Austen hero. Why? Because he's funny! Mr Darcy, Colonel Brandon and Captain Wentworth are all well and good, but I can't imagine being able to talk to any one of them. I was in stitches waiting for the train the other week reading the section where Henry sends up Catherine to her face during the drive to Northanger. So inevitably, last night's adaptation was slightly disappointing, especially as I can only think of Henry Tilney with blond curly hair and blue eyes so JJ Feild (the poor man's Jude Law?) wasn't quite what I had in mind... the adaptation also didn't do anything about the book's main flaw; namely: what's Henry Tilney doing with a silly little girl like Catherine Morland? If anything, he'd be more than a match for Elizabeth Bennet, but then I can't imagine them being sensible for more than two minutes together.

And now there's an online ad for Persuasion doing the rounds with Rupert Penry-Jones doing the Austen hero's Look of Longing™. *gulp* Yeah, I know I said I like the funny, but the Look of Longing™, in the right thesp's hands, can be quite, um, something.

A kindred spirit

Ha! I do this all the time! I'm pleased to see the phenomenon of starting to speak in the spirit of the book you're reading recognised in the national press. I'm reading a lot of Jane Austen at the moment (I'd forgotten how hilarious Northanger Abbey is), so please bear with me if I go a bit, well, Regency on you...

Bridge to Terabithia

I got very excited on Sunday when I went to see Notes on a Scandal (possibly the only time the sight of Archway Road has ever been met with a sigh of nostalgia) cos there was a big poster for a new film of Bridge to Terabithia. I remember reading that when I was a kid but later realised I'd got it mixed up with one of my favourite kids' book, This Time of Darkness. That would make a great film - it's about a society living underground after some disaster or because of a dystopian government, it's never quite clear; and a boy from the outside accidentally finds himself underground. They decide to escape and it's really dark, really weird. Probably not suitable for kids. Man, I'm going to have to track down a copy now...