Africa.

Well, I'm finally off.

Jessie hula hooping.

Look at her go, bless her.

Khmer Rouge trials.

I had great satisfaction reading in this week's Guardian that one of the commanders of S-21 has finally been brought to trial. Visiting that school ranks easily as the most horrific experience of my life, the Killing Fields ad nothing on it because, even with the ominous tower of skulls and the rags of victims still poking through the grass, the place is quite beautiful.

The dank feel of S-21, and the row upon row of stark, uncompromising photographs of the victims (an awful moment, seeing the prison shot of a woman and her young child) left me depressed beyond words. I'm going to be watching the trial with interest, and hoping for Kaing Guek Eav's colleagues in the Khmer Rouge to final be brought to justice.

Weird dreams, Dino-Jesus, the temptation of Frasier, and my continuing determination to get addicted to coffee.

Last night (well, this morning really) I had that rarest of things for me, I dream I not only remembered but thought was real, even if only for ten minutes. A guy I know had written some stuff about me (on the from cover of NARC., go figure) as a response to something I'd written on this blog about the credit crunch.

So I woke up, full of thunder, about to call Claire and demand to know what she was playing at printing such scandalous filth. Took me fifteen minutes to clear my head and realise it was a dream, felt a bit weird about it. Moreso because the stuff he was writing about me saying, was something I never posted about. Dreams are weird, they should stay in the Sandman books and out of my head.




Almost dreamlike (because it's just so surreal) is this little gem about the British creationist museum Genesis Expo. I was particularly impressed by the incorporation of dinosaurs into the Bible version of events. Dinosaurs were created alongside man (10'000 years ago, naturally), they were admitted onto Noah's arc with the other animals at the time of the flood, but then they died out afterward
because there was less oxygen in the atmosphere.

Nice try. Still doesn't answer David Attenborough's point about worms who live in eyes mind.




One thing I forgot to mention about the ball last night, I managed to drink a full cup of coffee. Not only that, but it was black coffee, none of your wimpy cream and sugar here, black! Black as the pit!

That's right, my curious intention of becoming a fully paid of member of the world's coffee addicts society continues apace. Tea and coffee have always been a closed and mysterious world to me, and while I'd sooner sleep with a woman (and I really don't want to do that) than drink tea, I'm getting to like coffee more and more. I think it was sampling the coffee berries in Guatemala that started me off.




And finally, temptation came strongly my way this week with the sight of this little beauty for sale in town. Finally, a complete Frasier collection. Look at it, isn't it magnificent? I always adored Frasier, it was so sharply written, the cast were amazing (most expecially David Hyde Pierce and Peri Gilpin), they had a Jack Russell. To this day Frasier's apartment is still my ideal home, not going to be getting that skyline anywhere in Britain though.

The only downside is that it currently costs over £200, even though that's technically still a bargain (little more than £1 per episode) I can neither afford nor justify getting it right now. But when those prices come down / I become rich. That baby will be mine!

Sail For Cancer.

So I poshed up last night and went to a black tie charity ball (well, more a dinner and disco, but it was black tie). It was put on by a friend, and Tan was up, and most of the people on our table were pretty good crack.

An enjoyable night, moreso because I'm finally over my life threatening disease and it was my first real night out since, having been forced to miss a couple of potential goodies.

And I do look good in a tux, I will say.

I like these.

They're nicely done.

A quicky.

This should really be my last post (have to get ready for the ball), so it'll be fast. This is a bit tragic, and also quite funny.

They Might Be Giants.

Two clips of They Might Be Giants genius here. The first a live version of I Palindrome I (with some sexy accordion action going on from the ever sexy John Linnell - he was thirty-three here, and impossibly good looking with it).



The second is the only half decent quality version of the Birdhouse In Your Soul video I've managed to find, not to dwell too much on just how much I fancy early nineties Linnell here but my God he looks good in a black jumper.

New look Harry Potter.

While I very much enjoyed the books, I must confess to always being a little underwhelmed by the British Harry Potter covers. The cartoony versions are bland, and the newer adult versions ruin their interesting enough images with the ridiculously over the top gold lettering. The less said about the original 'adult' covers the better.

Should a redesign happen, Bloomsbury could do worse than M.S. Corley's series of covers in classic Penguin style (though what Penguin themselves have to say about that is another matter).




And then of course there's the Lemony Snickett redesign. The Series of Unfortunate Events currently have excellent covers, however these are a particularly sexy stab in themselves.

Final thought for the night.

As this nifty little interview has just reminded me, I fall a little bit more in love with Will Self every day.

But I do still enjoy “Dorian”. Of all my books, it’s the one I feel the most affection for. It does take me back to that part of my life. Even if I’m not actively homosexual, it’s fun to pick up on it again. I think the enjoyment of certain aspects of gay culture by heterosexual men is one of the great developments of recent times. Personally, I’m really comfortable with that. But I have to be really honest about this, and say that I’m also quite comfortable with what you might call my homophobia. Because I don’t resist the idea that I can be attracted to men, I also don’t resist the idea that I can find some aspects of gay culture pretty appalling. There are aspects of gay culture that really jar with me.’

Dorian is a book I have been meaning to read for a while now, if only because it seems to get slagged off by people who seem to be idiots, a lot.

On writing to authors.

A glance at Susan Hill's website has led me to this page for the first time. It's a snapshot of mail she receives from her many readers; some nice, more abusive, most of it weird. Having books on GCSE syllabuses can be a mixed blessing I suppose, but you've got to wonder at people who take the time to write to someone in order to compare studying their book to water torture, and stating how satisfying it was to then burn the book with the aid of WD40.

I'm all for honest criticism but at times its a wonder more people don't hunt down and apply actual water torture to the many wannabe hard cases hiding shivering behind their internet connections.

Still, it's given me an urge to read one of hill's books, and since the only books of hers I have in the house in The Woman In Black (which I read many years ago, but is due a re-read I think) it's going to have to be that. This is a book which, I don't mind admitting as it's not something which happens very often, scared the crap out of me a number of years back (and I really don't get scared by books, I've read a number which various people have promised will leave me terrified, The Shining being prominent, and nothing).



I've just finished two Pratchett books I've been alternating while ill over the past few days (yellow fever or manflu, you decide). One is an audiobook of Equal Rites, read by the ever welcome Cecilia Imrie, which was pretty much as I remembered it (still one of my favourite books, mixing fantasy, humour, satire in feminism in one glorious package). The fact it was an audiobook helped, as it enabled me to listen on my iPod while playing Super Smash Brother Brawl (ridiculously good fun I must say, and the return of the long missed Kid Icarus is most pleasing). The other was the print version of Mort, which I very much enjoyed, but can barely remember at all to the extent that I wonder if I ever read past Chapter 2 before, still, it has been a number of years.



And now it's two in the morning, and I can't sleep because I've spent most of the past few days sleeping. So what does a twenty-something man about town do in such a circumstance on a Saturday night. Go out, visit friends, do some of that late night writing authors always harp on about, perhaps go to a sauna? No, what I'm doing is sitting, doing a jigsaw online. The one below to be precise, dangerously addictive.

And it only took me twelve minutes longer than the website's average.

Chattering.

I just managed to watch ten minutes of Question Time before getting too annoyed to watch on, a recent record for me. Nothing like idiots making overly-generalised comments to whoops and cheers seemingly produced by the audience from Ricki Lake to really achieve nothing. The woman from Respect was predictably a particularly notable idiot.

I went on Question Time once, when I was in High School. I got to make a point, I can't remember what I said but I know with certainty it was bollocks, complete and utter bollocks.

The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu.

Having allowed myself to spend much of today sleeping I, hardly surprisingly, am now wide awake. Which is wonderful. Today's been as irritating as hell, feeling fine one mint, nauseous the next, so dizzy I can't stand the one after that. And there's been all that beautiful snow and I haven't been able to take advantage of it.

I have however very much enjoyed tonight's BBC 4 documentary The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu. Presented by the confusingly familiar Aminatta Forna, and part of BBC 4's simply ace Why Reading Matters series, this was a look at a number of manuscripts that survived (thanks to some extraordinarily dedicated people) hundreds of years when they could easily have been lost or destroyed, and how they're now being returned to the world and forcing everybody to reconsider their opinions of Africa's literary inheritance at the same time.

Honda wins.

Since Jam seems to have beaten me to it (thus meaning I really can't choose Chun-Li), and Dhalsim is scandalously not available, I've decided to become E-Honda. Check it out.



I kicked the bitch's ass! (Whoever he is.)

And an award for Terry Gilliam.

I heartily approve.

Yes!

Go Noel Clarke, more than just a tin dog after all.

In Bruges.

Just won BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay, so at least whoever decides these things has managed to get something right so far.

The World's Most Enhanced Woman And Me.

Thought if I mentioned any TV it would be the Terry Pratchett documentary (but I'm reluctant, primarily because I'd be struggling not to use the word 'brave), but no, it's Channel 4's latest lets stare at the freak documentary. The formula (so far) is basically a very irritating Brit talks - exceptionally patronisingly - to an American woman with very large implants.

She comes across as very likable, a nice girl with a history of depression who embraces the attention and is honest as she can be about her state of mind. He on the other hand comes across as a horrid little creep, droning out faux concern as to her well being and cliched lectures on just why she's so wrong to look like she does. He unconvincingly mimes his general disgust at girls who aren't flat chested, he attempts to blackmail her emotionally using her own mother, and he feebly protests that the attention is getting isn't good attention because its to do with her looks. Bit rich from a man who seems to have landed a broadcasting job on no other basis than he looks and talks a bit like Louis Theroux.

And Louis Theroux is exactly why this program is so horrid, in the same way this Mark Dolan is a substandard imitation of Theroux, the show is a pretty feeble clone of Weird Weekend, or at least its format. A smart-arsed, cross geeky/laddish Brit wonders around smirking at how weird foreigners are (I'm amazed this isn't being filmed in the US, but presumably Mexico is close enough) and generally displaying enough condescending self-satisfaction to make even the strongest stomached of us nauseous.

Alan & Annie.

Excellent mini-feature on Alan Moore from some TV show I've never heard of (sadly neglecting to mention Lost Girls but otherwise good for something length).

Alan Moore Interview
Uploaded by gmwright

And to go hand in hand with that, here's the video for Annie Lennox's cover of Shining Light. Lovely.



Lennox has always been pretty sharp with the cover versions, the Medusa album's a testament to that, but watching the above has put in mind of her pre-Eurythmics days and this excellent little Tourists cover.

Niece of Shame.

On a more positive subject I'd forgotten how magnificent White Teeth is.

Sigh, another author to add to the 'if I could write like her/him, I'd be a happy happy man' pile.

The BAFTAs are coming.

There's some right crap being talked about the BAFTAs, by some BAFTA people right now.

If the main thoughts you have on your award ceremony is that it helps nominated films sell more it might be time to think about why you're doing what you're doing.

Still, The Good, The Bad & The Weird looks ace.