A whoop of gorillas and a flange of baboons.

This is a rather glorious little tale,

The video clip below is from the long gone BBC comedy sketch show Not The Nine O'CLock News. In it the phrase a flange of baboons was invented as part of the joke, it has since drifted onto the net and now started being used in academia as a collective noun.

Go Richard Curtis!

It is also a very funny piece of television, as you will see...

Annoyingly enough...

Death Note is somewhat rubbish.

My God.

Holy Island has a website.

That's so many shades of wrong I can barely believe it.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Our recent (and probably now over) walking spree has solved my dilemma about upcoming readings. We went to the Harthope Valley in the Cheviot Hills for a bit of a walk yesterday (we being myself, my brother Michael, his girlfriend Chloe, my friend Jon and out piglet resembling Jack Russel, Maggie) and things went a bit, well, wrong. We forgot how to get there, we reached Wooler fine but then found ourselves in circles, directions off some very League of Gentlemen weird locals (including a robust lady at a petrol station whose lacklustre oral hygiene earned her the nickname Jenny Greenteeth) combined with a bit more getting lost eventually allowed us to find the place.

But my it was windy. It was very windy. it was so windy that when we reached the crest of the particular hill we climbed when you stood at the very pinnacle of the large rock we had to scale you could full on lean into the wind at points and it would support your weight. We had to keep a firm hold of Maggie otherwise she's have been away with the wind. Coming back we stopped at innumerable places (well, two) for food and ended up stopping at Alnwich where we, of course, paid a visit to the absolutely magnificent Barter Books (sadly it was too late in the day and too dark to visit the castle, which is truely Zelda worthy). My purchases there included a couple of research books on local folklore, Ted Hughes' first published volume of poetry The Hawk in the Rain and a hardcover of Neil Gaiman's mammoth American Gods (the author's preferred edition too, so longer and hopefully better).

So that's me reading for the next week or so. Add to that the copy of Beowolf I picked up recently, not to mention the Seamus Heaney (Death of a Naturalist) and Claire Tomlin's collection of John Milton poems to add to my growing poetry shelf (my last sales purchases for now, I swear) and I've got an impressive word horde to plough through.

I have a good number of photos I need to get off my camera and onto my laptop (not to mention here and Facebook), the vast bulk of which are from recent walks. A combination of bemused relatives/friends, random shots of the dog, and sub-standard landscape shots. Everything a self-satisfied amateur photographer could want. Trust me, now I'm armed with an Ixus the less-unique-than-I-think shots should be coming in fast and furious.

Twas Grandma's birthday today, and she's better thankfully. The cough is less chainsawing trees in tone, which has been a feature of the past few weeks, so she should be out and about soon. I bought her an audio-book of Brideshead Revisited, read by Jeremy irons no less, all eleven hours of that should keep her going for the time. I think audiobooks may well end up becoming the gift of choice for her, she is not an easy woman to buy for.

Was listening to Chris Evans on Radio 2 (not my choice, believe me) on the way home and they played My! My! Time Flies! at the very end of the show, so I'm assuming that's the new single. Not that surprising since it's one of only two decent song on the entire And Winter Came album, I trust there will be a video. Mind, the ginger twunt (Evans, not Enya) truely boiled my piss by starting talking halfway through the song and then not shutting up for the rest of it. Good God, we sensibly put that man in effective celebrity exile for long enough, why let him back now. He's nearing Edmunds in my Comebacks that can only be stopped by monks with knives list.

And finally, from one dilemma to another. The first Death Note film finally arrived and I very much want to watch it, but I also very much want to go to bed. Now there's a halfway point, watch it on my laptop, but dodgy speakers and a screen fading from use will somewhat diminish the experience. What to do, what to do... Whatever I decide the absolutely divine Tatsuya Fujiwara will be adequate recompense for any missed sleep I may happen to suffer.

Children Of Men.

I've just been forced, almost at gunpoint, to watch Children Of Men by my brother. Very good it was too, a couple of slips into over-sentimentality were more than compensated for by everything else. Took me some time to recognise, among the various hippy/thuggy types, Pam Ferris, Michael Caine and Charlie Hunman playing impressively against type. Third Alfonso Cuarón film I've seen, and all of them had been ace. Less impressive, earlier today, was Kill Bill 2; considering Kill Bill is essentially one film split in two, that the second is so inferior is very surprising. But it is, it really really is.

I'm sure I had some things to mention on here but I can't remember what, it happens a lot that something happens, or I read / see something (or whatever) and I think, hmm, I could write a blog about that and it would be all relevant and shit. I really should carry a notebook I suppose.

I have however just finished a couple more books. Breakfast At Tiffany's grew on me, but I don't think it was a great story (it's too short for me to think of as a novel to be honest) but in parts I enjoyed it. Ajincourt was a nice little read, though it was very much Bernard Cornwell treading familiar ground.

Ah yes, I've remembered one of those things, I did some online digging and found a couple of Daniel Craig snaps in all his Tomb Raider magnificence (best when naked in that film, because then he wasn't wearing those hideous shorts).




Phwoarr, eh.

We're off to the Cheviots tomorrow, should be a nice little outing, definitely myself, Michael, Chloe and our tag along hound Maggie, also likely to have Jon, Sarah and David too, which should be nice. Lunch in the Percy Arms beckons for afters, happy childhood memories are a beckoning.

I have a hard choice ahead. Just what do I read next? Stardust is begging for a second read, A Kestral For A Knave is begging for a first, and I still haven't read Dragon Under The Hill yet. I'll see what grabs me.

Ooh, Roy Orbison's playing on BBC 4, very nice!


EDIT: How bad is this? Not only did I misspell Alfonso Cuarón's name above (now corrected of course) but I've actually seen four of his films. He also directed the (rather fab) mid nineties adaption of A Little Princess.

Daniel Craig Takes A Shower.

Caught the second half of the Tomb Raider film this evening, it isn't the best, and Angelina Jolie's digitally enhanced breasts look ridiculous, but I highly approve of the naked Daniel Craig content. He wasn't the only one who needed a cold shower. Just a little bit leaner than in Bond, and the better for it. I'm very much looking forward to his next film (Defiance). Though whether he'll be sans pants again is as of yet undetermined (and sadly unlikely). Jamie Bell's in it too, bonus!

Had an enjoyable spot of book browsing at lunch and being tempted by various sale items (and in the process found Grandma's birthday present without even needing to try, which must be a first for her). Tempted by allsorts but ended up taking a copy of Seamus Heaney's adaption of Beowolf, and also a cheery little number called Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd.

Had a date on Monday, went to see The Spirit, the film was awful, date not brilliant either. Only two decent things in the film, an early shot of the protagonist in not very many clothes (before he decided to dress up as the love child of Dick Tracy and Franz Ferdinand - the band not the World War starter) and some of Samuel L Jackson's funnier scenes. Like Sin City without the amusing cross of girl power and misogyny.

The Princess Bride.

Oof, now there's a film. As quotable as Withnail & I, not to mention with more drama than Casino Royale and even more attractive men ruined by unfortunate facial hair than Excalibur.

Top notch, can't believe it's taken me this long to see it.



I do not envy you the headache you will have when you wake. But in the meantime rest well and dream of large women.

A Poem.

The below poem ranks among my personal favourites, read it and enjoy. One of the beauties of poetry anthologies (even in the slightly iffy form of a BBC Nation's Favourite volume) is those wonderful moments when you turn to a random page and discover something astonishing.

(My preferable way to read it is to hear the words annunciated in a deep and sombre tone, something like Hugo Weaving reading it in his Elrond voice.)


Ducks
by FW Harvey

(To E.M., Who drew them in Holzminden Prison)

I

From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,
Beautiful comical things
Sleeping or curled
Their heads beneath white wings
By water cool,
Or finding curious things
To eat in various mucks
Beneath the pool,
Tails uppermost, or waddling
Sailor-like on the shores
Of ponds, or paddling
- Left! Right! - with fanlike feet
Which are for steady oars
When they (white galleys) float
Each bird a boat
Rippling at will the sweet
Wide waterway ...
When night is fallen you creep
Upstairs, but drakes and dillies
Nest with pale water-stars.
Moonbeams and shadow bars,
And water-lilies:
Fearful too much to sleep
Since they've no locks
To click against the teeth
Of weasel and fox.
And warm beneath
Are eggs of cloudy green
Whence hungry rats and lean
Would stealthily suck
New life, but for the mien
The hold ferocious mien
Of the mother-duck.

II

Yes, ducks are valiant things
On nests of twigs and straws,
And ducks are soothy things
And lovely on the lake
When that the sunlight draws
Thereon their pictures dim
In colours cool.
And when beneath the pool
They dabble, and when they swim
And make their rippling rings,
0 ducks are beautiful things!
But ducks are comical things:-
As comical as you.
Quack!
They waddle round, they do.
They eat all sorts of things,
And then they quack.
By barn and stable and stack
They wander at their will,
But if you go too near
They look at you through black
Small topaz-tinted eyes
And wish you ill.
Triangular and clear
They leave their curious track
In mud at the water's edge,
And there amid the sedge
And slime they gobble and peer
Saying 'Quack! quack!'

III

When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves - quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God's jokes are good - even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, 1 think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And he's probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill!

Adrian Mole.

So I've not done much over the past four days, which is pretty much the central idea of (my) Christmas. I've left the house to go to the pub, go for a walk, and buy a camera. I can live with that, I've had man-flu!

It's after two and I'm still awake, thanks mainly to a combination of The Lives Of Others (ace film) and Adrian Mole & The Weapons Of Mass Destruction (ace book) which have consumed much of my evening. (Was meant to be at In The Trees tonight but I refer you to the above man-flu.)

Part of my evening has also been taken up by the BBC adaption of The 39-Steps, but I'd prefer not to dwell on that because it was A: pitiful, B: features Rupert Penry-Jones (who slid far too easily into the role of a right wing, militaristic toff/twat who is borderline Bond at the very best) and C: the admittedly good looking bastard kept his clothes on.

Frankly, the only decent Christmas TV has been Wallace & Gromit and Dr Who. The films have been sub-par selections, The Royle Family was disappointing, and most of the rest of it was forgetful. But at least I got to read The Tales of Beedle The Bard, which are a miniature joy.

Future Resolutions.

As it's the end of 2008 people are talking about New Year's resolutions. Not sure if I have any to make though. The whole get my life back on track / fresh determination thing happened last year and it's going swimmingly. I've paid off a load of my debts, written a book which I'm in the process of preparing to submit to agents, got started on some kind of career, and have started planning a move south.

On the other hand I've put on a bit of weight. Maybe Pilates is the answer? Because I'm sure as fuck not eating less food.



Hmmm, suddenly that looks like a lot of fun...

David Mitchell on Christmas

The man speaks a glorious truth, each and every word.

We of the Christmas-liking tribe will keep the Christmas-cynic tribe in perpetual subjugation - they will be made to join in whether they like it or not and particularly if not. They will never, if we can help it, be permitted to "get away somewhere hot" but, if they do, we can be confident that our allies overseas will besiege them with spray-on snow and piped-in Slade even as they sweat round the pool.

Gormenghast.

To north, south, east or west, turning at will, it was not long before his landmarks fled him. Gone was the outline of his mountainous home. Gone that torn world of towers. Gone the grey lichen; gone the black ivy. Gone was the labyrinth that fed his dreams. Gone ritual, his marrow and his bane. Gone boyhood. Gone.

There’s something startlingly unique about the language used by Mervyn Peake. He writes in ways I just can’t comprehend doing myself, and could only ever offer a hollow imitation of if I tried, but when I read his letters they just seem perfect. His sentences are slow, lengthy and weighted with adjectives, but they read so well. His descriptions are unlikely and shouldn’t work but they do. A favourite of mine in the first of his Gormenghast books, the knuckles of rock and blasphemous towers paint images so clear I actually found myself wondering just how the BBC adaptation ended up looking like it did.

Then again, though I quite liked the BBC version, it pales to the books because the books are so magnificently unfilmable. The vast and magnificent Countess Gertrude, the stick insect of Flay, the ungainly and sinister charm of Steerpike, even the wrinkled midgetness of Mrs Slagg; none of these things could ever be portrayed right, because Peake’s language conjours visions that could only ever work in the mind. Celia Imrie is an amazing actress, but (even fat suited as she was) Peake’s image of the slow dignity of the Countess as she escapes the library can never be matched on-screen to on page.

The final chapter of the first book (without a doubt the greatest ending I’ve ever read) when the city of Gormenghast is deserted, and Gertrude’s cats swarm in frantic horror among deserted halls looking for her... well, it’s impossible for me to replicate, impossible for anyone really. I’m thinking about this because I just picked up the third book and idly started reading, had to force myself to stop because it was sucking me in and I have other books to finish first. But soon (“my sweet” as the mountainous cook Swelter would doubtlessly add). Soon.

Silly dear.

According to BBC News an Austrian actor has slashed his own throat on stage after being given a real knife by mistake instead of a collapsable one.

The audience apparantly thought the special effects were brilliant

Stirling work from BBC 4.

I have had to literally tear myself away from BBC4 just now, because otherwise I simply won't sleep. But I've just had a very informative couple of hours courtesy of it, and I was so tempted to watch (for a second time) the latest Andrew Graham Dixon program on Giogio Vasari. But had I done that I would have been dead to the world tomorrow.

Screenwipe was first up, and I very much enjoyed this week's episode. Charlie Brooker has assembled a line-up of some of the best screenwriters working in British television right now, and I'm just thrilled to find I share things in common with Russel T Davies. It was interesting to see people talk about the process of writing, and to be assured that everybody has the same problems, and the same doubts, and the variety of ways you can work.

What probably made me happiest was realising I was in the luckier class of writers, the ones that don't have to plan ahead, but can just sit down and start to write and go from there. It's a process that's written me (so far just the first drafty of) a book I'm very proud of, and as I found this afternoon I actually found fun to read when browsing through in preparation for a second draft. So I must be doing something right.

Mind, the program didn't answer the question I most want answered, which is whether these second drafts / rewrites is just editing what's there already, or actually starting afresh. And how you know when it's ready, for that matter.

Following that was Mark Lawson's interview with John le Carre, an absolutely fascinating program which I think has actually told me a lot. Actually no, that's a lie, it's told me a lot about him and his books, what it's done for me is help confirm things in my head and give me a boost of self-confidence. Both programs did that actually. In particular his attitude towards the genre-fiction / literary-fiction divide was extraordinarily nice to hear, and in the same way as Neil Gaiman and Susannah Clarke (among others) he's almost become a standard bearer (to me) of just how brilliant genre fiction can be.

Also le Carre's talk of his earliest books (the two early Smiley books, the second of which I have recently finished) and his attitude to them is helpful (very similar to Philip Pullman's attitude to his earliest books to my eyes). They're learning exercises in a way (the phrase he used was something like finger-tapping) it's alright to make mistakes, and it's alright to be overly imitative of your influences (something I'm quite acutely aware of when I look at my own writings).

It all leads me to confirm to myself what I've long known, Smiley absolutely pisses on Bond.

The pleasure of short stories.

I know all about not judging a book by it's cover, and it's a sentiment I thoroughly agree with (I have an unfinished short story lurking in the innards of my iBook somewhere which is essentially a rant on this topic, thinly disguised as fiction). But allowing the eye to be caught by a pretty edition (this one, to be precise) can sometimes be a very good thing.

I was vaguely aware of Angela Carter but had very little knowledge of her work, but this book is magnificent, a beautiful collection fairy stories from all corners of the world. I'm becoming more and more attached to short stories, both in writing and reading them, I'm also (finally) stopping reading collections of them as though they were a novel, and ploughing through a full book. While this is sometimes fun (I recently read Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things as if it were a novel, and very satisfying it was too) it can deprive of another pleasure. Which is just flicking to a random tale, slap bang in the middle of a book, and enjoying it as it's own work, even if it's only a page or two long. Carter's book (actually two works, combined into one after her death) is something to be enjoyed in that manner, and look how pretty it is!



Short stories online are also catching my eye at the moment, I stumbled across a site I had forgotten about recently called Edit Red which I uploaded a number of short stories to a year or so ago. I quickly deleted most of what was there (because they made me wince) and uploaded Firebird this afternoon; and I already have a nice comment! Having a brief browse through Edit Red and it's promising, obviously quality is variable, but there's plenty of gems in the shit.

In a similar vein, the website East of the Web is also great for perusing random short stories. Like Edit Red its content is from user submission, but they have a fair bit of quality control and so generally the quality is better. I may be sending them some things shortly.

The very definition of self conscious.

This picture rocks my world. You can see the painful realisation on every face.



Tonight, old episodes of Frasier on Youtube are also rocking my world. I miss Ros and Niles especially.

I also took the opportunity to watch the overbearingly titled 24: Redemption (sigh, too much TV in a night, I was meant to be at a gig and everything!) in which the Africans were next in line to torture Jack Baur (or is it Bower?). I think I managed to make it half way through series 1 before I gave up, and to be honest this tv movie didn't exactly change my mind. Especially since Robert Carlyle got killed.

Simple fact is I can handle a cold, calculating bastard of an anti-hero, which is what people say Jack Bower is but actually isn't. Instead what we have is a sentimental tit who sneers at the UN (bit rich from a yank), shoots people (good in entertainment) and goes all gooey over a bunch of kids (bad in entertainment). James Bond would have left the bastards to die, and that is why I prefer James Bond.

Final thing, since posting the clip of Pair Bambi I've come across the MP3 of the full version of the song, which is ace because they only used two thirds of it in the film and I'd never heard the full thing.

For your listening pleasure.

Gosh, I am posting a lot today (though some of it is classed as tomorrow technically).

Speaking of the Alec Guinness effect I saw A Handful of Dust recently, a film I found very different to my expectations and which I ended up liking a lot more than the early scenes led me to hope.

It's a very stark movie under the sumptuous period drama styling, and it makes the world seem incredibly morally barren. The ending (the best part of which doesn't seem to be online, something I'll remedy if I get the chance) beats even The Wicker Man in its ability to disturb. I don't know if this is because of the lack of theatricality which Edward Woodward's screaming climax brought to Robin Hardy's horror, or just because Alec Guinness played so creepily against his type (or what is his type to me, at any rate).




On a slightly lighter note check out this little gem of a song from Ebirah: Horror of the Deep (Japanese title Gojira, Ebirâ, Mosura: Nankai No Daiketto), which still ranks as the best Godzilla flick hands down. A new (in the seventies at least) version of Mothra's song performed by Pair Bambi appearing as Mothra's twin priestesses.

This film was one of the lights of my childhood and it irritates me when people who've never seen a proper monster movie in their lives wax on about the original Godzilla, while sneeringly condemning the many ace films that followed it (until the horrendous early nineties revival which saw a tedious stab at darkness and realism not shaken off until the fabulously campy Final Wars). This is the kind of thinking that leads to Cloverfield people.

A Murder of Quality.

So I finished another John le Carré book, and in doing so I've noticed something a little peculiar about everything of his I've read, which is that I pay attention to chapters, and that's not normally something I do. In fact I usually tend to ignore the bloody things and put down a book at any random (often utterly inappropriate) point, but with le Carré it's finish a chapter and take a break, even if it's only for ten minutes before picking it up again. I find that if I don't I have to stop and go back to the start of that particular chapter.

But that's the first two Smiley books out of the way anyway, and I'm very tempted to just skip ahead to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (or even The Tailor of Panama, the film adaption of which I adored) but I think I'd rather read them in order of writing.

But that's the future, right now I have some Sherlock Holmes and Elizabeth Kostova to get on with (not to mention some uni work at some unspecified point of the future, if I'm ever going to free myself of the shackles of my own insipid attempts at academia). But George Smiley, you are truly something, and I don't think it's (just) the Alec Guinness effect.

The Butterfly Tattoo.

Speaking of Philip Pullman it seems he has a new film coming out, and while not exactly making up for the possible cancellation of The Subtle Knife (which admittedly could still happen) it does look rather interesting.

I like Pullman's expressed intentions for the book (well, one of them, I doubt it was the only one) to show an Oxford rather closer to its present day reality than an Oxbridge fantasy fueled by one too many wine fueled viewings/readings of Brideshead Revisited (the period drama of choice for those whom Pride & Prejudice just doesn't provide quite enough repressed homosexuality).

I'll be rather looking forward to this I think.

Philip Pullman on narrators.

Nice little snippet which makes a lot of sense, it's had me pondering about my own narrators (again) who seem to keep drifting from something quite neutral to a person in his/her (their?) own right.

I don't think the narrator is male or female anyway. They're both, and young and old, and wise and silly, and sceptical and credulous, and innocent and experienced, all at once. Narrators are not even human - they're sprites. So there are no limits, no areas, or characters, or sexes, or times, where these sprites can't go. And they fix on what interests them. I wouldn't dream of deliberately choosing this or that sort of person, for political or social or commercial reasons, to write a book about. If the narrator isn't interested, the book won't come alive.

Have a look here.