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Playing tour guide and sometime-host is fun. But busy. So far I’ve managed to not buy a picnic blanket that looks like a glorified bin liner, and be pretty constantly hungry (no change there, then).
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I read the headline and I thought exams were no longer good enough: Singapore plants smart meters in schools.
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This left-right poster is wicked cool.
Reviews → Dark Matter
22 July 2011 · Comments Off
Neil and I listened to the audiobook on a drive up to Edinburgh recently. I’d read the novel a couple of months before.
Jack Miller is down-at-heel, working at a stationery company in London. He gets the opportunity to join an expedition to the Arctic, working as a wireless operator, and he sees it as an escape from his dreary life. But the team of five is whittled down over time and as the nights get longer, Jack is soon left with only some husky dogs for company. And then he starts to realise that all is not right in this solitary outpost — there’s something else out there.
As a novel, I quite enjoyed it. I haven’t read a proper ghost story in a long time — if that terrible book I read about supposed real-life hauntings in Singapore counts. Jeremy Northam definitely did the story justice, with great accents and such expressive reading (and he was in Emma. Squee). Neil kept asking me to put the next disc on as the previous one ended.
My sister would be terrified of Dark Matter (and how her fear affects those around her is not suitable content for any website — heh). Reading the words on the page or listening to someone read you the story were both fun.
(Full disclosure: I run the official fan community for the author’s series of Stone Age novels.)
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I had the idea to crowdfund books in 2007. Too bad I didn’t have the gumption to actually see it through, beyond some preliminary research. I could’ve been written about in The Economist.
Young Singapore
20 July 2011 · Comments (1)
An early travel film about Singapore.
“Before your time actually.” My mother, queen of the understatement.
Unrealistic expectations
19 July 2011 · Comments Off
Reading the Twitter outrage on the announcement about NHS reform, I’m feeling somewhat… confused. I didn’t realise we lived in a world that was only black and white, with no shades of grey. The beloved money pit that is the NHS is being opened up to some competition — apparently this means unfettered, uncontrolled profit-hungry corporations taking over and we are all going to die because they don’t care about us.
Oh, please.
Neil thought I’d wimp out, but no. I got up with him (well, about ten minutes before he left for work) and went out for my first jog / run in almost a year. (It’s been about 2.5 months since I was discharged from hospital, so I doubt I’m putting my recovery in danger.)
But she may have stopped for coffee
9 July 2011 · Comments Off
Fighting the twee
Artisan Roast: a (very) small cafe in Edinburgh. Clearly very hipster (!).
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Well, I could have told you this would happen the day it was announced: Publishers, parties, and court: Assange faces the music. My feelings were that the bandwagon had already left by the time the deal was signed — no one has really given a toss about ‘his story’ for several months, and Assange would fuck his publishers over big time. Thanks for the link, Peter.
Reviews → Boomsday
7 July 2011 · Comments Off
Affection is what I feel for Christopher Buckley, who wrote the unrelentingly brilliant Thank You For Smoking, one of those books you read and re-read when a chuckle is needed. I was glad to spot a copy of Boomsday at the library, and he’s one of those authors whose books I’ll pick up without even bothering to read the blurb on the back — I know it’ll be good.
Boomsday is the point when the Baby Boomers begin to retire, drawing on their Social Security. The United States is in huge amounts of debt and involved in wars that it can’t fund. Our protagonist Cassandra Devine, a young PR hotshot, isn’t happy about it. Her popular weblog that discusses social security reform suggests to her readers that it’s time to take action against the Boomers, who have built up unsustainable debt over their lifetimes and are leaving us Gen X-ers (and beyond) to pick up the bill.
The novel was published in 2007, so Buckley wasn’t exactly seeing too far into the future, but as a satire it hits a wee bit close, doesn’t it? Which is why I think it’s brilliant. As a reader it seems so funny, so implausible, but it’s probably closer to the truth than we want to imagine.
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Anyone trying to comfort me should follow these guidelines: double chocolate chip cookies if I’m feeling a little sad and upset, and sausage rolls (at least two) if I’m in the depths of barely-controlled rage. Today was a day requiring sausage rolls. Greggs has saved me from going postal.
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If there ever was a day that was perfect for restarting my smoking habit, today would be it.
Which way?
6 July 2011 · Comments Off
Thankfully, we didn’t have to make a choice when encountering this sign:
I know I would have spent at least ten minutes trying to make a decision.
Dream kitchen
5 July 2011 · Comments Off
Oh man. This is brilliant. For someone like me who cooks purely out of necessity, but sure likes gadgets, this kitchen layout would be absolutely ideal.
My dream is to have lots of gadgets that do the hard work for me — all I should need to do is plug something in and switch it on. I don’t expect enough storage for all the kitchen electricals I would have to own to make me happy* (which include an Actifry, slow cooker, hand blender, yoghurt maker, toastie maker, doughnut maker, pie maker, ice cream maker, grill, and breadmaker) — at least I don’t bake — but this compact kitchen is laid out perfectly and the storage on the opposite wall would absolutely do the job.
I want this so much my teeth are grinding.
Via Girl on the Wing.
* Italics mean I already know one.