Getting rid of my books- a thought.

My bookshelf, originally uploaded by benjibrum.
I desperately need to thin down my collection of books.
I can’t look for a new place to live & forever wonder “Will there be enough room for my books?”.
I’m also a bit loathed to just dump a few hundred books onto a charity shop, so here’s the idea:
How about I [...]

Short Story: Rapid Weight Loss.

I opened the box, slid out the polythene wrapped instruction manual. I eagerly flipped past the instructions en Francais looking for the English version, there was none.
The advert promised RAPID WEIGHT LOSS! in just two easy steps- Plug and Play. I’d popped the purchase on my credit card to return in case it was faulty [...]

Take the Man Booker Prize challenge.

The Man Booker Prize longlist has been announced. 13 novels.
The winner will be announced on the 6th October 2009. That gives us 70 days to read the 13 novels.
Here’s the long list:
The Children’s Book by AS Byatt
Summertime by JM Coetzee
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
How to paint a dead Man by Sarah Hall
The Wilderness by [...]

Testing testing one two three…

Please ignore this. This is a test.
Nothing to see here, move along.

My worst failing.

is probably my pride in not wanting to ask for help when I probably should.

Portrait of the artist

What got you started?
I think it was my love of words, language and conversation as a kid. My Mum couldn’t leave me anywhere as I’d just start chatting to strangers in the street. I was very curious about the world and spent long hours reading books or constructing characters in my head. I remember a [...]

Dead Pool List 2009

I’m in the process of migrating posts from my old blog to this one, so although this post will appear today it was first written on the 31st of December 2008 in preparation for the New Year. (It’s a hard life, eh? Lots of cutting and pasting in my life at the moment. For reasons [...]

Things that make me cry.

Dustin Lance Black gave an awesome speech at the Oscars this year.
(Shame he’s been caught in a difficult situation recently)
Let’s focus on the beauty of what he said:

Ten Commandments

Why ten?
Moses went up a mountain to get his.
I live on the 15th floor of a tower block.
The whole thing doesn’t really correlate really.
Why can’t I make up my own?
Shush. I’m having a go.
On this chilly Saturday evening, I’m atop my holy hill, my Mount Sinai if you will and I’ll channel the voices of [...]

7 things you may not know about me.

Bruce Lawson chain-lettered Michael Grimes (aka Citizensheep), who in turn chain-lettered Nicky Getgood who chain lettered me into blogging about the 7 things you may not know about me.
1) I get synaesthesia.
It’s a “condition” which means that sometimes I get things a little muddled. Particularly before bed or early in the morning I “see” sounds. [...]

Words I no longer want to hear on twitter.

1.) Dort
2.) Tweeple
3.) Friggin celebs!
4.) Lashed
5.) FTW
6.) Anything that offers the idea that twitter may indeed save the world.
7.) Smug self satisfied back slapping.
8.) There is no twitter clique in Birmingham.
9.) “I’m on the way to a good meeting with…”
10.) “Just left a good meeting with…”
11.) “I just put a bid in for X money [...]

A love affair with books.

I got to write again for the Love affair with books.
http://www.joyfuljubilantlearning.com/joyful_jubilant_learning/2009/04/a-field-guide-to-getting-lost.html
It’s such an honour to do, Rosa & the Joyful Jubilant Learning community are amazing with their comments & suggestions.
Writing these always makes me feel like I should write more book reviews.

Snoring

Confession time. I snore. Badly. Anyone have any good methods of stopping?

Listen to my podcast…

I gave you my reading list from the weekend last night and you can listen to my podcast here?
http://www.rhubarbradio.com/audio/wxwm09/ben-whitehouse.mp3

WXWM reading list.

On Saturday I gave a talk at wxwm about story telling & how we tell stories online.
(I also talked about cake, death & clouds)
I thought I’d give a reading list of stuff that got me to where I was on Saturday evening. Some of it I talked about, some of it passed through my brain [...]