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 [...]

Shower Songs.

My early morning shower this morning threw a number of songs at me.
(I use my phone to play MP3s at me, sometimes I sing along, sometimes I don’t)
First up was Bat For Lashes with Daniel.

Then Florence and the Machine with Rabbit Heart (raise it up)

Finally came La [...]

Thing that makes me cry

Ah.
Here we are again, crying at work.
I guess I’m tired after a busy week & some music just caught me off guard.

Must always check what’s coming up on the playlist.

Ten Book Questions.

This isn’t the usual ten rubbishy questions people get asked about books. These are taken from the Observer. Oh Yes. No Richard & Judy Shame for me. Oh no. (Even if my book group do keep on picking their books. At least we won’t have to endure their strangelhold on the book industry any more.)
1) [...]

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:

Would Jesus Discriminate?

 “Would Jesus Discriminate?”.
It’s an interesting question.
It’s a question you have to ask yourself before even asking it to someone else. And you also have to be really careful who you ask to to as you’ll provoke all sorts of reactions from people.
We’re invited to think about Jesus “then” and consider Jesus “today”. How would Jesus [...]

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 [...]

Book ‘em Danno!

I saw this list on a friend’s blog so I thought I’d copy it and see how many of the books I’ve read. (The ones in bold are the ones I’ve read- and yes, I’m aware there’s a couple of glaring ommissions!)
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 [...]

Online Games I’m currently playing.

I keep saying that I’m going to cut back the number of online games I’m playing so that I can focus & really dig into one game but that plan seems to go out the window each new fad that comes along.
You might want to join me in a game. If you do- let me [...]

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. [...]

Questions that need answering.

What burdens can you not let go of?
There are things that keep me awake at night.
Big things I can’t do anything about like stuff going on in Iran and Iraq, global warming (which does exist). Stuff so monumentally scary I have to shift my gaze to one side so not to lose myself in contemplating [...]

Bitesize Books: Walden.

One of the greenbelt book club books is Walden by Henry David Thoreau.
Here’s where I wrote about it: http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/blog/2009/04/passionate-about-books-seeks-similar/
Today I found that you can have books sent to you in handy bite sized chunks by email.
So every day for the next 114 days I’m going to read Walden.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
You can [...]