| It's probably less time since I last updated than I usually leave between posts. But it feels like a very long time, since a lot has been going on.
Those of you who view my updates on facobook or twitter may be aware that a couple of weeks ago my company let me know that I was being made redundant. I didn't want to go into any detail or post on here until it was all officially signed and sealed, but that happened on Wednesday so now i'm posting!
I'm fairly upbeat and positive about it. For a while I hadn't been completely satisfied with my job, and had been considering looking for something else so this was a kickstart in that direction. I have also been doing lots of research and legwork into starting my own part time small business, so this has given me some more time to really get that up and running. I'm hoping to officially start trading in a couple of weeks, at which point you will not be able to escape pimping on here! For the moment though, i'm doing things like getting a website sorted, speaking to accountants and bank managers, and attending a business start up course at the local chamber of commerce.
I'm also looking for a new job, obviously, but probably not in the same area as I was previously working. I liked the actual nature of the job (event management and project management) but wasn't convinced the pharmaceutical industry and agency work specifically was really me.
Other things i've been up to include a trip to the Taste of Birmingham food and drink festival, at which I tried lots of tasty things including carpaccio of tuna with summer fruits, tofu penang curry, and trout cheesecake. It was a lovely day, with good company too. I was very good and didn't spend any money above that already accounted for in the ticket price, which included £15 worth of vouchers to be spent at the event. I came away with a bag of porridge related freebies, two bottles of alcoholic ginger beer (which does not taste alcoholic at all, just like very very good quality ginger beer) a purple kohl rabi, a box of dark chocolate florentines and a box of stilton cheese straws (both made by Fudges). Oh, I just remembered I did spend some money above the ticket, but that was on a bottle of St Germain Elderflower liqueur which i'd decided before going that i'd purchase if I saw. Delicious stuff.
And why the blood? Well, today I donated blood for the first time. No problems at all, but my arm now feels slightly odd where the plaster is. I suspect i'll have a lovely bruise there. I think i'll be giving fencing a miss tonight, especially since they had to take it from my right arm (couldn't find a vein on the left arm) | comments: 4 Prods or Prod me   |
| Our kitchen is finished, whoohoo!
Every time I walk past it/go in I am still going 'eee!'. This might last a while yet.
Pictures can be seen here
We now have about twice the cupboard space we had before, plus a cool pull out spice rack thing (which we need to get an extra drawer for, since it doesn't fit all my spices, let alone the ones in the spinny spice rack or any more I might get). Lights have been fitted under the cupboards to shine directly on the cooking area - i'll be able to properly see what i'm chopping! There's also a whole extra side of work surface, and the corners have cupboards with double doors that open outwards so you can get right to the back!
Ok, I know i'm getting far more excited than most people would about kitchen cupboards, but it's fab to be able to fit all my stuff in and still have free space! It's going to take a little while to get used to where everything is now though.
Beyond that it's been a bit of an odd week really. On Friday I went out for dinner with some friends and had a lovely evening. The weekend was mostly spent taking everything out of the kitchen in preparation for the builders coming in. Monday/Tuesday I ended up with a last minute trip to Paris for a funeral. I've got the week off work, so Wednesday and Thursday were spent sorting lots of things that have been being put off because I don't generally have time. And yesterday I went to see ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sessifet25 and we had a picnic for her birthday. On the way home I got stuck in the M60 nightmare traffic (due to a big accident) and it took me three times longer to get home than it should have done.
This afternoon I am planning on mostly watching tennis. | | comments: 4 Prods or Prod me |
| Ok, so at some point soon i'm going to need some help designing some website content, for a Project. I'd like it to look fairly snazzy and professional, and i'm willing to pay (a reasonable amount!). I already have the domain and simple hosting paid for.
I know at least three people on my friends list do freelance web design (and one that runs a company that does it, I think?).
If you think you might be able to help me out, please leave a comment with what your your rates would be, and preferably a couple of examples of sites you've designed. I've locked comments, and i'll leave them locked unless you request otherwise.
Ta muchly! | | comments: Prod me |
| Come one, come all to the 2010 Discworld Convention, which I seem to have volunteered to be involved with ;)
http://www.dwcon.org
It's in Birmingham, over the August Bank Holiday next year, and will be masses of fun. The website has been up for just over a week, and already over 300 memberships have been bought, so sign up and come along!
Slightly smaller and more informal (and a whole lot sooner) is the afp camping event. http://community.livejournal.com/dw_augbh_2009/ If you have any connection to afp at all, you're welcome along, so come and put your name down. A new poll has just gone up about meals and stuff. | | comments: Prod me |
| Yay summertime! It's been lovely weather recently and i've been trying to take advantage of it. Lots of sitting in the garden, either ours or one belonging to a nice pub (usually the Vale). I hope it lasts.
During May our town had a 'festival' that they hold every four years, with lots of events on including concerts, lectures, stand up comedy and an open-house art trail. And lots of other things too. I did a few bits and bobs, though not as much as perhaps I would have liked, since I was either busy or it was wet and I didn't fancy going out. I did go for a really nice walk around the town boundary with the Ramblers Association (though I think they've just rebranded and are now 'The Ramblers') and i'm definately thinking of joining up. I like walking and we live in such a beautiful area it would be a nice to get to see more bits of it. Also a nice way to get to know people!
Speaking of getting to know people, I went to a 'tweet up' the other week, which is a get together of people who use twitter. It was good fun, I met some very friendly sort-of-local people, and I had free dim sum. Yummy. It was at Sweet Mandarin restaurant in Manchester who deserve the mention for being very friendly and generous, and also doing rather yummy grub.
I have also been busy doing some organisey things, which I will give a separate 'plug' post to, just so you can't avoid it :) | | comments: Prod me |
| Yup, it's nearly that time of year again, i've been sent an email with some ticket offers for the Taste of Birmingham festival on 10-12 July
http://taste.visitbirmingham.com/
There are two main offers, and it looks like it's a choice between the following (i've assumed people want £15 of crowns that are included in some of the tickets, and added them onto the others accordingly - it's about the right amount i've found in the past, since the dishes are priced between £1-£4)
£20 - ticket and £15 of crowns (multiples of 2 people only)
£23 - ticket, £15 of crowns, entrance to the VIP covered seating area and a free glass of champagne
So, who's interested in coming, would saturday or sunday be preferable, and which type of ticket would be preferred? | | comments: 2 Prods or Prod me |
| I see that it is a month since I last updated, and three months since any actual content on me, rather than 'wot i've been cooking' or 'here's something interesting'. Most remiss.
There has been lots of stuff happening, but i'm sure I won't remember it all so i'm not even going to try. I will randomly mention some things that stick out, in no apparent order.
Weekend just gone I was down in London, for a wedding. It was really lovely, the weather was beautiful, and magslhalliday looked lovely in the absolutely gorgeous outfit made by lordshiva. )I must remember to check those usernames to make sure they're right.) The groom scrubbed up well too ;) I saw several people at the reception that I don't see often enough, and it was Fun.
I should also mention the hen night that was a month or so before (see? no order) which happened to be held on my birthday. There was a trip to Cornwall, and a stay at this place which was fantastic and highly recommeneded. There may also have been dressing up in Dr Who themed costumes. Thanks for birthday wishes received by the way, being away was the reason I didn't reply individually.
Tomorrow I am off again, flying to Israel for another wedding, family this time. I decided to go at the very last minute, so i'm not really in the 'going abroad' mode yet. Oh well. It should be fun. I will also get to meet up with a friend I haven't seen in about 10 years! Which will be very nice.
You may wonder if twitter is the reason for lack of posts. But you're probably not, since if you've been paying attention you'll note that I don't post much anyway, and I haven't really been posting much to twitter. When I have, it's been things that I wouldn't have bothered making a post about, mostly either replies to people or 'wot I've been cooking'. So there you go. I did make homemade crumpets, which turned out excellently, so that's something interesting. And there you go, i've told you lot too ;)
Generally though i've been enjoying the lighter evenings, trying to get some exercise in (oh yes, I went fencing properly for the first time in a few years! I'm going to try and make it a regular thing, though the weddings business has meant I haven't been able to go back yet or won't until next week) and watching various things on tv including The Wire (very good but slow to start), Lost (brilliantly engaging fluff) and Dr Who (would be disappointing if I expected anything beyond mediocrity these days) but not Ashes to Ashes (might have a look on iplayer later if I can be arsed).
What a lot of parentheses. Now I shall go and make fish pie. See you in a few months, probably! | | comments: 6 Prods or Prod me |
| Last night I wasn't really sure what I wanted to eat, but I knew that a) I wanted something more interesting than my usual standbys and b) It was pissing it down with rain and so I didn't want to go out to the shops.
After wandering vaguely round the kitchen for a bit, I remembered that I had a packet of ras el hanout spice mix that I had yet to do anything with. This is a spice blend which i'd seen mentioned on one of the various food blogs I read, and so when I saw that sainsburys now sell it in little foil packages (I can't recall the name of the company that makes it) I had to grab some. It's gorgeous stuff, spicy and warm with hints of cinnamon and cumin and lavender, and dried rose petals in with the mix. Apparently the name means 'top of the shop' and it's supposed to be the means by which a moroccan spice shop would impress you with the best of all thier produce.
So what to do with this now that I fancied using it? I hadn't had rice for a while, so I went with that as a starting point. A lot of recipes online involve lamb, but I don't have any in at the moment and certainly not defrosted. I definately want to try it rubbed over a slow roasted lamb joint at some point though. The next option would be fish, I think it would work brilliantly with salmon, but none of that either and the rain was making a hell of a noise. So I rummaged in the cupboard and decided that chick peas are in vaguely the right direction for the type of cuisine the spice is normally used with.
A little more rummaging in the fridge came up with some nice sweet organic carrots, half an aubergine, and some slightly sad looking bok choi. Right then. I chopped up the carrots and aubergine, dosed them liberally with olive oil and put them in the oven to roast. After ignoring them for a while, I put the rice on to boil with a generous tablespoon of the spice mix. In hindsight, I probably overdid it a bit with the rice, more of that later.
When the rice was cooked, all fragrant and tinged slightly brown by the spices, I added the chick peas from the tin, and gave it a few minutes to warm through. Then I threw in the bok choi, letting it wilt in the heat of the rice. Finally I added the roasted vegetables, stirring it all through.
The result was a qualified success. The spices were as delicious as they'd smelled, enfusing the whole dish. I was surprised by how much heat there was in the mix, it was actually fairly spicy, probably a fair bit of cayenne in there. But something was missing, there was nothing to contrast with the fairly uniform flavour. I mused that perhaps some yoghurt might hit the spot, except that I didn't have any. Didn't stop me eating a fair bit of it though.
So, about those quantities. Yeah, I often make too much. This time I ate my fill, and had a whole large bowlful remaining, which duly went in the fridge for today. But then this evening, walking home, I had an inspiration.
I grabbed the pointed leaf cabbage lurking in the bottom of the fridge, freed up all the leaves and blanched them in some boiling water until they were soft and pliable. Then I put a tablespoon of the rice mixture in each one, rolling it up into a little parcel and put it in a baking dish. When i'd used up all of the cabbage (it was a small one, but there were about 10-12 leaves) I topped them all with a packet of chopped tomatoes, seasoned with some salt and pepper. This went in the oven for about an hour, hour and a half.
Now *that* is what I was looking for. The addition of cabbage and the tomato sauce took it into the realms of the sublime, without compromising any of the subtlety of the spices. And what with the chick peas and all the veg, it's a pretty healthy meal. That's definately one for the book.
Oh, and there's still half a bowl of the rice mixture in the fridge, and a fair few stuffed leaves.... | | comments: 4 Prods or Prod me |
| A friend of a friend has a ticket for the press night performance of Waiting for Godot (with Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen) on 30 April in Row B, but now can't attend. She paid £95 for the ticket and would like to get that back if possible.
Anyone interested? | | comments: 4 Prods or Prod me |
| Sorry to those for whom this is of no interest.
For those of or formerly of or vaguely connected with afp - AFPCamp 2009 is a go! Venue will be the Hollybush Inn Campsite near Hay on Wye (where all the bookshops are) over the August bank holiday weekend.
For more info go look at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) dw_augbh_2009 | | comments: Prod me |
| I gave in to curiosity and signed up to twitter. Odds are I will not post any tweets myself, so I would not advise 'following' me.
However if you post content there that does not tend to get to LJ (bearing in mind I often ignore LoudTweets) let me know and I will consider adding you. Please note I want to keep my list short so I can not promise to follow anyone, and please do not take it personally if I don't. I know there are a couple of people though who find it easier to do twitter than LJ, or use it for different things, so it is you I am addressing. | | comments: 5 Prods or Prod me |
| Someone on my friends list had a handy code for a box from www.graze.com so I decided to give it a go. In the interest of science i've documented it below!
So, what did I get in my box? I don't like dried fruit so on the website I crossed off all the options that included any. That still left me with 40 or so possibilities of what I might get. They divide it into 3 sections; one fresh fruit and the other two various dry items.
Section 1:
3 pieces of fresh pinapple
The full length of a smallish pineapple, about an inch wide, perfectly ripe and very fresh tasting. I'm not keen on pineapple that's been cut and then left to sit for a few hours and get slightly manky so I was impressed.
Section 2:
6 brazil nuts
4 giant dark chocolate buttons
4 giant milk chocolate buttons
What it says on the tin. The dark chocolate is *very* dark and very nice. The milk isn't quite so impressive, but still decent enough.
Section 3:
14 crunchy honey coated hazelnuts
I've never had these before. Yum!
So, conclusions?
A delicious treat, possibly a little indulgent to get on a weekly basis! For the £1 I paid with the voucher, it was a good deal. Not quite such good value were I paying the full price, £3. While it includes postage so is justifiable, it's still expensive for what you get, certainly too much to pay regularly.
They did however give me a code to give to other people so they can try the boxes for £1. Note my vested interest here - for everyone who tries it out, I get a box for £2. While £1 is good value, and £3 is rather dear, i'd say £2 is about right for what you get. You can cancel it after the first cheap box and never get another, which is what I might still possibly do.
Anyway, if you want to try it out, here's the code: RPNH8QV | | comments: Prod me |
| This evening, I made French Onion Soup for me and hobnobs. I have not attempted this before.
Ingredients - 8 red onions, a large glass of red wine, vegetable stock. I cooked those onions for a good hour and a half, until they were all gooey and caremalised.
Also some crusty rolls cut into slices, sizzled under the grill with grated mature cheddar cheese, and popped on top of the soup.
Mmmmmmm... well, there's no soup left now. Yup, that's one to add to the list!
What did you lot have for dinner? | | comments: 14 Prods or Prod me |
| ...and I haven't yet posted anything here. Most remiss.
Happy new year everyone, I hope you all had good ones. As people who read hobnobs's LJ will know, I was away for New Year, somewhere nice and warm. We saw in the new year on a deserted beach looking out over the harbour, with amazing fireworks for at least 30 minutes from the town behind us and one particularly impressive display from a boat docked just offshore.
The holiday overall was nice, very relaxing. It was very odd to hear reports of sub zero temperatures in the UK having come back to the hotel from spending the day reading a book on the beach under a sun umbrella.
My sister and my Australian family received the package of chocolate brownies which I had delivered for them, and sent me a lovely email to say thank you. Thanks mondyboy for helping out with that.
Almost as soon as I got home it was back to work, and into busyness to prepare for a meeting/conference which we organised in Madrid. This being the case, I was in Madrid for most of last week. The meeting seemed to go very well. Unfortunately I didn't have much opportunity to see Madrid, but the hotel we stayed in was nice. It had the most spectacular breakfast I have ever seen - anything you can think of was there, including but not limited to: sushi, a dozen types of pressed/dried meats and sausages, croissants, pretty little multilayered mousses in shot glasses, a myriad of fruit, and a station where a nice lady would cook you any egg based food you should fancy. Unfortunately it was a little early in the morning for me to really take advantage of this, but I did force myself to eat some pancakes with chocolate syrup.
So what else have I been up to in the last month or so? I'm sure there are other things that i've forgotten about. I read several books while I was away, and several more since. I'm currently halfway through Titus Groan, the first Gormenghast book (it's actually a collected trilogy) which has been on my hypothetical 'to read' pile years and years. I've only just gotten around to it. I also recently read 'Never the Bride' by Paul Magrs, which had me laughing out loud several times. Lots of fun. I've got the sequel here in the actual 'to read' pile, along with some books by Mike Carey. Not read any of his before, but they've been recommended and sound like the sort of thing I like.
I also read 'Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire Curse' by Mags Halliday, Kelly Hale and Phil Pursar-Hallard. It's been a long time since i've read anything featuring Benny and it was a lovely book, all three novellas perfectly done. I have no idea which was my favourite of the three, since they were all different and all excellent. The book as a whole was nicely satisfying - it worked overall not just as three good stories that happened to be bound in one volume.
Oh, and I reread the first three 'Watch' books by Sergei Lukyanenko and the fourth and final one ('Final Watch') which I hadn't read before. These are brilliant, and I heartily recommend them if anyone hasn't read them yet. The film which was made based on the first two books is also very good, if rather different to the books. It's a nice case of a story being properly adapted to a filmic medium rather than trying to cram a complex book onto the screen and failing. This is actually acknowledged by the author in the final book, where the characters discuss some wierd dreams they had and muse on parallel universes! (a footnote refers the reader to the films). And no, they're not really books about vampires, despite what the film trailers and blurb for the first book might imply. Though there are vampires in the books.
I haven't been to the cinema much lately. Which is irritating, because there are lots and lots of films around at the moment that I want to see. That's always the trouble at this time of year, you get a big rush of pre-Oscar releases all at once. We did see Slumdog Millionaire yesterday though, which was brilliant. I'm going to try and get to the cinema again later in the week, though i'm away next weekend so won't get a chance then. Damn.
There's just not enough time in the day at the moment - i'm still watching the West Wing on DVD (and feeling a lot more optimistic about world politics now that there's a new American President) but we've hit the new US tv season so there's Lost and Battlestar Galactica to keep up with. New Lost tonight, hurrah! I know a lot of people gave up on it, but it's just the right kind of brain 'fast food' for me. I know it's cleverly designed addictive junk, but what the hell I enjoy it anyway.
You might think that with all these listing of books and films and tv i've been somewhat inactive. But I have attempted to counter this by purchasing a WiiFit balance board thing. They're quite hard to find at the moment I think but I picked it up when we were abroad over new year, and in fact got it even cheaper than the standard retail price over here. It's a shame the Euro/Sterling exchange rate was atrocious at the time, otherwise I would have got an even better deal. Anyway, i'm really enjoying it and have been remembering to have a go most evenings.
I've been doing yoga which I thought I would be awful at but i'm in fact really enjoying. It makes me feel all nice and stretched. And the other one i've been doing a lot of is the 'step' games, and the one where you can leave it counting the steps you do while you have something else on the screen: you can watch random stuff on tv while exercising! Makes you feel extremely virtuous. Apparently i'm not too far off my 'ideal weight' (to be dead on i'd need to lose about 7lb) but i'm more interested in improving my general fitness than losing weight.
There was one other thing I was going to write about here, what was it... oh yes, twitter. I'm intrigued by it and i've been reading the tweets of a few celebrities who write about the interesting things they've been doing. I'm thinking of signing up so I can keep track of these more easily. However I have to say that i'm not quite so fascinated by the tweets posted by my friends list - although you are all lovely people and I do enjoy reading LJ posts, i've found that most of the tweets posted to loudtwitter onto LJ are either contextless replies to other people or just not that interesting generally because I either hear from you regularly enough to *know* what you've been doing, or I don't know you well enough to understand the minutae of your daily life. So i've got into the habit of scanning my eyes over them or not clicking the cut tags. So no, if I did sign up for twitter I would not be passing it through to LJ, or possibly not even twittering much myself. But still, I am tempted to sign up. We'll see.
So, there you go. It's turned into a bit of an epic post, perhaps that will make up for not posting recently, and probably the fact that it will be a while before I post again! Hmm. Let me know if it's too long, and I will cut it. | | comments: 1 Prod or Prod me |
| My sister is in Australia at the moment, as part of her trip round the world. She's staying with family in Sydney this week, and I wanted to send them and her something. I've found a place to deliver nice things, but I think it might be easier for someone living over there to place the order?
Could I beg a favour of someone who wouldn't mind doing this and then me paying them back via paypal or some other such method? We're talking $50 AUS.
Thanks muchly! | | comments: 2 Prods or Prod me |
| Posted mainly so that I remember it for next time, because it smells *really* good. Also, as a distraction until it's ready!
1 butternut squash, halved and seeded, roast in the oven in a big dish for 45 mins with salt and pepper and olive oil
Meatballs. Consisting of: 1 pound lamb mince, 1 red onion (very) finely chopped, 3 cloves of garlic (chopped), ground cumin, paprika, salt and pepper and half a teaspoon of tamarind paste. Mixed, rolled into balls, fried until golden browny in some olive oil.
Meatballs taken out the frying pan and set aside, the following fried off in the oil left in the pan: 1 yellow pepper, 1 red onion, 1 carrot.
Butternut squash out the oven, peeled and roughly chopped. Mind your fingers it's hot.
All of the above added back into the big dish the squash was done in with a pinch of ground cinnamon. And a sprinkle of dried chopped garlic, just for the hell of it.
Pour some water into the frying pan the meatballs and veg were done in, with a bit of stock cube. Swirl around on the heat to get all the bits off and pour into the oven dish. Shove it all back in the oven for about half an hour.
Going to be served with some rice.
Of course, if it turns out not to be nice i'll have to add an edit to this. But I doubt it. | | comments: 1 Prod or Prod me |
| | Subject: | Brrrr | | Time: | 01:33 pm |
|
| There's pretty frost glistening on everything, at 1.30pm in the afternoon. You can't see the hills that are normally visible behind our little estate, but that's an improvement because up until a few hours ago (and all of yesterday) you couldn't see the rise behind the houses on the other side of the road because of the freezing fog. Met office tells me that the current temperature out there is 0 degrees C, and that there is heavy snow forecast on Tuesday night/Wednesday.
But because I am a glutton for somethingorother, and I actually *like* the crispness and coldness, especially being out in it and then coming back to somewhere warm and cosy, I have convinced housemate that this is perfect weather for an outing to the pub. Yes, honestly. So as soon as she has showered we shall go to the pub with the nice food and the open fire and the wonderful beer. It's only a ten minute walk, I think we can wrap up warm enough to survive that.
Last time I made a proper post I got a comment saying that it was the most someone had seen me write in... well, quite a while. I'm afraid i'm not very good at remembering to update, so when there's something crucial to write I may add a few sentences, but these rambling accounts of general life don't happen very often. To which most of my friends list probably respond 'phew' ;)
Be assured though, by the way, that I read everything everyone on my friends list writes, even though I may not always comment. You're on there because you're interesting to read. (and if you're not on there, it's not because I don't like you necessarily, you may just not write stuff that I want to read on a regular basis). I keep meaning to write down some thoughts on the nature of blogs and 'friends lists' and the different categories of people who are on there. Not today though.
So lets see, what have I been doing that I can write about? Last weekend we had guests to the house. One to stay Friday night, and one 'set' who came for lunch on Saturday. It was a lovely weekend, and made even better because everyone left on Saturday afternoon, which subsequently felt very much like Sunday afternoon so it was a brilliant feeling to realise no, there's still a whole day of weekend left! All day Sunday it felt like a bank holiday Monday.
That will probably happen this week too, because I have taken the day off tomorrow. It was going to be a half day, simply so that I could get home in plenty of time - I am being taken to see a football match on Monday night, and I am hoping that it will be lots of fun. However I have far too much annual leave time left to take from work, so I thought I may as well take the whole day. It looks like I might have to get a special extension past the end of our holiday year (which ends 31st Jan) because although I have three weeks of holiday left, not including stuff booked off over xmas, work want me to go to Madrid in the third week of January so I can't take the time off then. And I can't take time off at the beginning of Jan because a key colleague is going to New Zealand and booked it way in advance. I'm not too fussed really, as long as I get it off at some point. And I can carry one of those weeks over to next year anyway, which might be helpful because I can forsee time needed for various things next year.
What else... I can't remember if i've already mentioned here, but i've been watching The West Wing, which is quite as brilliant as everyone told me it was. I think i'm about half to three quarters of the way through the first season now, and enjoying it immensely.
I spent most of yesterday snuggled under a duvet reading the first volume of Absolute Sandman. I've had 2 and 3 for a while, but had difficulty getting hold of Volume 1. Now, Sandman is one of those things (along with The West Wing) on my list of 'I really must read/watch that, I know I will like it'. So I thought I might as well wait until I had the beautiful Absolute editions to read it (even though the first set of books are in the house).
I am glad I waited, and I am glad that I have now started reading it. The Absolutes are really gorgeous and a hugely tactile experience in their own right, with the leather cover and ribbon bookmark and nice heavy weight to it. And I really am enjoying the book(s) it/themselves, which although I suspected I would, I still had minor niggling doubts because I am not by nature a reader of comics. It's not that I think the medium is any less valid or anything of that nature, I just honestly find it harder to read and I don't think I necessarily take it in in the sense that the authors intended. I tend to read the words first, and then look at the pictures, and hence I suspect miss a lot of the subtlety of the amalgamated whole that it is meant to be. I have no idea why this is the case, probably just that I read *many* books and watch a lot of visual media and didn't really do comics growing up. So i'm used to either reading words and making my own pictures, or watching pictures and having it all fed directly to me - not something between the two.
Anyway, though the above is still true, Sandman is good enough that it doesn't matter and I am still very much enjoying it. The story is brilliant (I know some people think Gaiman is overrated, but his writing gets it dead 'right' in terms of 'things that I find enjoyable to read' so what everyone else thinks is immaterial) and the artwork is very attractive. I am looking forward to reading volumes 2 and 3, and not looking forward to the wait until the final volume is published.
This got rather long, even for me. And now I believe housemate is out of the shower, and so we will soon be heading pubwards. So I shall leave you there, until the next time I am in the mood for a random outpouring of thoughts! | | comments: 3 Prods or Prod me |
| Who says food porn can't be quick?
Leftover mashed potato, veggie sausages from the freezer, an onion, vegetable oil and gravy browning.
15 minutes later, a lovely plate of bangers and mash with onion gravy.
I'd have taken a picture, but i'm due back at work in ten minutes. Which is a shame really, because after that i'd rather sleep the afternoon away.... | | comments: 1 Prod or Prod me |
| For once i've actually been reasonably busy with things to write about.
Last weekend we had davidcook and rwrylsin visiting on thier final tour down the UK before heading back to Oz. On Sunday we went for a walk in the bright sunshine, up to White Nancy which is a local landmark. I've never actually been up there before, it's a decent walk but not too tough (took us just under an hour with lots of photo stops) and the views are fantastic.
On the way back we decided to take the 'scenic' route and followed some signposts that looked like the would lead us back home eventually. After tramping past some mysterious not-quite-ruins and through some incredibly boggy fields, we got back on an actual path/road just as the heavens opened. Thankfully not far down the road I looked down the hill and saw what looked like a familiar pub at the far end of the village. It was, and we charged down the hill and warmed up by their fire before heading to a different pub for food. It wasn't the pub we'd originally intended to have lunch in, because as noted we were at the other end of the village, but one thing that Bollington is not short of is nice pubs.
So, that was the weekend. On Wednesday, sessifet25 and I went out into Mancheser to see Neil Gaiman speak. It took us slightly longer than we'd expected to find Whitworth Hall, but we had plenty of time and it was a nice walk so that wasn't a problem, and it is a beautiful building when we finally got there. If I may use the phrase, there was a very impressive organ.
The reading was excellent, some very interesting questions were asked and answered, and as a bonus we got 'support bands' of Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm who were playing a gig nearby later that same evening, and who Neil had asked to come along to his event as well. Interestingly, Mr Gaiman does an excellent impression of Jonathan Ross. After the reading/questions there was a signing session, to sign books bought at the event. Neil was looking rather frazzled, and reading his blog the next day it appears he hadn't had much sleep the night before so it was fairly understandable.
I have a minor dilemma/annoyance in that the only copies of The Graveyard Book that they had for sale were the 'childrens' edition. While I do prefer the cover of the adult version, and would have bought that if they had it, I didn't think there was much other difference. However having looked in Waterstones yesterday, I realise that the illustrations are also different - the ones in the adult version are by Dave McKean and much more to my taste, though the childrens ones are also very nice. So, the issue is that I want to get the adult one. But I can't return the one I bought because it's now signed...
I'm not actually that bothered about keeping the signed book, because I treat signing sessions more as an opportunity to meet the author than to obtain a signed book (which then acts as a reminder of the day). That's why I won't ever ask someone to get a book signed for me, and i'm happy to get a single book signed for someone else. However my copy of The Graveyard Book is now signed to Naomi so unless there's a Neil Gaiman fan out there called Naomi who would like a signed book... Oh well. I may cave at some point and buy the adult edition anyway, though it seems silly to have two copies of the same book. The only book I have more than one copy of is Good Omens, because I have one to lend out to people, plus one to read, plus a proof copy just because.
Anyway, the next evening there was carving of pumpkins in preparation for halloween. I was fairly pleased with how my skeleton came out, even though I unfortunately snapped his arm off so that some structral engineering was needed with a carrot. Sessifet had never carved a pumpkin before, and she seemed to enjoy it immensely which added to the fun. I also baked some little shortbread biscuits and decorated them with spiderweb icing, to give to trick-or-treaters. We had a few, though not as many as we seemed to last year. I wonder if it was the cold, or the fact that it was a friday night, or some other reason?
There's a vague plan to go to the cinema this afternoon, and later on i'm meeting some folks in Manchester, for Japanese food. Mmm, sushi. This time next week i'll be in Glasgow for work, so don't expect to see my around much online from Saturday to Wednesday. Of course, that mainly applies to irc and MSN messenger, since updates here are sporadic anyway! | | comments: 2 Prods or Prod me |
| I have a friend wot wrote a book.*
A fair proportion of my flist may have already heard of said book, or read parts of it, but there's a large section who won't have a clue.
Therefore i'd recommend that you go and have a quick look, because in my opinion it is a very good book, which deserves to be more widely read. It's funny, and moving, and believe it or not actually true.
You can currently read the first few chapters here:
http://authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=2919
and due to the nature of the website, if you like the book (or have helpful comments) you can leave a comment or add it to your 'bookshelf' which will increase the rankings and hopefully get it looked at by publisher types.
Thus ends the pimping. I shall go and make soup.
*well, actually I have several friends wot wrote several books, and they are pretty much all worthy of pimpage to greater or lesser degrees but i'm referring to one particular one right now. | | comments: 1 Prod or Prod me |
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