The Book Tower

I’ve had a lot of half-baked ideas for posts this weekend. They’ll slowly be appearing in this list as I get them out of my system.

• The result of the BBC’s Living Icons competition is announced next Saturday. There’s still time to vote for your choice, although you can only now choose from the final top three. So do you think the top British Cultural Icon should be David Attenborough, Paul McCartney, Morrissey or none of them? During an earlier stage in the competition I voted for Morrissey, but my final vote went to Sir Paul.
• Staying Beatley, I’ve been listening to the new album Love. I still say album you’ll notice, as opposed to CD. I imagine that George Martin probably still says LP. George Martin has put this all together, along with his equally urbane son Giles. It’s a bit of a curate’s egg, with some interesting remixes to some songs – Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds – and others – Strawberry Fields Forever – ruined. If John Lennon were alive today I can’t help thinking that he’d bluntly dismiss the whole thing as shit.
• My daughter appeared in a production of Oliver! this morning. I really enjoyed it, although I suspect the most fun was had by her drama teacher, who’d awarded himself the plum role of Fagin. There was no Bill Sikes in this version, which is the role I’d have gone for although nobody can top Oliver Reed. Talking of Reed, a friend of mine holds the distinction of once refusing to serve him when he worked behind a bar. Despite the protestations of don’t you know who I am?! he still held firm in his refusal and has dined out on the story for years. This was in the day when pubs closed for the afternoon and the legendary hellraiser had staggered in after last orders at three.
• Staying Dickensy, I am about halfway through A Tale Of Two Cities. Unfortunately I’m not enjoying this nearly enough as I thought I would. I can’t really put my finger on why, although I think it might have something to do with the book’s lack of memorable characters. Where are the Fagins and Sykes, the Micawbers and Heeps? It’s a different sort of Dickens to the one I’m used to, but I’ll save my final judgement until I’ve finished it.
• I’m also about halfway through The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G.W.Dahlquist. This is the novel that comes in ten weekly instalments and I’m predicting that I’ll receive the last part in about a week’s time. It’s an interesting concept, but I’ve found that I’m not really one for weekly chapters. I’ve been saving the parts up and I’m now racing through them. Call it an addictive personality, but once I think I’m going to like something I want it all in one go.
• Speaking of big fixes, I have a similar approach with Torchwood – the Doctor Who spin-off. I’ve been recording the series and watched three episodes last night in a huge indulgence of adult sci-fi. And it is very adult. My favourite episode so far is one that came over as a cross between The Blair Witch Project and the lesser known film Dog Soldiers with a smattering of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wolf Creek. Okay, so they borrowed from every decent horror film in the last thirty years but they did it well. This episode involved a series of disappearences and some gruesome murders. What I liked was the final twist: it wasn’t some alien force that was killing and eating the poor unfortunate victims. Which is what you might expect from Torchwood. It was just a group of very ordinary villagers doing it. Which is just so much more frightening.
• Finally (times’s getting on, I’m on my own tonight and I’ve another Torchwood to watch) , Jack Pickard was kind enough to indulge in my Eight Questions About Blogging meme. It’s always very humbling when somebody takes the time to respond to a post in great detail, and I especially appreciate his wisdom here:

Talk about anything you like. Remember that it’s your site and you can talk about whatever you want — don’t feel you need to pigeonhole yourself into “an accessibility blog”, “a diary blog”, “a book blog” or so on. As I’ve very much discovered from this site, talk about whatever is on your mind. If a reader doesn’t like it, they don’t have to read it.

• Exactly. I often worry too much about what I’m writing about, who’s reading and what they’re thinking. When I should just be happily tapping away.
• I like the bullet point approach.