December 13th 2004 - December 19th 2004
Sunday Squashed
Saturday Snow job
Friday Opaque
Thursday Barking
Wednesday Polly
Tuesday Now booking
Monday Phlegm
Sunday 19th December 2004
Saturday 18th December 2004
Jape of the Season
Grab someone by the arm, look them in the eye and tell them: There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas
Friday 17th December 2004
I have, over time, come to regret the spring moment when, stepping out in rare daylight, I looked up to see somebody washing my neighbour's windows and called out, in a moment of madness, "You might wanna do mine when you've finished those!"
My first regret was the cost. Five pounds for two windows? I don't think so, even with ladders involved. I knocked him down to three quid, for which he also undertakes to wave his arms vaguely in the direction of my other glazing, but which he feels entitles him to get me to refill his bucket with "hot as you can get it" water.
The other problem, and this I should really have foreseen, is that his (irregular) schedule is completely at odds with mine. So once every two, three or whatever weeks, I'm woken by a wet thump and a shadow at the window - my cue to rouse myself enough to struggle into a dressing gown, run the hot tap, find three pounds and wait for him to rattle my letter-box.
Trying to engage me in light-hearted conversation when I'm peering, slitty-eyed, through a hungover haze and just want to get back to bed, is, I grant you, not easy. But yesterday marked a new low, as I opened the door to be greeted, I kid you not, with:
"Life! Pension, holidays, work. Leisure time. Drinking, family, responsibility. Eh?"
I grunted and made a grab for his bucket.
Thursday 16th December 2004
It's the dog I feel sorry for.
Wednesday 15th December 2004
Tomas grew up hearing "Polly put the kettle on" as "Polly put the catalogue": it was that sort of house.
Oh right, that sort of house.
Tuesday 14th December 2004
Another year, another avalanche of book-selections. The books I found noteworthy this year were:
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Barely literate nonsense for people who don't generally read books. It's now outselling the Bible. Go figure.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Much-touted as 'a word-of-mouth' success, all too often a sign that the publisher is desperate. Gothic complications in post-war Barcelona. Reads like Umberto Eco with a hangover. I could barely finish it.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Another over-discussed, under-reviewed tome by a woman who seems to have a lot of well-positioned friends. A simplistic fiction set in an C18th Europe where magic never died, this was mildly enjoyable but way too long. 'Harry Potter for adults'? Hardly.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Much as I've admired previous novels by David Mitchell, this one didn't do it for me, despite being shortlisted for the Booker. The author is so keen to break out of the straitjacket of conventional narrative that he forgets to include a plot. The sudden swerves from genre to genre prove unsettling rather than exciting. Much more fun to write than to read, I imagine.
Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
A welcome Booker win for a this gay writer, and good copy for bien pensant reviewers eager to show that bum-burgling is no barrier to success. But now that Hollinghurst's favoured milieu has lost its controversy, it all seems rather tame. (Black boyfriend! The horror!) Enjoyable enough, but nothing special.
The Master by Colm ToÍbÍn
A deftly calculated novel about the interior life of Henry James. In the book, as perhaps in the life, James's homophilia ticks away like an unexpected bomb. Bitter-sweet and beautifully done.
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Although the plot of Levy's quietly courageous novel sounds dangerously like something you'd find in a sociology handbook, her compassionate examination of the intertwined lives of white residents and black immigrants in war-time London reveals a very relevant message about common humanity. And the final plot twist is so deftly hidden that it had me leafing backwards through the book to make sure it was there.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The highly enjoyable story of several generations of Greek-Americans, wryly recited from the late-life perspective of a transexual professor living in Berlin. A big book, very readable.
The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill
Life is hard when you're a minotaur, especially if you earn your living as a short-order cook and live in a trailer park, tinkering with your car and polishing your horns. But even after 5,000 years, there are still lessons to be learnt about the human heart, and how it breaks.
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
Witty, mordant historical drama with a cast of characters that mixes Sir Isaac Newton with pirates, vagabonds, escaped slaves, and myriad princesses, all enmeshed in a complex fast-moving plot that carries the commentary across every known sphere of human thought. Wonderful.
Monday 13th December 2004
Quelquefois je me demande si je ne devrais pas adopter l'attitude antisociale de ces jeunes Japonais - les hikikomori, découverts chez le carnet anglais très drôle et flégmatiquement british Blogadoon.
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