Friday, February 5th, 2010
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9:20 pm - Corflu
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Thursday, February 4th, 2010
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3:24 pm - Books read 2010 - so far
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Sunday, January 31st, 2010
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6:19 pm - Any interest in Terry Jeeves Fanzines?
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I have here numerous issues of Terry Jeeves' fanzine Erg - all A5 format #98 and subsequent. The SF Foundation Collection now has a complete run, and Rob Hansen and the Fishlifters have also taken their pick, so these are surplus to archival requirements. Sample copies and a small box of more interesting stuff will be coming to Corflu, but the remainder are available free to anyone who wants them enough to arrange to get them from me before Corflu. Email me if you or any of your friends would like them.
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(comment on this)
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6:03 pm - Big Garden Birdwatch 2010
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This year from 8:15-9:15 Sunday morning. Very cold, hard frost overnight; bright, sunny, cold morning. Lots of birds flying around or over or sitting on trees in adjacent gardens: two blackbirds on nearby adjacent chimney pots, a pair of magpies flirting with each other, a crow, a robin which sat on a top twig for about 20 minutes with its breast glowing in the sun, pigeons, and numerous gulls.
But the official tally is one pair of blue tits and one (female) blackbird. The tits dropped in to the mirabelle plum tree in the first five minutes, and then moved on. They (or some other couple who looked just like them) came back to hang out in nearby trees for most of the next half hour, and finally came back into my garden to hang out in several trees and under the hedge for a good 20 minutes, so they gave good value. I didn't get a good look at the blackbird, who swooped in, perched very briefly on the top branch of the cherry and swooped off again, but I can't think of anything else that would have been that size and brownish and doing that kind of thing in my garden at this time of year, and although the blackbird couple who'd been flirting on the chimneys had moved on it was quite likely they were still somewhere close.
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(comment on this)
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Thursday, January 28th, 2010
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3:40 pm - I wonder what this makes my day?
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Namely, being called "young lady" in public by Lord Hunt of the Wirral, ex of Margaret Thatcher's and John Major's cabinets and currently Peter Mandelson's shadow in the House of Lords.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
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2:30 pm - Books read 2009 - list of titles (41 books)
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Sparkles - Louise Bagshawe - Novel Psychoshop - Alfred & Roger Bester & Zelazny - Novel Heart and Soul - Maeve Binchy - Novel Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner - Novel A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson - Non Fiction The Yiddish Policeman’s Union - Michael Chabon - Novel Cyteen - C.J. Cherryh - Novel Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang - Shorts Khaled - A Tale of Arabia - F. Marion Crawford - Novel Unweaving the Rainbow - Richard Dawkins - Non Fiction The Einstein Intersection - Samuel R. Delany - Novel Countdown for Cindy - Eloise Engle - Novel Bygone Ilford - Brian Evans - Non Fiction The Ear, the Eye and the Arm - Nancy Farmer - Children's Wit's End - Karen Joy Fowler - Novel Impossible Odds - Dick Francis - Novel Dead Heat - Dick with Felix Francis - Novel Kaspian Lost - Richard Grant - Novel The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford - Non Fiction Ill Met by Moonlight - Sarah A. Hoyt - Novel Finn Family Moomintroll & Comet in Moominland - Tove Jansson - Children's The Dying Process - Patients' Experiences of Palliative Care - Julia Lawton - Non Fiction Magic for Beginners - Kelly Link - Shorts Beechcombings - Richard Mabey - Non Fiction River of Gods - Ian McDonald - Novel Unshrink - Max & Philip McKeown & Whiteley - Non Fiction Diana Wynne Jones: Children's Literature and the Fantastic Tradition - Farah Mendlesohn - Non Fiction Waters Luminous and Deep - Meredith Ann Pierce - Shorts The Stone Dance of the Chameleon (trilogy) - Ricardo Pinto - Novel Nation - Terry Pratchett - Novel Going to a Concert - Lionel Salter - Non Fiction Anathem - Neal Stephenson - Novel More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon - Novel Farthing, Ha'penny and Half-a-Crown (trilogy) - Jo Walton - Novel Lifelode - Jo Walton - Novel This Age We're Living In - David Wilson - Novel
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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Friday, January 15th, 2010
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10:59 am - Not getting to go to Smofcon
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Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
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11:35 am - For the information of my friends...
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...this household is now up-to-date with David Tennant's reign as Dr Who, thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ffutures , to whom thanks for the four 2009 specials.
I fell asleep in the middle of Planet of the Dead; thought the Waters of Mars was a horror story, and not a very good one; and quite enjoyed the End of Time (probably helped by watching both episodes in one evening). Generally think that Russell T Davies reign does not bear close examination at all, though good fun is obviously had by most.
I suspect if M wasn't such an enthusiast B and I would have stopped bothering sometime during the third series. We would have missed some fun stuff, and lots of watercooler conversation, but we might have spent the time watching something better...
Like Secret Smile, starring Tennant as the creepy bloke, which is really good and recommended if you can get hold of it (we got it from the Netherlands). But don't look it up on the internet first - just watch it.
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(comment on this)
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Saturday, January 9th, 2010
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10:42 am - Contemporary uses for nostalgia...
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India Foxtrot Yankee Oscar Uniform Charlie Alpha November Uniform November Delta Echo Romeo Sierra Tango Alpha November Delta Tango Hotel India Sierra, Charlie Oscar Papa Yankee Alpha November Delta Papa Alpha Sierra Tango Echo India Tango India November Tango Oscar Yankee Oscar Uniform Romeo Lima India Victor Echo Juliet Oscar Uniform Romeo November Alpha Lima.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
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12:30 pm - Off to see Nation at the National Theatre
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This is our holiday theatre treat this year, tickets booked in November following recommendation by someone who had seen previews, and before the professional reviews appeared. The professional reviews have been poor, and I know have put some people off. There were reports of half-empty shows, and I speculate that worried National Theatre management might have arranged for Pratchett himself to write that positive article he wrote for the Daily Telegraph.
I expect that it will be enjoyable, spectacular and interesting. I also expect to find that I disagree with the reviews, though I don't yet know what the basis for that disagreement will turn out to be. The Lord of the Rings Stage Show was widely slated by mainstream reviewers that (in my-not-so-humble opinion, and with only one exception: take a bow, reviewer for the Daily Mail) completely missed the point of the show. When Pullman's Dark Materials were produced at the National reviews were respectful, but again missed many of the key points made by the story.
More about this afterwards, I hope. Now off for a snack lunch before the show.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Thursday, December 31st, 2009
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4:09 pm - Beechcombings: The Narratives of Trees by Richard Mabey (2007)
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Richard Mabey reflects on the history of our relationship with trees, as exemplified by the beech, and on what the trees themselves can tell us if we pay attention.
He covers a lot of ground: the story of the big storm of 1987 and its effect on the British landscape; the biology and ecology of woodland; the history of British attitudes to trees in general and the beech in particular; his experience of and feelings about owning a woodland; and an extensive consideration of the relationship of mankind with the trees we live among and think we own. It is fascinating, and wise, and leaves one hopeful that as we come to know ourselves better we may better manage our relationship with trees.
This is a curious and compelling mixture of history, natural history, memoir and philosophy that leaves me feeling I know more about trees, about the history of my own country, and many other incidental things than I did before. Strongly recommended.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
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4:38 pm - Meredith Ann Pierce - Waters Luminous and Deep (2004)
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A nice collection of eight fairy stories, all involving water in some way. Some of the stories were written when Pierce was still a child, and these she claims to have published unedited: the results are a credit to her child self, but might have been better left in her drawer. There is some nice writing here, but overall a bit derivative and fairly forgettable.
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(comment on this)
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Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
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5:22 am
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This website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/18/uk-carbon-emissions-data-local-authority
says that Redbridge, along with Waltham Forest and Hackney, has among the lowest per-capita emissions of all local authorities at 4.2 tonnes per head.
Which would induce a nice glow of virtue if it was anything to do with anything we are doing right. I suspect that a goodish proportion of the 201.1 tonnes per head attributed to the nearby City of London is emitted by the buildings in which many of the residents of these boroughs are employed.
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(comment on this)
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Saturday, December 12th, 2009
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8:44 pm - Scrabble triumph!
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In my first move I played "mangled" using the "e" to extend "van" to "vane". Score 73. Result (briefly) happiness.
current mood:  accomplished
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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2:50 pm - A Short Histtory of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson (2003)
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Bryson knows his limits, and doesn't even try to explain the theories, but puts what was going on in context so that a lot of sound information slips down painlessly, and very entertainingly. Recommended for anyone interested in the history of science who doesn't want to have to pay detailed attention (especially to vicarage who was questioning the utility of non-current non-fiction, since I can't imagine that anyone has found it necessary to update this yet).
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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1:53 am - That's all for now
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And quite enough too - 4,966 words according to Word.
I'm truly pissed off with the way posting to LJ by copy-and-paste screws up text formatting and spacing. But can't be arsed to fix it all.
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(comment on this)
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1:50 am - An autobigraphical note
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1:48 am - Some facts about publishing in the UK
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1:46 am - Considering the necessities of bookselling as we have known it
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1:43 am - Fifteen stories about the making and uses of stories, and one about bookselling
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