Some more stuff (and in multicolour too!)

1) Cecilia Bartoli is a f**king amazing singer
2) So is Barbara Bonney
3) So is Andreas Scholl
4) So is Emma Kirkby
(5) Yes, I have been listening to a lot of baroque arias recently)
6) Watching a snail eat is actually quite disgusting
7) The Historian is a really shit book. I feel utterly unable to bring myself to attempt to finish it
8) I'm with Stupid is actually, surprisingly (and other adverbs), quite funny
9) Bouncing cheques really are not funny
10) My socks are still acquiring holes at a ridiculous rate, so much so that I'm beginning to think there's a curse on them.....
11) Trying to buy jeans when you're long-legged and skinny is not a simple task. Oh no indeed. Buying exciting liqueurs is also not a simple task, but only because at Vom Fass there's so many to choose from, and alas only finite resources with which to buy them. I settled on chocolate, but I think I should have had the peach.....

Next week I will be:
1) Working (Monday and Tuesday)
2) Drinking (mainly Tuesday night, my leaving do)
3) Getting a pedicure (Wednesday) - *excitement!*
4) Getting my hair cut again (Thursday)
5) Pinching a lot of music (ongoing) *shifty look*
6) Going to the theatre! Wow. Shakespeare (Julius Caeser), naturally, since I live so near the RSC :D
7) Packing (ongoing). Moving! Woo and argh together.

For kicks, I pinched this off Hane and did it:

1.One book that changed your life? Con Brio by Brina Svit. It opened my mind to the possibilities of literature. I learned a whole new way of writing from reading Svit’s prose – the subtlety, the manipulation of time, the gradual exposure and clarification of characters, the small but pervasive ideas…it taught me a lot.

2. One book you have read more than once? Most of the books I have read. To name one, Spellbinder by Stephen Bowkett has some of the most real and physical prose I have ever encountered, with a glorious plotline and a host of vivid characters. If I can ever write something that good I shall die happy.

3. One book you would want on a desert island? The Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the Henry-Louis De La Grange biography of Mahler, in all its 4 enormous volumes J

4. One book that made you laugh? Spike Milligan’s autobiographies (the many volumes thereof), though they inspired many more emotions that just humour!

5. One book that made you cry? His Dark Materials left me utterly shaken and exceedingly emotional. Pullman is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful and engaging writers I have ever had the fortune to read. Also The Courage Consort, which is an unexpectedly poignant novella.

6. One book you wish had been written? A bloody dictionary for Sumerian would be a great help to me next year…..

7. One book you wish had never been written? All those billions of books where the girl finds her perfect partner after long searching and they live happily ever after, because the world is like that my arse. It puts too much pressure on people, gives unrealistic expectations and limits our acceptance that every relationship requires some compromise

8. One book you are currently reading? Sharpe’s Sword, The Three Musketeers, The Historian (crap, don’t buy it) and Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel. Of the four, the second and fourth are probably the best if we’re talking literature, but I’m enjoying the Sharpe most. Very, very well written.

9. One book you have been meaning to read? Ach, so many. Fiction and non, religious, philosophy, humour, action etc ad inf. To name but one, Puckoon by the inimitable Spike Milligan has long been on my list.

10. One book which disappointed you? Countless books have fallen short of the mark, but then I am notoriously difficult to please. Most recently The Historian has really irritated me. It has a decent plotline and yet is so badly written I haven’t been able to finish it in over a month. Not good at all. Other more famous works include Harry Potter which is singularly clunky and unoriginal, The Crimson Petal and the White, The Colour of a Dog Running Away (I felt most aggrieved by that particular disappointment since the book started so promisingly!), most books by Ben Elton and Peter Pan.

11. One book which exceeded your expectations? I have to agree with Hane and say Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Also The Count of Monte Cristo was a most pleasant surprise. I had no idea that a book that old and that thick would be quite so readable, but I’d finished it in but a few days! A rare treat.