It's Been a Long and Tiring Week...
Saturday February 10, 2007
Another selection of random witterings to get you through the weekend…
- My books read pile became slightly higher and my books to read became slightly shorter the other night when I settled down to start Snow by Orhan Pamuk. The snow falling on Kars is described brilliantly in the opening chapter. And guess what I saw when I looked out of the window on Thursday morning?
- I fancy a little calendar on my blog. I also fancy those snap previews that appear when you hover over a link in a blogroll. Where do I get them? Wordpress, it seems. Most of my blogging pals use Wordpress, and I’ve noticed a huge migration recently with people abandoning Blogger. Shucks, I feel a little lonely here with Textpattern. It’s like I’ve picked the Betamax of blogging platforms.
- Spamming and hacking. Do any other two words send such a shudder through you? I’ve been a victim of both recently, and the hackers managed to infiltrate this and another website I work on. Luckily I caught them in time. As for the spammers, I think I’ve reduced the problem significantly, although I shall keep my methods under my hat. All thanks to a couple of Textpattern plug-ins. So you see? I really can’t make up my mind.
- Based on Writers’ Rooms in the Saturday Guardian, where a different writer talks about their office every week to the accompanying photo (always – significantly – minus the author in question), I’ve come up with bloggers’ rooms.
Bloggers’ Rooms…
This is where it all happens for me. I wouldn’t describe it as a purposeful disorder (like A.S. Byatt does of her room in The Guardian today), it’s just bog standard disorder. Although it’s cluttered, there’s only a few things I need really. Laptop, obviously, and supply of beverage (huge tea mug) and words (huge Chambers dictionary). Everything else just happens to be lying around (roll of sellotape, a balloon, what looks like a gun far left). Unlike Byatt, these objects are not metaphors of my mind, just metaphors of my untidy house.
It’s all gradually become “my corner”. I used to have the attic room for my office but it was too far away from the kitchen and you can’t hear the phone up there. In the summer it’s too hot and in the winter the wind can scare the pants off you. So I slowly moved in on my wife’s office, and use it when she isn’t.
It’s good sometimes to just shut the door behind you, which is a requirement these days anyway. See those white curtains? If the cats are caught climbing up and down them I’m a dead man.
We live on a hill so there’s great views from the window on a clear day. Is this room any untidier than any average writer or blogger’s room? I wouldn’t have thought so. Behind the desk, on the other side of the room, sits the music. I’m back in the hotseat now, listening to The Flaming Lips and writing this…
congratulations on what looks like a very tidy room. I have to tiptoe through piles of rubbish to get anywhere near a keyboard so I think you’re room is pretty tidy. But amazed that you haven’t had a cat knocks huge mug off dictionary all over laptop type incident yet.
simon 10 February, 09:21 PM
Your desk looks pretty neat to me! I “organize” by piling everything up on my desk and going through the clutter now and then and throwing things out that are of no use to me anymore. I figure there’s no point in filing most things or putting things away—they are useful for a while and then they’re not, at which point I throw them out.
Dorothy W. 10 February, 09:57 PM
I actually had to clear a lot of clutter to one side to prepare for this photo shoot.
The cats are most interested in jumping up and sitting on the keyboard, which is an effective attention seeking device.
Stephen 11 February, 09:55 AM
That’s an excellent chair!
I’m on Wordpress, and I find it delightful. It’s a breeze to use, and will probably help with your spam problem.
I hope you enjoy Snow, and I very much look forward to reading your reaction to it.
Ted 11 February, 10:34 PM
Yes I think I beat A.S. Byatt hands down on groovy chairs!
Stephen 12 February, 09:38 AM
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