Keeping You Posted
Saturday February 24, 2007
- Stand up please Britiain’s Greatest Living author. No, not you Martin Amis. Can you sit down please. The Guardian last week referred to Martin Amis in an aside as Britain’s GLA, infuriating one reader to declare that she was prepared to emigrate if this was the case (or threaten suicide, depending on which report you read). The paper yesterday followed with a feature inviting a host of writers and critics to consider Amis and to suggest their own nominations. My own nomination? Stand up please Harold Pinter.
- My wife has discovered the website We Feel Fine. I really don’t know what to make of this one.
- The Millions note that the 2007 weblog awards do not include a category for book blogs. Leaving that omission aside – and I’m not one to knock other blogs, but… well, I found this year’s nominations a bit depressing.
- Today’s Independent is giving away a free copy of A Clockwork Orange in a new banned books season. After my excitement had died down (and after I had read the small print) I realised that the following books in the series are priced at £3.49 each. Anyway, a chance for me to read the novel as my only experience of it is the Kubrick film.
- I’ve noticed that, although I still buy at least two newspapers on a Saturday, I’m spending more time reading all of the book blogs that I frequent, although some of us often refer to the papers and The Guardian have a From the Blogs column (although they’re getting a little self-referential lately).
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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…
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