The next lot of Dr Who books read this year - Part 4

And here we go again.  Part 4 of a series of posts.  Wonder how many more I’ll get through on this series, this year?  You’ll see, below, that this was a very mixed bunch indeed, this latest lot.  Some I loved (Paul Leonard’s Venusian Lullaby); and some I’m amazed I got through (Eric Saward’s The Twin Dilemma). Strangely, the strength of the plot has nothing to do with whether I am enjoying these – some of them have very slight plots but are written and characterised so appealingly I am happy and sail through.  Others…I really enjoyed The Twin Dilemma as an intro to the 6^th Dr on TV (unlike lots of other people!)…but the book.  I think it may be the most unhappy (though hopefully not unkind) review I’ve ever given to a book I didn’t actually rip up.  (Yes:  I once ripped up a book.  It was so full of hate and nastiness I felt that no one else should be subjected to my copy, at least; so I tore it up to rid myself of the bad feelings it had provoked…It was a very nasty thriller I read some years ago – nowadays we’d call it torture-porn, but we didn’t have that term back in the late 80s!  So.  Not a habitual destroyer of books: each to their own in reading, I say.)

As always: SPOILERS ON ALL BOOKS VERY LIKELY!!!!

And a note on order.  Target Originals are not read in order of publication, but in order of each Doctor.  And I jump about in terms of which Doctor I read at any given time.  But each Doctor’s individual stories will be read in order of broadcasting on TV.  The Virgin New Adventures for Sylvester will be read in order; as will the BBC 8^th Doctor series (as though they had been on TV, see?  I’m trying to get an arc flavour).  The BBC Past Doctors series and the Virgin Missing Adventures are simply read in terms of which one I fancy next, as they are stand alone adventures slotting in-between the TV ones.

1. Doctor Who: Earthshock, by Ian Marter (Target Original)
   (5^th Dr.  I just didn’t get into this one.  It felt very bitty, and unconnected and none of the characters felt particularly real, even the Doctor.  The Beryl Reid character swaggered and behaved like a stereotypical boar through the book.  Nyssa felt unnecessarily excluded from the main action, Tegan behaved like a stereotype of herself [‘a mouth on legs’], and Adric dying seemed like something of an afterthought – though it was the most affecting moment in the whole story on TV. Hmmm…Not sure what went wrong here?  Maybe its me, and I just wasn’t in the right mood for this one – though I am finding the 5^th Dr adventures way more readable than they ever were watchable – but here’s an exception. ACTUAL BOOK.)
2. Doctor Who: Edge of Destruction, by Nigel Robinson (Target Original)
   (1^st Dr.  This one watched very well but didn’t read so well.  I wasn’t absorbed.  The jarring nature of the hysteria and paranoia seems to have been more visual in this story than I realised.  I also found the denouement rather contrived: all because of a stuck button, The TARDIS spent the entire book trying to tell them what was wrong with the ship by means of poltergeist phenomena and electric shocks [eh?]; possession – for example some silly episodes with scissors that did the plot no good and were red herrings of the most irritating kind[really truly ehh??!!].  All a bit silly.  There could have been a much better reason, and the way the TARDIS chose to communicate – and how on earth it managed it could have been way better explained.  More believably.  Liking Barbara’s role in this one though: like the idea that she saw a narrative and followed that, where pure science, being emotionless, was unable to see the links.  That was a nice touch, thought provoking.)
3. Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma, by Eric Saward (Target Original)
   (6^th Dr.  Good God, this one almost derailed my marathon entirely.  TURGID is not the word.  At first I thought the writing was quirky, but then…in too many places it is perfectly serviceable before slipping into some truly strange narratorial choices.  He found it impossible to stick to the point, whatever it was at the time.  Not in the adorable manner of Lawrence Sterne either.  Just as if he wanted to focalise every random character that was mentioned in passing.  And some that weren’t random characters really.  At one point, by example, a cat watched some other characters leave a scene.  We then get treated to a description of what the cat knew.  We focalise a cat that is never seen in the story again, for 3 pages, for absolutely no reason.  I am amazed this story got told at all, what little there was of it, because the author’s inability to keep himself interested in it long enough to tell us, was obvious.  Painful reading; except the bits that were good – which is why I’m so irritated with the rest of it!  ACTUAL BOOK.)
4. Doctor Who: Blue Box, by Kate Orman (BBC Past Doctors Series)
   (6^th Dr.  This one was a problem.  It started very well, then made a fatal error – an error I am noticing in several of these after show independent tie-in books.  Whilst the presentation of the Dr and whichever companion are usually finely and perfectly played, the surrounding story often feels like a crowbar.  Either something to do with its setting – there really is too much America in the modern books, the joy of the Dr in many ways is that he is a galaxy wide traveller, but that like any ‘homegrown’ hero, he keeps mysteriously popping up most in his country of authorial ‘origin’.  He’s more parochial than we like to think.  Even the faraway planets bear odd resemblances to England in their bureaucracies etc.  Anyway, the point here, is that the story was a good one (about the birth of the internet age and hacking), but Kate Orman was determined it be partially a ‘road movie’.  There was so much driving about and crashing in motels and popping outside for a smoke for some exposition that I got very very very bored and wandered off.  I think I read maybe 13 other books before I summoned the sudden interest to come back to this one. 
   
   Thing is, I like Kate Orman’s style, I think she’s a really good writer.  I like the way she painted Peri and Colin Baker.  I liked, for the most part, the subsidiary characters, especially Luis and Mondy; though Swan was so psychotic as to be something of a mystery.  But though the plot was grand, all that driving about and going from one place to another reminded me of something Stanley is always saying about the older Dr TV stories – the 8 parters.  That the middle episodes are usually lots of pointless and irritating running about.  This was the problem here.  Like in The West Wing when they parade about having urgent conversations while walking purposefully, because it’s more dramatic than people endlessly having conversations in little rooms, sitting still.  The story was great, but I felt like I could have edited it to a smaller novella and it would have been tighter and much easier to read, a feckload snappier.)
5. Doctor Who: Venusian Lullaby, by Paul Leonard (Virgin Missing Adventures Series)
   (1^st Dr.  Eat, Remember.  This is a bit of an unforgettable read.  Rarely have I read a world so well constructed, so fully alien.  I had trouble visualizing and following the characters in places because the names, customs and action, to a degree, were all so completely different to here.  It wasn’t the fault of the author that I got lost here and there, as I was following the gist and was very tired.  I think I must really like this author: this is the 2^nd Who of his I have read and it had similar themes to the last [though a happier conclusion]: a very civilized race at the end of their expectancy; their planet is dying.  What to do?  Accept? Fight and try to leave?  And if someone comes miraculously offering rescue, are they to be trusted?  There was plenty of heroism in this, and plenty of intrigue, suspense and action.  Much thoughtfulness.  Ian and Barbara prove their mettle.  William Hartnell is urbane and effective.  I enjoyed it immensely and would read it again. 10/10. ACTUAL BOOK. )
6.  Doctor Who: Tip of the Tongue, by Patrick Ness (Dr Who 50^th Anniversary e-short story series, BBC)
   (5^th Dr.  For a tiny thing, this wasn’t bad at all.  Took me about 45 mins to read with interruptions, and I enjoyed it, though it was a bit childlike, and Nyssa was slightly not herself in places.  Characterisation of Peter Davison was strong, though.  I liked the US setting [for once!] and its strong evocation of a small town during WW2. The poverty and racial tensions were quickly painted but well done.  The Truth Tellers were a strangely memorable idea and my image of them in my head is sinister, where the story was not.  The points about slavery and freedom were nicely done: not in your face and preachy, just told in the story itself, subtle.  The best way to get people to think on something.  ON KINDLE.)
7.  Doctor Who: The Doomsday Weapon, by Malcolm Hulke (Target Original)
   (3^rd Dr.  I thought I might find this one boring, a mining planet, Jo and Pertwee start arguing with colonists – its all about mining: again!  And yet I didn’t.  I got right into the ins and outs of the colony’s viability, their conflict with IMC, the large mining company.  The lovely portrait of Dent as amoral and utterly loyal to his paypacket and his little house and his IMC chosen wife.  I loved the line he came out with about how you could always trust people who were unscrupulous and ambitious; as of course, you can’t – but he meant they would be predictable, so you know where you are with them, and know to have eyes in the back of your head.  The moral repurcussions of the mining company trying to clear out the colonists from the planet by means of deception and violence were well explored. 
   
   I liked Jo’s proactiveness here; she disappeared for almost the first third of the story, but reappeared later, escaping, being recaptured, but generally not being fatalistic and trying to help.  Bit inspirational, in a funny way.  The Master felt crowbarred into this story, not entirely sure why he was there, what his real input to the story was, though his search for the Doomsday Weapon of the title was in character enough. This aired as Colony in Space – Stanley tells me that stories ending in ‘In Space’ are often regarded as the crappest, by officionados; I disagree, I liked this one. ACTUAL BOOK.)
8.  Doctor Who: Timewyrm Revelation, by Paul Cornell (Virgin New Adventures Series)
   (7^th Dr. Have to say I am pleased to see the back of the Timewyrm.  I didn’t like her as a character right from the first book; and I STILL say it was both courageous and bloody stupid to start the New Adventures Series with a set of 4 books all based around the same character…when there’s such a risk this character be found flat and boring as feck.  Saying that, this book was a good send off for her, and a strange book altogether.  I liked it a lot; and I also found it very self indulgent and rambling.  The beginning and end were very tight, and the middle rollocked all over the place in a very irritating and gambolling kind of way.  It was a fever dream of a book.  Rich in imagination and vivid imagery, it suffered though from two main flaws, in my reading. 
   
   First, the characterisation of Pertwee [who pops up at first in an artist’s smock, really?!]  is not believable – apart from saying ‘old chap’ a lot, a simple verbal tic, he  didn’t sound like himself, the sorts of things he would say.  And the cameo by Tom Baker – if I hadn’t have been told it was him, I would never have guessed – as one of the most recognisable Doctors…this is a problem.  And second, the book had a failing that is very current indeed, very timely: it was far too epic in tone.  I see why it was, what with being set in the Doctor’s head, a massive landscape.  But it felt like an ambitious action fantasy film with an addiction to that irritating one size fits all operatic theme music we get treated to so much these days in cinema.  There was too much angst, too much shouting, too much near death – the stakes were too high, too often!  A failing of pace, or tone??  Not sure. 
   
   I really did enjoy this book, I hasten to add – I finished it in 2 days flat, and I flowed along with the stream of consciousness changes of scenes, the dead-not-dead-oh-dead-again-ness of Ace and then Sylvester…and it ended very nicely indeed.  There were some marvellous subsidiary characters: I really liked Emily and Peter Hutchings, and Emily’s link with Saul [the vibe between Emily and Saul was a sort of non-sexualized hark back to The Witching Hour and Lasher, by Anne Rice: the disembodied spirit; except this one was friendly and had a stronger link to the vicar than anyone else, but the echo of Anne Rice was there, and it’s a nice concept, I liked it].  I enjoyed the little loose ends all being tidied away at the end; this gave me satisfaction.  Not sure how to conclude – loved it; and found it irritating – almost in equal measure.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

And there you go, for this instalment.  Who knows which ones I’ll read next?  There’s likely to be more 1^st Dr coming, as I am enjoying William Hartnell a lot.  I’m wondering how the New Adventures and BBC 8^th Doctor series can carry on as long as they did…because you can’t truly, subject your main characters – especially the companions – to such anguish and torture and betrayal (etc etc etc) as these 2 series do, every book, without it all becoming rather desensitizing.  I’m interested to see how they go on.  For the first time, I find myself wondering about these 2 series in particular…whether I’ll actually be able to get through them all.  As the BBC Past Doctor series and the Virgin Missing Adventures, being more stand alone adventures, and jumping about more…they feel more self contained and any massive trauma inflicted in them: for instance, in Mark Morris’s Deep Blue, when the 5^th Dr and most of the UK turn into horrible creatures; and despite the rather magic wand ending, you got the impression that a bit of amnesia and time passing would make the next adventure possible.  Whereas the 7^th Dr series and the 8^th Dr series – they flow on and on with not that much of a time gap between each one.  You start to feel like each of these 2 Doctors should perpetually suffer a thousand yard stare.  They should be traumatised.  As should Sam and Ace (and I’m told much worse awaits her in particular in the next few books). 

I’m not entirely convinced this level of emotional and physical trauma and  angst is the best or only way to go with these stories.  You don’t really want to finish every book you read wrung out and a bit sad, do you??  I don’t mean all the stories should tip into farce or slapstick either…just that the idea of more adult books for the Dr Who character doesn’t ONLY have to mean violence and war and betrayal for the characters – and on an epic galactic scale.  Smaller stories can pack just as much of a punch.  And I’m starting to want to see some of these too, in these ranges.

Let’s see what’s next, and where the authors take me…let’s see more science fiction and a slightly less heavy handed (over dramatic? sentimental? over emphasized?) tone when it comes to emotional matters, hard choices and the like. 

Just thinking aloud…

The BlackberryJuniper Philosophy of Birthdays

It’s my birthday soon.  I like birthdays.  None of this getting older, feeling miserable, what haven’t I achieved yet bollox for me.  Which is surprising I know, given my usual level of negativity!

But I think birthdays are brilliant.  You don’t have to have a party if you don’t want one – or any of the traditional trappings if you don’t like them.

No!  It’s International You Day.  For this one day (or any day close to it you can hold at least partially free for yourself if you have to work that day), you do things you like, for yourself.  With the company you would like, or none.

The idea is: it’s the one day a year that is entirely yours, entirely about you and how you would like it spent.  No one tells you how you’ll spend it, and if they do, you’ll calmly and quietly tell them you’ve already made plans if you don’t like their well-meaning idea.  (People often project onto others what they’d like for themselves, without realising; or else what you would have liked – but 5 or 10 years ago, your tastes having moved along now and them not having noticed.)  If they argue with you, they aren’t really respecting the International YOUness of the day.  They get to be bossy on their International THEM day, not yours.  See?

Obviously, you aren’t going to sabotage your own nice day with wishing things that can’t be so, like:

(a)   wanting to be with a partner, friend, or set of friends you don’t have any more

(b)   wanting it to be a replica of an occasion in the past: stupid and impossible and doomed to disappointment, sadly

(c)   wanting to do something you really truly can’t afford, or could – but only if you go into quite a bit of debt (e.g. I want to go shopping for the day in New York!  I want to go to Dublin and drink in a special pub I saw in a film/ read in a novel!  I want to go on the Orient Express!  Go to Russia to see the Bolshoi Ballet in situ!)

Etc etc etc.  Whoa there, horsey!  Calm down!

For the day to work nicely and feel satisfying, you have to balance something you’d like to do, the company (or not) to do it with, and a reasonable budget.  Some years I was not well off, and my treat, because I am fortunate enough to have a mid (proper) summer birthday, was to go and have a picnic in Hyde Park/ Kensington Gardens with aka Laughing Girl, Troubadour and Fry.  This was such a cool treat I ended up doing it about 4 years in a row.  Not too expensive: some food made, some bought.  And no expectation that each year would “be as good as last year”.  Just the same location because it was a nice sunny grassy warm place, good for people watching and not too noisy. 

Fry was young at this time, so each year was different for this reason alone – he was a totally different little person each time, and I could more readily see the development and differences because of being in the same place each year, for just this one occasion.  Likewise, my relationships with Troubadour and Laughing Girl changed and flowed, so the conversations were never the same twice.  Or the weather – one year we got rained off just as we had lovingly set out all the little dishes of bits and pieces to admire them; that was both funny and bloody annoying…)

This year I’m doing something more low key still, in tune with my more or less skintness and social isolation.

Nothing is happening on the actual birthday, which falls on a Wednesday (except I have to take Fluffhead to both the doctors and then a PTA thing at his soon to be nursery; so that isn’t my day at all).  But on the Saturday, Mum will visit and we are going out to a neighbouring town for a morning of charity shop perusal.  There are about 10 charity shops in the main street where we’re going – joy!  I never get a chance to go in them, ordinarily.  I also never really get a chance to hang out with mum, because when she visits it’s always to help me out with Fluffhead, these days.

So we will hang out, and spend a tiny amount of money buying stuffage in charity shops.  I’m a wicked good charity shop shopper.  I find excellent clothes and books and DVDs.

The secret is simple: you can go in there wanting a certain thing all you like, but don’t be too specific as it leads you to be blind to what is actually present – see what is there and if you need or like any of that…Only be terribly specific if its vital that you have a winter coat or something; in which case, be prepared that you may not get what you wanted because of your very specific requirements.

I just realised I have outlined a very good General Philosophy of Actual Real Life.  Huh.  Don’t be too caught up being specific with what you want or you’ll blindly and single mindedly miss what’s actually going on around you, which you might also have liked.  (It’s that ‘life is what happens while you’re busy making plans’ thing.  And the thing about the journey being important, not just the destination.  Doesn’t apply to all situations, but to quite a large number.)  Amazingly, considering I apply this with perfection to charity shop shopping – a naturally wilful, disorderly and stockwise unpredictable environment – JUST LIKE LIFE – I cannot seem to apply it to my Actual Real Life at all.  More huh.  You try!  Do better than me!

Anyway.  Then we’ll go to a local bakers and have a cappuccino and a bun or something.  And a chat.  Be together.

When we come back, mum’ll have Fluffhead for a bit and Stanley and I will go out for a nice walk or something, or to get ice cream and cookies.  (I’m on a diet, as usual for this time of year: hello Weight Watchers Online, your reliable summer income has returned once again! – but no diet this day.)

That’s it.  We’ve hardly any money, but I get to hang out with 2 really important people to me (no Fry this year, he’s working this day), and talk uninterrupted.  And I get a little unpredictable shopping (aka treasure hunting).

Its enough, it’s grand, it’s good.  It marks the day out as special and different, and it causes no financial stress or complicated logistical nightmare.  I’m pretty introverted, so it also appeals to my preference for one on ones, as opposed to Big Groupy (Confusing Headache Making) Things.

See?  And you should (yes: I boss you today, in the manner of opinionated bloggers worldwide!) do what you like with YOUR birthday too.

Go on wargames, go bird watching, go on a spa day, spend the day making muffins – or in bed, resting if you’re exhausted.  I am going to make some Sunshine Muffins I saw on a Ceebeebies prog, and have pro-pointed up to make all Weight Watcher friendly, just for the hell of it.  I like baking easy things; it’ll make me feel happy.

Do something All For You, that makes you feel happy, peaceful, buzzed.

Be quiet if you’re always subjected to noise.  Or vice versa (yikes).

Go out feeling pretty and glittery and glossy if you feel you are always frumpy, mumsy or worky (ok, I’m still channelling myself here).

Read, alone in the garden listening to birdsong, if you want no fuss from others.  But make a nice fuss for yourself.

Your birthday belongs to you.  In the present, now.  It’s not a symbol or reminder of anything in the past or pressures in the future.  (Special Circumstances: If something very bad happened near your birthday in the past – and I know one friend for whom this is so and it ruins her birthday every year – make like the Queen: declare a different date, and make it 5 months away.  Have your birthday when you’d like it to be, when you can enjoy it.  Why the hell not??  Take your day back.)

Your birthday is Out Of Time.  It’s like a Solstice: a marker of balance.  You are poised between last year and the year to come.  You can hope, dream and plan (or regret); but don’t let it rob you of the one day that is All Yours.

All Yours.  A present moment.

One day in the whole year.  You can spare one day, for you.

Do something that makes you Happy.

'Lipstick': 7 Wonderful Overblown Films from the 70s, Part 1

I was re-watching Lipstick (1976) yesterday, for the hundred millionth time (though the first time in 5 years).  I was joyful it’s still just as cracking a film as when I first saw it when I was far too young to grasp it properly.  In fact, all these films here, I was far too young to grasp properly and yet there I was, watching them anyway, Sunday after Sunday in my living room 6 floors up, alone in the midair of London. 

I grew up as homelife, with mum in the kitchen listening to sermons and doing the ironing and stuff; dad in the big bedroom, listening to classical music and reading.  This meant, mostly, during the day at the weekends and holidays from school, I would inherit the living room by default.  I also had very loose bedtimes, because I was good at getting up in the morning, even on school days.  So I saw lots and lots of late night Hammer horror double bills with dad, and lots and lots of gritty 70s thrillers and vigilante films and such (also with dad).  As well as lots of wonderful afternoon 30s/40s black and whites, and all those new wave and angry films of the 50s.  I was steeped in film as a child and teenager.  I did nothing much with my home life except read incessantly, watch TV and film and go for big fat long walks (we lived very near Hyde Park then, about 10 minutes max).

I’ve known for ages that the decade of my birth, the 70s, is my decade of obsession by choice.  I love the clothes, the music, the weird morality, the gritty sleaziness, the powercuts and striking bin men (I remember the smell).  I was far too young to be terrified by the way 70s England was in fact coming apart at the seams, though I was aware of the facts (I knew why we lit storm lanterns, and mum worried about stockpiling food and the costs of everything).  It just was as it was.  In many ways, it’s a lot similar to now, only now I’m grown up enough to be aware of how all these things really affect me, the planet and everyone, so I quake in my boots everyday.  Hopefully it will all work out just like the 70s and I will eventually look back and laugh – it all got better, things move on. 

TV used to repeat a lot of things in those days, way more than now.  And because there was only terrestrial TV, you got to see the same things with more regularity.  So I watched these 5 films in particular, over and over, by myself with the curtains closed in case real life and light interfered with the total immersion process.  When we got our first video recorder (we were very first with that – dad was a techno hound his whole life and both of us lapped up TV and film, though slightly different in emphasis on what we liked) – we quickly set to buying up everything we ever enjoyed.  I had pocket money which I was very good at saving, but dad was overwhelmingly generous when it came to my film collection.  By the early 80’s our living room was a library of VHS, organised by genre and who owned it, in every bookcase, shelf and box.

He was a strange man in many ways, my dad, but when it came to reading books and TV/ film, he denied me nothing.  If we could afford it and it existed, we both had, in our collections, whatever we wanted.  I had lots of very unsuitable things (to the great worry of my mother, who stood on the sidelines; and very often at the door of the living room, plaintively saying: “Sid, do you really think she should be watching this, she’s only 9/ 10/ 11/ 12/13?” at The Evil Dead/ Rabid/ Shivers/ 10 Past Midnight/ Scum/ Midnight Cowboy/ Midnight Express etc etc etc).  I of course, thought I should.  I was taking from them whatever I was.  Definitely it was something.  Though I understand all of the grittier or more adult themed films much better now in the literal sense, I got the feelings of each one perfectly, with zero experience of any of the situations to call on.  They all affected me deeply.

Though I do worry that I was so young and impressionable that the messages, sublimal or not of some of these films taught me things I might have done best not learning…I treated them as the bible, I believed these films (and most films I saw as a child/ early teen).  I trusted not their literal truth, but their morality and character messages.  They are partly responsible for the patchwork of me, the great mess that is sometimes good and sometimes not so.

Anyway – all these films are desert island ones for me.  I loved them then; I love them now.  I can re-watch them and never get bored.  So here are they are.  They aren’t my favourite films ever, but they are most definitely among them (I have lots in different categories!).

Lipstick (1976)

Ok, so, I first watched this rape drama on TV when I was 10 or so.  The thing that got me first and still gets me now, is the MUSIC.  That creepy, creepy, scary arse music that the rapist music teacher makes!  The plot is this: A successful model lives with her younger sister.  The younger sister has a crush on her music teacher.  Younger sister invites music teacher to meet older sister, hoping she can introduce him to others who may like his music (he composes), help him get on.  Music teacher meets older sister… and rapes her.  There is a courtroom drama. He is acquitted.  Older sister’s career is ruined.  By contrivance, he meets younger sister again, and rapes her too (yes, this does sound extraordinarily unlikely as I write the whole thing down, but suspension of disbelief is why fiction works, shhhhhh!).  Older sister loses it and kills him.  I never fail to feel very satisfied at this point, especially when she shoots him in the groin: Yay!  As you can see from the plot, this is 100% 70s politically incorrect drama; as it was also a Dino de Laurentiis film, it was also lushly colourful and beautifully shot.  But there was something small and low-key about it, much more so than some of the other films in this series I’m doing here.

As I say, its music grabbed me.  It has a soundtrack by the avant garde French composer and pop icon Michel Polnareff, which is a real mixture.  One moment sweeping sad epic ballad of tragedy as a main theme, the next that scary scary electronic sampling and angry synthy sounds used for the music teachers compositions.  He used pigeons cooing, and human breathing to great and scary effect.  Of course this was used in the film as narrative as well, in that near end scene, where younger sister contrivedly meets him again and he is rehearsing his music for some sort of barely plausible ‘Essays in Light and Sound’ show, with innocent teenagers in leotards littered about.  The other children leave, and he sees her there, and calls her down.  She is struggling with her feelings about whether he truly raped her sister, and whether it was her fault for bringing him into their house, and whether he can really not be the so nice man she has always thought him to be (and that he portrays so convincingly).  He attaches her mike to her chest, via one of those hospital electrode sticky things (much creepy play of him licking it over and over to get it stuck, and of him reattaching it a couple of times, each time pulling her Tshirt down slightly more to get it lower on her chest).  He is scaring her, especially after he turns the lights off in the studio and projects weird evil twin Jean Michel Jarre light show effects over both their faces.  All you can hear is her breath getting shallower and shallower and her heartbeat, getting faster and faster.  She realizes in that moment that he is the man her sister said, that he is feeding on and getting off on, her increasing fear.  As a scene, it’s intense, melodramatic and effective.  She bolts; he chases.  You learn that a man who felt overtaken and overlooked in life, who felt others, especially women, had all the glory and privileges and wealth – and respect – he craves, is instead going to punish and dominate those women, as it’s all he thinks he has.  (See here: http://youtu.be/zvuHbx6csjA)

Chris Sarandon’s performance in this is both understated and spot on.  As I got older, I would watch the earlier scenes, wondering why why why he does it.  It’s not telegraphed.  It’s all on his face, his reactions to the women, his perceptions of his lack of importance in the world.  It’s an early role for him, and a good one.  He manages a horribly convincing sweetness that you see is his daytime face; his other one (not the real one, just another part of him) is in that music and it’s just full of rage at the world, and a need to take back power.  Though this film is definitely exploitative and melodramatic (Anne Bancroft as the lawyer for the older sister in the courtroom scenes has great fun overplaying it), it makes good points about what rape is about.  You see clearly it’s not about just how you are perceived to look; it deals squarely with the ‘you were asking for it’ defence (and this model sells sexy looks to sell lipstick – “I’m supposed to look like every woman wants to look, its not for men, its for women”, she pleads, on the stand), but about who is in charge.

I also feel rather sad when I watch this film.  It’s star, Margaux (aka Margot) Hemingway, grand daughter of the famous Ernest, died at 42 from an overdose or a huge epileptic fit (or a combo of both), after too much modelling and acting fame got to her.  She died, apparently, friendless and alone, and was so decomposed when found, she had to be identified from dental records.  Her younger sister in real life, Mariel Hemingway, played the younger sister in this, at Margaux’s suggestion – and she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer that year. Her performance is a powerhouse of nuance and teen confusion and honesty.  After this film, slowly slowly, Mariel’s star rose thanks to Margaux’s beginning it, and Margaux’s started to decline.  Nowadays, as well as acting, Mariel is a lifestyle guru, yoga, cookbooks and a love of nature.  She seems a lovely person, a survivor.  I hate when I used to hear people compare the two sisters and say Margaux was less talented – all it was, in my opinion, was that Margaux had a huge overbite, which made her face look a bit dopey in repose sometimes; but if you watch her acting, it was all there, she convinces me.  She’s not overblown, she’s just doing it, she had a quiet style.  Also, how hard is it to move from modelling to acting and be taken really seriously?  In the 70s?

Everytime I watch this, I am absorbed again.  In how people can come across one way and be another inside, whole layers to them unseen and seething.  How loyalty to a person can actually not help them; how honesty sometimes isn’t always the best move.  How the failure of justice can erode a society and cause its own kickback chaos – as Ann Bancroft quotes in the closing moments. 

It’s a dated film, sure, but I love it.  I’m not sure its vigilante message is a sound one. I have great personal love of summary justice of this kind; but I’ve had it explained to me a hundred times why people can’t go about doing stuff like this and I intellectually get it; its just that my vengeful gut likes loose ends tidied away and got rid of…and this film shows, from the look on her face, that needing to have had to shoot him herself because the system failed her, has changed her forever.  She’s not smug; she’s closed: that her sister, a 13 year old had such a horrible life changing experience because no one believed her own account of events, and because there are too many “eighteenth century juries” out there (that’s Anne Bancroft again)...  It does make you think.  This film is more than the exploitative sum of its parts.  Get a copy if you can, it’s out there.

***

I realized I have waffled too long on this one.  I was going to put all the films together, but I can’t now.  I will have to split them up, you know, so you don’t grow beards and get very old reading this.  So – I am going to be thematic: the first three films have themes involving the fashion world, but more specifically, the appearance of women, what it is used for, who looks and how (remember, feminists, the study of ‘the Gaze’?).  So – next: The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978).  Now that’s a cracker too.

"Write about the dog" - literally, in this case; and a purely personal critique of CBT

There’s a reason only stories make sense for me.  However incomplete, you have enough of the story to get the beginning, a bit of the middle, a bit of the end – more than you ever get in Real Life.  Even the most postmodern, non linear, ambiguous, reality mimicking stories do, basically, have a narrative that you and I as readers, struggle to make linear sense of.  We try and work out what happened.  Why.  What for.  We try to make sense.  Desperately.   And because we wouldn’t read anymore, ever again, if there was no sense at all in our fiction, nothing to take back to real life to help…there is always some sense there.  The authors know that no matter how teasing they are, we need to be pulled along by the hope of understanding life better.

I have been hoovering up books lately.  Gorging.  I have done hardly any writing.  Partly because I have been too damned tired, which makes it feel like a chore, something that must be ACHIEVED and crossed off a list; rather than the quiet fizzing joy release it usually is.  And I have decided, at present, to minimise stress and worry as much as possible.

And partly because, good old reason, had nothing to say.  (That I think you’ll want to hear.  I don’t particularly think you want to hear any of this post either; but you are my trusty friend, Reader, so I’m hoping you don’t get too bored.)

I was reading back some of the earlier entries to this blog the other day, and was dismayed to find its been months since I did a proper footnoted essay type post on something other than my daily life and frame of mind (which as we all know, gets beyond samey, doesn’t it?).  I used to write properly good, educated, enjoyable, informative posts.  (I remind myself of Hystery here: I Do Not Feel Clever Anymore, and its bugging the hell out of me.)

Bah.  As usual, time and tiredness are the culprits.  So, until things improve, you are stuck with this warbling.

So.  Get it together.

Say what I was going to say.

Gorging on books.  Mostly female written, with some exceptions.  Fantasy.  Ghost stories.  Life uplifts, life learners.

I am deliberately reading nothing too heavy and anguished, or too political, as I am on a bit of a downer recently.

Usual reasons: Fluffhead had a bug that lasted a month, sleep frayed to nothing.  Then I got a sort of kickback anxiety insomnia.  Grand!  After a while of that, nothing much makes sense.  You have to impose sense.  Make deliberate decisions as to what to put in front of your face in terms of stimulation[1], in order to carry on with life without just sinking into a chair and staring at the floor.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why anything?  Plus, why am I so rubbish?”

There, that cut short for you, an immensely long internal dialogue that sludges on, particularly when I am overtired.  (In case you wonder, Fluffhead bore his bug with extraordinary resilience: bumptious and snotty, sneezing, wheezing and hot, he nonetheless smiled and ran about through it all.  Aren’t children amazing?  They know they don’t feel right and can’t seem to do all the things they usually do, but they keep forgetting about it, in the fascination of whatever they grasshopper to next.  So they have a mostly ok time.  Well, except for the bits where they scream and tantrum because they feel bad and they don’t get it, so are moved to rage from overtiredness.)

I wish I could be more like my 3 year old.  Just be in the moment with nothing around it.  He looks up at me, nose streaming, cuffing it again so that I have to change his top for the 3^rd time that morning.  But in his eyes what I see is trust and affection for me, he feels so safe and loved.  He snuggles up to me, seriously like a kitten, and watches ‘Ivor the Engine’.  (Little Idris says: ‘Do you know Land of My Fathers?’ in a gorgeous lilt.  If we watch Ivor for more than an hour I start talking in a Welsh accent, with that upturn to my voice.  I think it may well be my 2^nd sexiest UK accent, after Devon and Cornwall farmer accents.  So slow and lovely, reassuring.  Anyway, so I go Welsh, Fluffhead goes contented.)  Oh – to be more like him.  He has the right attitude.  No projecting ahead, or working over what has gone before.  I love him so much it hurts me, everyday.  Sigh.

I keep ploughing through the books, not because they must have a happy ending, though they often do, but because I am very fed up of living in my head with my thoughts.  I am too tired to defend against them, so I’m going to ignore them and have other people’s instead.  Judiciously selected.

In a way, that’s part of the idea of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  Ages ago, I had a psychiatrist, and he deemed CBT a treatment that would aid my mind.  Sadly, I could not help but perceive it like a game, a school exercise.  The way it goes, sort of, is:  you have a sudden bad feeling.  The concept states that this feeling was caused by a thought you had.  You might be so used to having this thought that it slips right by you incredibly quickly, too quickly for you to even notice any more in some cases.  But I’ve thought about it (ha!) and I do feel this makes sense (more ha!).  You try and pin it down.  You stop and examine it for actual objective truth from all angles. 

E.g. ‘I am rubbish’.  Well, no, actually I’m not.  Clearly this is not a well made thought.  It’s hostile to myself, judgmental, all or nothing based, and a generalisation.  For a start.  In terms of evidence: I have a family that loves me and whom I have not offed (or they me) in a senseless slaying in a public place with innocent bystander casualties (despite all those films and horrors you watch, silly girl).  Your family seem to think you are nice human being and want to hang out with you.  A smattering of friends think the same way.  You provide good care for your small son – you try to feed him the right foods, see he socialises a bit, read to him for hours a day, ensure he plays outside and gets fresh air and isn’t too hot or cold…he trusts and loves you.  This is an objective reality that can be corroborated by others, not just me.  You have a high educational attainment in your field of expertise…blah blah blah, I was sending myself to sleep there.  I’m not describing it well, as today I am doing it a bit flippantly, but basically, you observe how the thoughts you think directly give rise, immediately, to your anxious/ depressed [whatever] mood and any physical symptoms [ migraine, palpitations, shaking hands, acid stomach, general intense heaviness of body and mind etc].  “I’m rubbish” = wanting to cry, starting to get a headache, feeling heavy, wanting to go back to bed, feeling unable to cope, actually crying, starting to get stomach pains…etc etc etc.

You don’t, In CBT, need to go and have 50 years therapy to discover the root cause of these thoughts, you just deal with them in the now: seeing them for the overblown generalisations they usually are.  (“I am rubbish”.  Condemnatory, unrealistic as a statement.  No nuance, no understanding of circumstance: just a judgement.  Neither balanced, kindly, nor accurate.)

So, in CBT, you judge and assess these thoughts and then formulate newer more positive ones that you also assess as you go along, and try and have those ones instead (theoretically leading to feeling better: you feed your mind different food, it responds with a different reaction).

Sadly, I am too tired to do an alternative and more realistic thought than “I am rubbish”, which is unhelpful of me in terms of explaining these ideas to you.  Sorry.   But the point is/ was, here, that when sufficiently mentally awake, I could play this game like a pro.  I handed in all my many worksheets of my thoughts and their breakdown analysis; and my newer more helpful thoughts inserted at the end instead, and the psychiatrist loved me.  I was top of the class.

I totally missed the point.  I did the whole thing intellectually, but found I couldn’t use it all in Real Life.  Whilst seeing that my self-loathing thoughts made no sense was helpful, I didn’t believe the newer more balanced thoughts at all.  I believed the old poisonous ones, because they FELT true in my entire physical body.  No doubt through years of repetition and forced gouging out of neural pathways, that sometimes gave me these thoughts so quietly and immediately that I feel their impact even as the thoughts themselves have whispered past me and gone.  Stealth missiles of shit stirring.  All that I am left with is a migraine that just won’t go, a face heavy with downwardness and sorrow, and eyes that ‘naturally’ look down, not up – shoulders slumped.  Body language of defeat, sending its own repetitive signals back to the brain.

You ARE how you physically feel, in my case.  I have such admiration for anyone coping with Parkinsons or cancer or amputees – anything that messes so severely with your sense of physical embodiment I fear would undo me.  But then, I don’t really know, do I?  I might surprise myself.  I speak from a place of fear and unknowing.

CBT didn’t help me[2].  My new shiny thoughts felt hollow and pretentious (even as I could objectively see they made far more sense and WERE TRUE).  My old entrenched thoughts sniggered  at them as New Age white lightey crap.  (Which was inaccurate: they weren’t – they weren’t affirmations: “I am wonderful!  I am empowered!” etc.  No.  They went more like this: “I am basically a good person, as good as anyone else, feeling dodgy today because I have a lot of stressors in my life and I haven’t slept for 36 hours, except for a couple of catnaps.  My thoughts are skewy due to lack of sleep, and brain chemistry starting to go awry as a result.  All will return to normalcy and seem brighter after some good food and a rest.”  Hardly New Agey whitelightey crap, eh?)  The new thoughts shivered, and grew thin and cold from lack of use and substance.

On perfectly good days, the new thoughts – the reasonable, obviously true thoughts ARE me.  I don’t need to make an effort to think them.

But most days are not those days.  I used to sleep it off, once upon a time, when I felt bad.  Usually worked.  Not an option anymore.

So I read instead.  10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, on and off throughout the day.  I read other characters having good thoughts, taking action, doing things, having a life.  I brainwash myself through another’s more balanced mind.  While I read, the black dog has to sit in a corner and play solitaire by himself.  He’s pissed off, of course.

But reading is the only defence I have, apart from TV.  Even when I am out taking action myself, walking to town with Fluffhead, there I am with those thoughts, the ones that tell me, repeatedly, all about the worst parts of myself.  My brain fries from lack of proper sleep (the best non invasive torture method in the world, I suggest) and I have nothing to offer as an alternative, except my back.  No sophistry to combat.  Not even when Stanley tells me to remember my happy thoughts of horses, daisies and ginger beer.  Light of the sun on grass green as green.  Not even when I remember, when anxious, how Troubadour told me to float on the surface of my mind, and not dive in, just float...

This is how it is sometimes.  I did warn you, in the very first post, that I get solipsistically, egocentrically downered sometimes.  It’ll pass.  It always does.  It’ll be back.  It always comes back.  And if I am not too tired, I will remember all my psychological and magickal knacks to put my focus elsewhere and manifest good things.  I will remember to make new neural pathways.  But you do need to be quite awake to use these techniques properly.  (Not so easy when tired and stuck indoors caretaking, not able to pursue work or projects: it's vital to try and concentrate on something, and even better to DO something.)

So in the meantime, I thank all the people who write stories where things sort of make sense and heroines act as I wish I would, as a role model for me, so I can understand life, even if only for a minute.  Through their eyes.

---

[1] Informative things.  Productive things.  Good things.  Happy music.  A lot of music that purports to be peaceful, is in fact sad.  Have you noticed?  ‘Don’t Mess with Mr Inbetween’.

[2] CBT works for loads of other people, by the way.  Perfectly good method.  Not everyone is going to sabotage themselves and make a game of it.  I know lots of people who didn’t and have been massively helped by it.  Good.

Some Books Read This Year - that *ARE NOT* Dr. Who ones!!

Suddenly occurred to me that the only books I’ve really gone into this year on the blog (other than the posts related to specific books), were the Dr. Who posts.  So I thought maybe I’d waffle a touch about some of the other stuff I’ve been reading, here and there. 

By the way, in my little document on my laptop, where I note everything I read each year and what I reckoned of it, I have taken to noting for posterity whether the book was an actual printed one, or a Kindle one; or a library book.  I have decided my sources are interesting, historically speaking too.  I have actually read a ton-load more Kindle books than I’m mentioning here – I have a habit of reading lots of very subgenre specific stuff on the Kindle, which I thought might bore those of you not into it, so I haven’t mentioned many those here.  So far, my reading ratio this year, of Real Printed Matter vs. Kindle is about 60/40 to the former.

1. Oxford Proof, by Veronica Stallwood (2003)
   (As readable as ever – possibly my favourite detective series.  Heroine not so much feisty; as lazy, a bit rude and wonderfully selfish.  Love her, its like reading about me, only with more oomph, money and crime solving ability.  This one ended up solved quite cosily, and yet still felt believable.  That’s what I like about this series best: I love the selfish heroine – she is more like most of us than most of us would admit – and I love the way everything that happens to her and around her is made plausible.  It’s not a Midsummer Murders where you wonder how there are any people left at all in this village or county.  It feels like it could be real. ACTUAL BOOK.)
2. Cupid’s Dart, by David Nobbs (2008)
   (My first ever David Nobbs book – a present to me.  I had trouble with this at the beginning and I don’t quite know why, unless it be my odd prejudice against self proclaimed 'humourous' novels; as by about half way through I was completely hooked and raced to get to the end to see what would happen between Ange and her 55 year old Philosophy Don virgin.  I thought he was a great narrator.  Some of the details surrounding where Ange left him and he went a bit mad and tried to poison his mother with cake were excellent.  I was nodding along and laughing and feeling an outrageous plot turn was all too plausible.  This ended up being a very enjoyable read indeed.  I’d read more of him, this being my first. ACTUAL BOOK.)
3. The Con and the Crusader, by Maggie Shayne (2005)
   (Contemporary – well, time travel, Romance Novella.  One of my favourite paranormal romance authors.  Very sweet and lovely.  Could easily have been worked into a full length novel, but she did ok with it at the shorter length too – it felt only a little rushed.  At her best, she has a feather light touch, her writing is gentle, impeccable, for its genre.  Yet above its genre too.  She’s a real artist.  I loved Jack McCain and I loved his redemption.  Don’t we all wish we could be redeemed by hard work – and isn’t it so much nicer to read about it than to do it?! ACTUAL BOOK.)
4. Shayne On You, by Maggie Shayne (2011)
   (Very interesting book – a combination of magickal primer and advice columnist, by this woman, one of my favourite romance authors.  I am wary of Maggie Shayne in person, as I remember ages ago asking her advice on something online.  I don’t remember exactly what went down…she gave me a very good grounding exercise, but something I said – perhaps I hurried her, I do hurry people if I think they are being tardy? – annoyed her and she was scratchy with me.  This happens rather a lot when I speak to authors.  I piss them off!  Anyway, I unfriended her on FB as a result, as I felt her eternal ‘only see the light’ statuses were pissing me off violently – she herself says she can be Pollyanna-ish.  Reading this book helped me to understand her mindset an awful lot better.  I am not a huge fan of the Law of Attraction, but as she explained it, it made a lot more sense than it usually does.  Not all of it by any means – some of it contradicted itself, but mostly – I felt a lot of her advice was sound, more of it was than not.  I felt I understood and could buy into this positive attitude.  And I have actually been trying to. A daily thought session on what to be grateful for; some affirmations that don’t seem farfetched but I understand why I am doing them for once.  ON KINDLE.)
5. Potty Training Boys, by Dr Caroline Fertleman and Simone Cave (2008)
   (I have come to the conclusion that I do not have a single clue what I am doing when it comes to potty training; I appear to have completely forgotten how to do it, so I have resorted to a book to give me some guidance.  This one was refreshingly simple and I have been implementing its advice now it’s a bit warmer.  As I couldn’t have little cold prone Alex constantly sitting about with his trousers off in those previously subzero temperatures when we can’t afford to put the heating on…plus, can’t risk too many accidents on this carpet that isn’t ours.  But I have been giving their ideas a go – it sounded simple enough.  Er, it actually isn’t.  It’s a bit of a quiet war played as a game, with sticker charts, this potty training lark.  Important not to pressure your boy, whilst also moving along.  Not as easy as the book made it sound!!  ACTUAL BOOK.)
6. Rock Your Plot: A Simple System for Plotting Your Novel, by Cathy Yardley (2012)
   (How to write your typical 3 Act Drama.  Not just for genre fiction though she says it is.  I reckon it could work with more high class lit too.  I’ve always thought story and plot and suspense and emotional involvement are vital, you can’t just have good style.  That’s why Christopher Priest’s sci-fi novels read like lit – he has it all.  This may be the extensive scaffolding system I’ve been fantasizing about for a novel for years; even if only to learn how to break the rules more effectively.  Would love to have enough of an idea to see if this works in application.  I loved the story she used as a running example – I actually wanted to read it, the way she was constructing it.  How annoying she hasn’t actually written it!  ON KINDLE.)
7. The Statesman and the Fanatic: the lives of Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More, by Jasper Ridley (1985)
   (Very readable biography.  Because I am reading other Tudor books at the same time, I know to not rely on his portrait especially of Wolsey, alone, but it was nonetheless very ably written, very well thought out.  What struck me, in the conclusion, was the very clever way Ridley said what they would be doing were they both alive today and had their careers followed similar trajectories because of their temperaments.  Wolsey would be a corrupt fatcat somewhere, but relatively harmless and very efficient.  Whereas More might be responsible for another Holocaust because of his sincere anti-revolutionary stance, his love of authority, and his inability to recognize anyone else’s conscience where it to conflict with what his own told him.  This all rang chillingly true. [Also, the man was appallingly sexist, misogynist even; I know it was the times, but bloody hell…scarily, reading the tone of him reminded me A LOT of my father, who was similarly conflicted about certain things; though he was the opposite in terms of revolution – he was all for it, but may have been just as ruthless given power.  And another who was only nice to his daughter.]  I enjoyed this book and found it rich in information. ACTUAL BOOK.)
8. Creative Writing Prompts: Random Words, Phrases and Sentence Prompts to Help You Write, by Vanna Smythe (2012)
   (At first, I thought this might not be best helpful, but the way the words and especially the phrases section truly are random – to the point of being not phrases but gibberish in most cases – is in fact very stimulating.  Something hypnotic about the lists of words.  Some odd poetry here.  I haven’t used any of them yet, but I think they may well be VERY useful on a day I’m not dog tired. [Why is dog tired a phrase? Dogs seem energetic, if anything? Bouncy lil critters.  Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to be Cat Tired, they are always napping?]  I’ve enjoyed her 2 other fantasy novels, so I was interested in what sort of word chains would stimulate her.  ON KINDLE.)
9. Writing From the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within, by Dennis Palumbo (2000)
   (Possibly the best book I’ve ever read on the way people who write seriously feel about it.  His constant message: what you are is enough; write about and from wherever you are now, no matter how negative you perceive it to be.  “Write about the dog”.  Not as in the black dog, though that’s lamentably accurate in my case; but as in a cartoon he describes where a writer is surrounded by balled up paper, going insane, clearly blocked.  The room is also filled – incongruously – with dogs lolling everywhere.  His wife comes in and exasperatedly says: ‘write about the dogs’.  Use what you’ve got, whatever it is.  There was a lot of acceptance and bearing with yourself in here.  The ‘write about the dog’ advice prompted me to write a blog post recently that got an amazingly positive reaction for being ‘real’.  It stunned me.  People were ‘transported there’; it was their ‘favourite of all my blogs’, ‘poignant’.  So by terms of external validation – which Palambo actually warns strenuously against, as a method of self judgement and self worth measure! – the book caused me to write something quite special.  It’s a keeper simply because it explores the vagaries of feeling of writers, their insecurities and sad feelings.  And it does them all so supportively, calmly, quietly and firmly.  Reading this is the equivalent of a wiser older friend listening and both reality checking you AND validating you.  Quite priceless in its knowledge and calm.  Will re-read.  Many times, I suspect. ON KINDLE.)
10. Inglorious, by Joanna Kavenna (2008)
    (The style made this one, as it was actually quite heavy: a woman’s breakdown in slow motion, in very black humour.  ‘It’s a bad business when you think Modernism can help you.’ !!!!  That really did make me laugh.  It did drag, but then – a long depressed meander around why the hell am I doing any of this, with reference to lots of intellectual philosophizing isn’t going to trip off the mental tongue.  It was well worth reading though and made me laugh and think, many times. I then bought all her other books.  So that’s a recommendation.  ACTUAL BOOK.)
11. The Accidental Husband, by Jane Green (2013)
    (I’m starting to wonder if Jane Green is going a bit mainstream.  Bigamy is quite a big fat subject for a chick lit.  And she did cancer 2 novels ago, too.  Though this had her trademark calm narration, and the usual creation of a world of perfection, it dealt with other serious issues, bulimia for one, and it didn’t shy away from how bad that can get.  I enjoyed this more than I have enjoyed a Jane Green for a while.  Beautiful cover, too – the harmonious colours!!  ACTUAL BOOK.)
12.  Before I Met You, by Lisa Jewell (2013)
    (This was definitely female fic, rather than chick lit.  It had the bouncy tone of Lisa Jewell and the wonderful down to earth not too rich characters, who feel REAL…but the time slip element was wondrous.  She went historical, absorbingly and wonderfully.  I think this may be her best book so far in my opinion.  I loved it from cover to cover and ate it in 2 days flat with Fluffhead there.  It also had one of the loveliest covers I’ve seen in ages – I keep wanting to cut it off the book and frame it.  ACTUAL BOOK.)

So there you go.  A confection of the mixed up lot of caboodle I’ve been nosing in.  I’ve actually read quite a lot this year so far, I’m quite amazed at myself.  Must come from the strong urge I am having this year to bury my head in the metaphorical sand!

More books soon!