Archive for March, 2006

Crime and Punishment

Thursday, March 30th, 2006

I took the Dostoyevsky plunge.

I’m a fan of the modern. Architecture, music, cars, art, whatever. iTunes, not vinyl. City of God, not Casablanca. Give me complexity, revelation, the heady thrill of the avant-garde!

Even then, on rare occasions I find the only reason I plough through a book is to have read it. Even if I’m not particularly enjoying the process, I at least get some satisfaction from seeing the bookmark’s progress. When I do reach the final page I almost sigh with relief: “That’s that one done.” It’s now part of my vocabulary, more well-thumbed proof of my cultured existence. Pretty shallow, eh?

I really expected Crime and Punishment to be similar – a Thing To Do Before You Die rather than something I’d particularly enjoy. Thankfully I’ve surprised myself: I’m bloody loving it. Not as dense and morbid as I’d expected, brilliantly written with what seems to be quite an approachable translation.

Put it this way, it’s ousted my iPod on the tram to work. Sometimes modernity has to take a back seat.

“A classic is a book everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read” – Mark Twain

Categories: dostoyevsky, literature, crime, novel

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Cheque please

Tuesday, March 28th, 2006

I would say my life is very much like this:

But it’s not. And not in a good way. Full comic from OK/Cancel.

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Woe is me

Monday, March 20th, 2006

I picked up some very nasty bug over the weekend. Matt and I had planned an inane St Patrick’s Day in the pub – promotional Guinness hats, bad food, that kind of thing. Felt a bit odd when I woke up, put it down to staying up late to fight Kirin*. By late afternoon, like many overenthusiastic revellers, I was making friends with porcelain. On a day’s holiday too, damn.

The striking thing about “proper” illness – the kind where you can’t even turn the light on, let alone watch TV or call your Mum for sympathy – is the boredom. Last time I was in a similar state was in the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital with a marvellous cocktail of intravenous painkillers and sedatives. Sleep and consciousness melted into each other. Time was a swollen river bursting its banks.

This weekend, time stood still. I groaned in bed and counted the minutes between paracetamol doses. Radio 4 held a panel discussion about loneliness and isolation. Then the shipping forecast. Did you know it lasts for twenty minutes?

I’m much improved now and I’ve just eaten my first meal for four days but, as a man, I am of course duty-bound to complain about illness. I’ll find a new topic to gripe about soon.

* We lost. Imperfect strategy (wrong choice of kiter), slightly low attendance, and an elementary mistake on Sukazu. Guess we have to wait a bit longer for our Noble’s Tunics.

Categories: illness, patheticwhining

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You won’t like me when I’m angry

Thursday, March 16th, 2006

If I see another blog tagline that includes the phrase “random musings” I’m going to get angry. If you don’t have the courage to stand up for your opinions, if you feel you have to wrap them up in cotton wool and label them as “oh, nothing much really”, don’t blog!

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South by Southwest

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

I love my job, but I do wish it was a little more glamorous sometimes. The A-listers are wagging their 2.0 chins and swinging their 2.0 hips at SXSW. I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness are playing at the Flickr/del.icio.us party.

Me? I’m at a corner desk in the office cataloguing business start-up schemes. I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness are playing on my iPod. Oh well.

I’ve already completed my annual migration, as it happens. Seems that every Spring I take flight south, if only for the briefest of moments. Bristol was good fun and the quality of DJing was precisely as expected. Still, I got a good hour or so to choose the tunes (The Books sounded particularly good), several hours to drink, and a couple more hours to pester Louise and trip up on the stairs of a club I barely remember. Classy.

Cardiff smudged together melting snow, bad rugby and a revolting hangover. Probably a bad idea then that I bought a heavy but fantastic Zoom MRS-1608.

Categories: zoom, bristol, dj

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Egg chasing

Tuesday, March 7th, 2006

I find myself going to Cardiff this weekend to watch Wales v Italy. Rugby, sadly, not football. Still, I’ve always wanted to hear Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau sung by 60,000, and I adore the Millennium Stadium so I’ll manage to find some interest even if the game doesn’t grab me much. Swinging by via Bristol on the way, and apparently helping Laguna and Sam DJ. Twin Peaks interspersed with Deerhoof and Sightings, I suspect. Stay away.

Anyway, the upshot is I have a bunch of stuff to do before then so don’t expect many updates. Talk amongst yourselves for a while.

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