Kitty Wake's blog

Why is children's TV so... bizarre?

Well, exactly what it says on the top. (Yes, I know it's been, oh, ages since I last updated. I've read quite a few good books, and am currently about 100 pages into a good one about Napoleon.) Why is children's TV so odd?

As a child, I was a devoted viewer of Thomas the Tank Engine. To this day, Ringo Starr's voice lulls me back to 1989, and I'm honestly shocked when I see an old steam engine because it doesn't have a cheery grey face. Now, back when I was three, Thomas the Tank Engine didn't strike me as remotely odd in any way. It was fun (apart from the crashes, which scared the living daylights out of me), and to a three-year-old, that's all that matters. My favourite engine was Toby, and because back then it was rather difficult to get hold of a Toby engine, my dad made me one. He was electric and could therefore pull his own carriages and trucks. This is the main advantage of having an engineer for a father - he can do anything. (Mind you, apparently the Reverend Awdry made some of his own engines for his kids. So I could have got away with having an author-vicar for a dad too, I reckon.)

Recently I found the home-made Toby engine while clearing out some drawers, and as I'd long since got rid of my Thomas the Tank Engine videos, I decided to go on YouTube. Youtube has rapidly become a favourite website as I can dig up more-or-less any cartoon I used to watch as a child and pretend to be three for ten minutes, and in the realm of Thomas the Tank Engine it certainly didn't disappoint. Poor Henry, bricked up for not liking the rain. Foreveraneveranever. Thomas getting ill due to fish in the boiler. Gordon being a very proud, very fast engine, Edward being melancholy and old before perking up with a nice pot of paint, and James being the Red Engine who's Red and therefore Obviously a Very Good Engine by virtue of his colour. And Toby, of course, chugging reliably along, looking like a wooden house on rails. Then came Percy, a little engine with the mind of a small, easily distracted child (and a small, easily distracted child's mind is not what you want behind a few tons of metal and steam), and Great Western Montague (I mean Duck, of course, because who in their right mind looks at an engine and thinks "Montague! That's a good name!"), and sneaky, weaselly Diesel (unimaginative name? You bet!), the Scottish twins, and, and... It was like meeting a bunch of old friends. You haven't seen them in years, but it's like you've never been parted.

I pressed onwards. I'd never actually seen further than Season Two, because by the time Season Three aired I was five and had moved on The Animals of Farthing Wood or some other animated show that fit in with my school schedule. I discovered, to my horror, that Ringo Starr had been replaced with another Liverpudlian with a slightly less soothing voice. On the other hand, they had actual girl engines now! Oooh, Emily, you Donald-and-Douglas compatriot engine you! And more diesels, and some "verra wee engines" as Donald (or possibly Douglas) put it. Narrow gauge engines, who were dinky next to Gordon, the Ultimate Behemoth of Sodor. I also found a video that would have scarred me for life had I seen it in 1989; it featured a montage of Famous Thomas The Tank Engine Crashes set against a bunch of kids perkily singing a song called "Accidents Happen". In Japanese. Evidently Thomas has a worldwide fanbase - including my favourite country. (On the accidents front, does anyone else hold the opinion that the Reverend Awdry spent his formative years crashing toy engines and moved on to keeping a book full of cuttings from newspapers about interesting train accidents, before putting it on hold to go to university? There's got to be a book somewhere that explains it all.)

But there was a shock in store! I'm not a great purveyor of children's entertainment. Obviously I was a child once. I was quite happy to watch Pingu - premise: a bunch of anthro clay penguins live a happy life in the South Pole. Pretty absurd, but a) no humans in the picture - the penguins were "human" and b) for all their differences to humans, penguins breathe air, die, need to eat and are probably 90% genetically identical to humans anyway. I was also quite happy to watch, say, The Animals of Farthing Wood, where the animals weren't physically anthropomorphised, humans were in the picture, and nothing was too brain-breakingly absurd unless you can't handle animals having discussion meeting and are fazed by Carnivore Confusion.

But Thomas? The humans are tank engines. They're not born, they're made. They can't die, they get scrapped (or abandoned). They don't need to eat, they just need coal (or diesel) to keep running. But the humans are also humans. Take the Fat Controller. He doesn't apparently talk to the drivers of his trains that much; he takes up issues with the actual engines. Which have zombie-colour, expressive grey faces. And apparently move - or don't move - of their own volition, and have massive personal tiffs that can paralyse a branch line, and... well, it's just mightily odd how people behave in Sodor. (Sodor, for those not in the know, and for those who didn't click on any of the links, is the imaginary island where Thomas and co. live. It's about the size of South Yorkshire, so it does actually warrant its own train system.) Back to crashes. While watching A close shave, it really struck me what oddness my childhood was wreathed in. Watch the video in the link, and ponder the following:

1) Duck's been sent away... because another engine told lies about him and turned them against Duck. So anything with a face has a consciousness. OK, they're anthropomorphic, but they're engines for goodness' sake!
2) Given the number of crashes on Sodor, who but the stupidest of barbers (or possibly one scamming the insurance) would situate his shop riiiiight at the end of a railway track?
3) There's got to be Prozac in the water supply, and probably hallucinogens as well. Note that the barber's automatic response to seeing an engine halfway in his shop is to say "I don't like engines popping in" and then lather Duck's face, never mind that Duck, not being a biological being, is never going to grow facial hair. Actually, never mind that it's just going to be a waste of shaving foam and effort. The barber doesn't even seem to be that cross. Yeah, I'll go for "He's both stoned AND looking to scam his insurance company".
4) Even if he is genuinely surprised and angry, and the engine shaving stunt was the result of shock, how come he's OK with the whole situation when the Fat Controller tells him that Duck actually averted a worse accident and that Duck is a very brave engine? Why doesn't he shout "Whatever, you've just robbed me of my livelihood and now my children will starve"?
5) The Fat Controller lets Duck go back to Tidmouth. A real controller might have had mercy on a poor obsolescent steam engine, but he'd definitely have had the driver breath-tested and possibly fired. Evidently a job on Sodor is a job for life. (Take me there!) Exactly how much control do the drivers have, anyway? If any Sodor engine can skulk around, then what on earth are their drivers and firemen doing? I don't think the excuse "Sorry, can't work today, Henry's being prissy about his paint/Duck's gone on strike/James is malingering" would go down well in the real world. Sodor isn't the real world, but if the drivers can't make a perfectly good engine go, then why are they there?

As the battery on my laptop is rapidly running out, I'll simply draw the conclusion that childhood is mad and its entertainment is even more nonsensical. But Thomas still rocks my socks, turns out. And Electric Railway Dadmade Toby is smiling at me from his place on my shelves RIGHT NOW. Toodles!

Happy Smiley Time

Right, I promise I will be positive for the next few entries. I am rather happy in myself, so why not reflect this?

I'm consuming less media than I could. This is partly due to my habit of watching Harry Potter movies in German (I bought myself a boxed set about a year ago, and they play automatically in German), and partly due to the lure of the lovely, lovely internet. But I will return.

Kiki's Delivery Service

I have watched Kiki's Delivery service, which I bought ages ago and never really got the chance to watch. Well, I have now.

I was utterly charmed by it - optimistic Kiki, the wisecracking cat Jiji, and the city - well, apparently it wasn't based on a German city, but it certainly looked like one to me with all the coloured buildings with facing on them. And you know what? I wish I could fly on a broomstick now. It's be so cool to be able to do that, rather than all that messing about with aeroplanes. Although I dare say there'd be aerospace disasters. But not in the world Kiki seems to be set in...

Of course, it isn't all sunshine and roses. I have a couple of complaints - some personal, and some not so much. We never really find out much about magic in this universe. Magic allows you to fly and talk to your pet and do some spells and presumably some potions as well, and...? And why do the witches encourage 13-year-olds to go and fend for themselves in a far-away city? Is it a Really Tough Character-Building exercise? Are there any wizards? What skills does a witch have that would get her some decent employment amongst non-magical people, anyway, apart from the titular delivery service? I suppose the film is more about friendship and building ties and personal growth, but like a lot of fantasy worlds there's gaps that I want filling.

The story structure - well, let's just say I was totally shocked when the credits started rolling. I'd have preferred a little denouement, a little more resolution, before the credits, as the film just seemed to stop right after the climax. A little bit of Tombo and Kiki going home in the sunset, with some commentary by Jiji - and then the montage-credits can roll. Still, it's a small complaint. I'm certainly not put off buying other Studio Ghibli DVDs. I'm trying to decide which one next - I'm not exactly in the mood for something like Grave of the Fireflies (for one, I've already been spoiled); I think I'll just go for something that involves cats. The Cat Returns, probably.

The Children of Freedom

Marc Levy

I've been reading The Children of Freedom, by Marc Levy. Yes, it's about the French Resistance, so it hits one of my preferred subject areas. Well, what can I say? I don't feel qualified to judge writing that's about bravery in the same way that I can talk about coming-of-age stories. I suppose going to live in a foreign country at 20 is brave, but I didn't have to maintain a persona or engage in clandestine activities. Or shoot people. I just had to work out how to communicate to a salesperson that I was in dire need of sanitary supplies at a point when I didn't know the German for "sanitary pad". (It's 'eine Damenbinde', for future reference.)

I'd highly recommend this book if you want to read about bravery and survival - and some of the faint ridiculousness of the situation. There's quite a few of the "I'm laughing because the only alternative is weeping" moments, as well as a bizarre image that haunts the protagonist when he shoots a German officer who has just urinated. I don't want to say much more, for fear of spoilers. Just buy it, if you're anything like me and want a bit of vicarious danger and courage.

I've been surfing the Biscuit Reviews at A Nice Cup Of Tea And A Sit Down. I have fond memories of many biscuits. I favour the Bourbon (far superior to the import Oreo, frankly), the Viennese Whirl, the Malted Milk and Choco Leibniz, and hate the Rich Tea. Speaking of Oreaos, it was somewhat amusing to see the Americans get into an impassioned defence of a distinctly mediocre biscit. Seriously, read the comments on the review. At least two people have missed the fact that the blog is a bit of a piss-take; if the paragraph (from the Mint Viscount Review)

Viscounts of old were highly regular affairs with their cream filling extending very close to the biscuit edge but today's Viscount seems to a bit chucked together. The review biscuit is by no means atypical with most of the packet looking like they had been in some sort of biscuit construction fight.

didn't clue you in as to the general tone of things, nothing short of a cast-iron frying pan to the head would. It's funny, people!

Oh well. Did some tidying today. Scored a beaded bag, a Whistles skirt and a Whistles Dress from the squalor in the little bedroom. Whistles! I can dress like a rich person! Also found about 30,000 pairs of my dad's underwear (why?), 5,950 heavy-duty German jumpers (designed for the sub-zero temperatures of a Bavarian winter), and that we've got two more computers in the house than I thought we did. And a zillion 'nice' carrier bags. I really must introduce my parents to the concept of the rubbish bin, and my mother to the concept of Not Buying More Sodding Clothes. Because not only does she have clothes I've not seen her wear in living memory, I've got clothes I never knew I had. I think I'll actually need to ask for help on the internet to clear the three 'junk' rooms of the house. See, if we had one clear room I could stack wanted stuff in while I sorted and discarded in situ, as it were, then I'd be much happier and I wouldn't have to reverse progress at the end of the day by putting stuff back into the messy room. How did my parents accumulate so much anyway? I thought they were, you know, not rich enough to allow prodigious consumption. They're like poster children for the nineteen-fifties in terms of how much crap they've bought. I looked up "compulsive hoarding" in the internet, but it doesn't seem to apply if only certain rooms require acrobatics to get round and it requires animal poo, apparently, which we don't have.

Probably going out tomorrow because I just have to escape. And I don't really want to spend all tomorrow tidying as well.

Wow! I'm amazed that I actually managed to write reviews! two!

Three New Books

Gosh, I sounded defeated last time, didn't I? Well, now I'm not. Now I'm rather happy. Content. I am working again on Saturday night, hopefully in a tip-rich situation, hopefully with alcohol (no! not to drink! to serve! It's amazing the lengths people'll go to to get a drink at a social function.) I've watched plenty of meerkat documentaries on Google video. Including this one called Meerkats Divided, that I haven't seen since I was ten.

Meerkats Divided

I remember it being one of my favourite nature documentaries when I watched some David Attenborough series back in the nineties. Sometimes I wish I'd gone into zoology - just for the animals - but I might have ended up having to deal with enormous venomous tarantulas or chimpanzees or something else unsavoury, rather than one of my favourite animals. Or maybe not - maybe I could associate with penguins and meerkats and other of my favourite animals.

The workmen outside our house have an uncanny knack for turning the water off in our house right after I've been to the toilet but just before I get to the sink. This has resulted in pouring brackish bottled water I meant to drink a week ago over my hands, and once more I was grateful I live in a country (and a time!) where we have water 99.9999% of the time coming out of a tap.

The beech tree at the bottom of the garden, which is very old to the point of being moribund, is going to be chopped down next week. I feel ready to enter a state of mourning. The garden's going to look so odd without it. But I've persuaded my parents to buy a copper beech sapling so future generations can enjoy a large tree (and present generations can enjoy a small tree, and past generations can enjoy a seed the size of my index fingernail, I suppose).

Best of all, I got some new books yesterday. First I bought a copy of Twilight, that vampire romance novel that everyone's been going on about on the internet. A quick scan through reveals that the writing is unsophisticated, and it seems to have scenes that take place in a school. Big warning signs. But technically I got it free, in the Waterstone's 3 for 2 offer. So if I don't like it, off to the charity shop it goes without much, if any, remorse.

The novel that prompted me to spend £15 is called The Children of Freedom, by Marc Levy. It takes place in France in 1943. If you have read past blog entries, you can see why I wanted to buy this book. Yes, it hits my resistance kink good and hard. I've read about five pages so far, and they're all a recap of Why There Is This Resistance Thing Going On In France In 1940 (AKA Stuff You Can Find Out In A Decent Reference Book), so I'm hoping it picks up in the next few pages. But I have a little more patience with Resistance-themed books.

The third novel, the other non-free one, is The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. I saw a TV adaptation a few months ago and I meant to buy the book, but.... well, I've got it now. Again, I've read the first few pages, and it's been long enough since the TV adaptation that I've forgotten almost everything about the plot except that it was interesting.. So now is probably the right time to read it. It seems to have the simple, vivid descriptions I favour in a novel, so I look forward to reading it.

Casual homophobia is insidious

I don't get things. Yesterday I tore down a BNP poster in the neighbourhood because I'm not having racist shite around where I live. (Also the act of ripping the poster into shreds fulfilled my entirely non-sexual resistance kink, although I doubt it can be called resistance if I've got millions of people on my side. Although I suppose it may not be entirely legal to rip down posters, come to think of it - it might be vandalism - but surely a racist poster is more an act of vandalism than tearing the poster down, right?) I told my mother what I did and she congratulated me.

Also yesterday, I went to a gay club with a couple of gay friends. There, I saw lots of gay kisses. And I'm thinking "Hey! Cool. People in love. Sure, falling in love is not for me, but it's good for them!" (Well, actually I was thinking "VK tastes like crap", as I drank a couple of bottles last night and it was only by the grace of the DOYC that I didn't chuck in a gutter and get filmed as an example of a binge-drinking bird. I wasn't drunk! I was merely disgusted by the taste of cheap booze!) As you may have noticed, there's a big hoo-ha in the UK right now over a Heinz ad that happened to feature two men kissing. The first time I saw that ad, I was all "Cool! Gay kisses in ads!" But now Heinz have pulled the ad because they received complaints about the ad. Not complaints about the fact that a mother was treated as a short-order chef in a New York deli, but complaints that gay kisses are immoral/hard to explain to children/disgusting/unnatural/insert bigoted excuse here. It's on the BBC website. The BBC had allowed the article to have comments. Most of the comments (unusually for the BBC) either spoke of puzzlement about the negative response to the ad, or had a somewhat legitimate complaint about the treatment of the mother etc.

But jesus, the casual homophobia! No, I'm not going to pretend to be reasonable here. If you ever go to spEak You're bRanes (go on, it's funny), yeah... this is what I'm aiming at.

The MPs calling for this ad to be re-instated shows how disgusting our representatives have become.
Brian Keith, Ellesmere, England

Meanwhile, Brian, by posting this comment you've just shown what a pigeon's minge you are. (There's a long-standing - which, in web terms, means about three months - tradition of calling people animal fannies on the blog.)

I also did a double take when I saw this advert. Having grown up in the era where homosexuality is regularly shown on screen even I thought this was a step too far. It is not only unnecessary and confusing for young children, but also serves to emasculate the man even further. He is essentially ordered to kiss the "Deli Chef" which he does full on the lips. This emasculation of the male character within household adverts is insidious with many adverts of today, now showing men being bullied into homosexual acts in their own kitchens is taking it to a new extreme.
Andy, Stourbridge

Ok. "A step too far"? Technically, it wasn't even a gay kiss. The chef was presumably supposed to be the mother. "Unnecessary and confusing for young children"? Er, do you even know how adaptable young children are? If they see two men engaged in a healthy relationship, they're just going to grow up to think it's normal - as they should. Little kids just don't think like that. They see a person in a wheelchair, they don't think "ooh, disabled person, must be patronising". If they grow up and have stuff currently thought of - baselessly - as "freakish" or "unnatural" presented to them neutrally, they're going to be more accepting. In short, they don't give a shit that two men are kissing. "Emasculating the man" - I don't know about you lot, but I'm pretty sure most gay men don't think they're emasculated. Surely emasculation requires unwillingness on the part of the person being emasculated...  and I hardly think the guy on the ad was "bullied into homosexual acts" - meta, he's an actor, he gets paid to do this. And guess what? Some people are, in fact, homosexual, and don't see homosexual acts as something they're bullied into! In short, Andy of Stourbridge is a kittiwake's cootch.

Not seen it. Don't want to see it. If equal sexes want to kiss etc then it's up to them. I don't want it pushed in my face as normality nor to see it advertising any type of product. This is just cheap marketing to cause a big stir.
Phil Ashton, Sheffield

My last comments were wordy, so I'll just say that Phil is a turtle's vadge. OK, I can't stop being wordy. Surely "equal sexes" could also refer to a feminist heterosexual couple? And, get this, homosexuality IS normal!

I was appalled at the advert. Having young children calling a man "mum" was sad, confusing, and so very wrong. Seeing same sex kissing is stomach-churning to most people who are not homosexual. Please keep adverts to appeal to the majority. I feel this was possibly deliberate to get discussion going and to brain wash people into eventually seeing these things as normal. What a sad reflection on life today.
Joan Bailie, Grimsby, Lincs, UK

I suppose a male gay couple with children don't exactly want one of them to be referred to as "mum" (but whatever floats their boat floats mine), yeah, but again, let's look at the reality of the advert. The New York deli chef was only figuratively a bloke. So she is "mum". See above for my view on how young children see the world. And same-sex kissing is precisely as stomach-churning as opposite sex kissing. I don't personally relish seeing any saliva-swapping - other people's mouths taste yucky - but IT'S ALL NORMAL. "Keep adverts to appeal to the majority"? Adverts nearly all suck donkey balls. How come this ad gets pulled, but the terribly acted ads featuring insurance claims for falling off a three-step ladder and the sodding Cillit Bang advert stay on the air when they're offences to the ear and so badly acted? Who exactly does the Cillit Bang ad appeal to? Well, I can certainly agree that the ad got discussion going, but "brainwashing" (one word, Joan, please) - surely the true brainwashing is committed on the part of the homophobes, who are hell bound to make sure there's only one normal way to be? "A sad reflection of life today? Get a grip, Joan, you duck's dick.

And back to my mother. She agreed with Duck's dick Joan that homosexual kisses are stomach churning. I just started laughing my head off when she agreed with it and said "I'll assume you're having me on" because I don't want to have a bigoted mother who acts like a turtle's wang.

I think I'll get a T-shirt printed with this ad with a picture of John Barrowman next to a caption saying "Some people are gay. Get over it." I love John Barrowman, and I love that ad. Let's see if I can find it... Here it is.

Some links for your edification:

The BBC article avec comments

The ad in question (I read a comment on youtube saying that the ad should only be given out in adult entertainment shops. Either - I hope - the person is saying it tongue in cheek, or the commenter is really prudish.)

In other news, I saw Prince Caspian last night. Pretty good, quite funny, although the actor playing Peter is some gormless Southern twit. I wish Robert Pattinson - the Cedric guy in Harry Potter - was playing it instead, because he has better hair and doesn't look quite so gormless. The Edmund actor also looks gormless, but he's not shite. Everyone else - good. Though I sincerely wish Trufflehunter hadn't said the like "shut up or I'll have to sit on your head again" to Nikabrik, because in front of an audience of 16-25-year-olds... er... the implied dwarf bestiality can only produce helpless giggles.

Eighteen plus Four

Do I prefer adulthood or childhood?

I don't know! I know I like reading about other people's childhoods, which is why I've got a zillion copies of And There Was Light and have a crazy fascination with all the books I read and wanted to read as a child. It's why I buy Chalet School books (but Jesus, I've got to say the religious fervour in those books scares me), and why the first pages of biographies are always much more thumbed through than any pages that cover the subject's life past the age of eighteen.

I can tell you that the four years that I've experienced being older than eighteen were infinitely more interesting than the eighteen years before that, though.

So you've got four years before you go to school where you piss about and watch Thomas the Tank Engine and draw crap, wasting lots and lots of craft paper with little squiggles of nothings.

Then there's primary school, a salutary lesson which teaches you how to eat virulent pus-like custard and curiously gristly meat if you take school dinners (shudder), or how to eat deformed sandwiches and heavily bruised bananas if you're, er, lucky enough to have a parent who will make lunch for you. You might pick up a few bits of education along the way - Nelson joined-up handwriting, exactly where the answers are in all editions of Heinemann maths books - but mostly you learn to eat horrible food and to win games of marbles in the playground. And break stuff trying to do cartwheels while dodging footballs. If you are exceptionally unlucky, you'll be sent to a religious school, which adds half an hour of dreary hymn singing and a lifetime of Catholic guilt to your day.

Following this is secondary school. The food is, if possible, worse. The pizza looks like someone's vomited on a slice of toast, and those, as well as all the other food (which includes swede, a vegetable used only in school dinners - seriously, I have never seen it before or since), are served by aggressive fifty-year-old dinner ladies with about three teeth and pockmarked faces. The library is staffed not by a human being who resembles a teddy bear but by a martinet with a newspaper face and a desire to travel through time and become a Stalinist lackey. Teachers are divided into three broad groups:

a) young, fresh-faced, deadly serious about their subject, still enthusiastic, set homework because they truly believe it'll help you learn

b) old, prematurely greying, jaded by years of teaching students who don't give a toss, teach with an air of tired detachment, hate mankind, set homework because they've grown to hate anyone under the age of eighteen

c) varying ages, man are slightly bald and women have desperately unflattering hairstyles, still like their subjects but have adapted to teaching it in a way that involves as much acting and blowing stuff up and playing on computers as possible, set homework only because the school says they have to and you do it because you like them, not so much because you have any great interest in what you're meant to be learning.

I only remember a couple of teachers from groups a) and b). They were OK, I suppose. I didn't have any overwhelming urges to set fire to a bag of dog shit and leave it on their doorsteps, except for one A-level physics teacher who constantly bullied and belittled one of my friends. Clever girl, utterly crap teacher. I hope he's lost his job, because he was in group b) - except he hated anyone under the age of forty-eight. What an old fart.

But group c)!

Mr. P was an excitable young bloke who loved his subject (Physics) - at least he liked teaching A-level classes. (Which have a distinct advantage above any other level of education because people want to be in those classes. You have to stay at school until you're 16 and people buy their way into uni "because it's expected", but A-levels are full of people who are neither stupid - well, this holds true for science lessos - nor disinterested in the subject.) So what did I do for him? There was a transit of Venus across the sun in 2004, and I turned up at school at about 5.30 am to set up several observers with him so that year 8s could see a little dot on the sun. It was great. I was a morning person that day. I evern saved a thirteen-year-old boy from blinding himself. Fantastic. This guy was also the teacher I had a discussion about War and Peace with, prompted by seeing a bunch of History students reenacting Austerlitz on the playground with a short-choleric teacher as a French-spouting, victorious Napoleon.

Mr. G was a chemistry teacher, and looked it. He had a teacher jacket - a tweedy affair stained with years upon years of excitingly explosive chemical reactions and burns from the bunsens. He constantly used the word "bleeding". Whenever a lesson was getting slow, he'd shout "Come here!" and drop a little potassium in water to produce pinkish-purple flames, or sublime some iodine (I found out the hard way why halogens were used as tear gas in WW1). And he liked playing the Tom Lehrer Elements song. Hooray!

Mr. and Mrs. L were my biology teachers. Mr. L was a Welsh eccentric. Once, he gave homework that consisted of collecting woodlice, in December. I used a bandanna to cover one eye, to acclimatise the other to the dark. I carried a torch (to avoid stumbling into our bramble bushes), a twig, and a jar half-full of soil and a stone, and, so armed, jumped into the back garden shouting "Right, you bastards - I'm coming to get you!"

Two and a half hours l had caught two woodlice - one was a geriatric and the other  was a baby. I went in, defeated, and ate dinner. Checking the jar afterwards, I found the geriatric one dead. The next day, I took the jar into school and showed my slim pickings to Mr. L.

"Is that all?" he said. "I found over two hundred last night. You're just not applying yourself! Buck up, girl!" and poured ten into my tiny jar. (Why woodlice? We were investigating phototropism.) And all this over some sodding woodlice.  really liked Mr. L, because he and Mrs. L were really nice teachers. They were the ones you went to if you had a problem. They told jokes in class. They rarely got angry. And although they had to mention creationism in their biology classes, they spent about 0.5 seconds on it. Which is about as much consideration as it deserves, going on the proportions of evidence available for each one (we had a month about evolutionary principles beforehand).

So, teachers. But there's also other kids, and secondary school is the worst possible place if you, say, like reading during lunch, or spend time on your homework, or don't make it a death-or-glory mission to have more friends than anyone else. I was in a solid group of six during the latter years there, which suited me down to the ground, and I gained a certain measure of notoriety for being both intelligent and off my nut. Unfortunately, if you're under fifteen-sixteen, the intelligent/off-nut combo doesn't gain you friends unless they're really nice people. I mean, look at Luna Lovegood, from Harry Potter. I survived the other kids, but I still expect people to think I'm boring and not worthy of attention. I just can't quite shake off the feelings of being deemed socially inadequate at eleven. I'm surprised when people want to be friends with me.

Then, assuming you're at a school with a sixth form, you finish school at 18 and go off to uni. This is outside the scope of this entry. Suffice it to say that uni was exciting, but my first extended contact with people from Down South who still thought everyone from Yorkshire kept whippets and racing pigeons and had dads who worked down t'pit was a bit chafing. But I got to live in Germany and I met cool people who weren't obsessively interested in other people's sex lives and I made friends with actual adults. I won't knock uni life - if you want to be there and you're prepared to work, go. It's not for everyone, but it's cool.

I described my Great British childhood in a few paragraphs I typed in about an hour or so. Thing is, it took eighteen years to live. When you're five, December lasts for about six months. A shopping trip with your mother, that according to her lasts a couple of hours, feels like a week (unless you get to go to Waterstone's). And you can't go anywhere on your own. I ran away with the neighbour's dog when I was two, and that was the furthest away I got from my parents with them not knowing exactly where I was until I was sixteen and wandering from Leicester Square halfway to St. Paul's in a vain attempt to get to the National Gallery (get a map of London to see just how stupid I was).

So childhood was OK to write about. OK to live, unless you're allergic to boredom. I think it's all in the description, really. I can read about eighteen years in an afternoon. I've experienced parts from lots and lots of childhoods. But I'm an adult now, and I can do stuff. I can vote! I can go to Berlin and walk through the Brandenburg gate, something impossible as recently as the day of my birth - you could get shot for it. I can drink as much as I want. I can own a pub and stand for Parliament (well, now I'm over 21). The sky's the limit now. I liked childhood, and OK, now I've got to start paying bills and all that, but you know what? I'm looking forward to it. 18+4 years, and now something new! Well, let's start.

Soon to be a graduate!

I want to be busier! I'm crazy, I know. I've just done two big, nasty exams, and I prepared for weeks for them, and I was exhausted. But now... I bought a book on CV writing and interview techniques. It's what I should be doing anyway, but I'm actually looking forward to writing my CV and touting my Sprachkenntnisse and love of photography. (That reminds me - I really must organise all my photos. And see if I can still ID everything.) Do I have to worry about this blog, though? Will the fact that I have "The God Delusion" in the list of my favourite books (not that it's exactly a desert island book, but it's definitely interesting reading) work against me? If I don't have my name here, how would anyone find me? Do I have to delete this thing? I must have mentioned I like drinking. Have I made a massive cock-up?

I have ordered my graduation gown and hood. It's green - my favourite colour! I will look ever so smart on the day. But I bet I look dorky on the photographs. I'm having professional portraits done. I seriously hope my squint doesn't show - or worse, that I don't have red-eye. I don't know what it is about cameras, but they make me look like the Spawn of Satan. It is, of course, merely an affirmation that my retinas, at least, are in the best of health, but I still don't like looking like I've got "666" tattooed on my backside.

Learned to iron stuff properly. Up until now I have been the past master at putting random and unfixable creases in my favourite T-shirts, but yesterday I successfully ironed 25 T-shirts and a nightie. I even started ironing my socks until my dad pointed out the futility of that exercise. It's an oddly addictive way of passing the time - and you get nice clothes at the end!

Miranda the goldfish is ill, with some bloody streaks in her tail-and-a-half. On the recommendation of the pet shop bloke, I purchased some medication that has turned the water translucent green - and I mean bright green, not swampy green. Miranda seems totally at ease with it. but frankly her tank looks like someone's filming the X-files in it.

Getting my hair highlighted tomorrow! The university have seen fit to give me about £400, so I thought "Why not?"

I was going to post about the Chalet School books - I found a shop in York that sold them, and I found The Chalet School Triplets going for £150! - and how Joey Bettany scares me to death, but it would involve revealing my religious beliefs (and also involve the words "attention whore"). Bad me. Bad Joey. Boo.

Sophie vs. Theo

I've finished my last exam - the last one I'll ever have to do for this degree. Possibly the last one I'll ever have to do in my life. Unless I'm silly enough to to a driving test - which might be good for increasing the sum total of my knowledge - and learning is never a bad thing - but is not so environmentally sound. Especially not when such items as buses exist. I'll be a BSc soon! That sounds good!

So now I can return to the land of the living - or rather, the land of the blogging, because I'm too damn tired to do any of that "living" stuff right now. I can summon up the energy to breathe, keep my eyes open, and type. Just. I feel like the relaxing yoga stretches I tried to relieve exam stress have pulled not only a muscle, but my entire body. On the plus side, I can put both hands flat on the floor in front of me with my legs straight, and touching my toes is chicken feed. On the minus side... it hurts to walk. I am beginning to sympathise with old people. Speaking of old people, I hope I'll be one of those 60-year-old yoga practicioners who thinks nothing of putting one foot behind her head first thing in the morning. Right now I'm 22 and therefore don't experience first things on the mornings; I have first things in the afternoon instead.

Land of the living... I've cleaned Miranda's tank for the first time in weeks and regretted I didn't do it earlier, as there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing a young, healthy, stupid oranda try and swim into the filtration output. (Maybe I'm underestimating her and it's actually the fishy equivalent of a treadmill.) I'm going to polish the glass table in the conservatory; I managed to get vinegar all over it yesterday and it's dried into a smear. I'm going to tidy my room and arrange my books more like in the order I have to read them in. I'm going work out why iTunes has stopped talking to my iPod - I suspect a lover's tiff is what's stopping me from being able to listen to the Sweet Charity soundtrack on the bus.

And I can get back to talking about books!

Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Jostein Gaarder

So... back in 1998 or so, I bought Sophie's World. (Ten years ago! Time flies...) I loved it; the didacticism didn't weigh too heavily on the text, and I rather enjoyed the twist when Sophie finds out exactly who she and Alberto are (I didn't see it coming - but give an innocent 12-year-old a break). And it genuinely did make me a deeper thinker, I think - at least I hope. Because when it comes down to it all, "Why are we here?" is a damn good question. Even apparently silly questions, like "So why do all horses look the same?" still have interesting implications. So there is no such thing as a stupid question.

And I liked the characters. Sophie the everygirl - I think her age was captured perfectly, as she seemed awfully grown up and confident to the 12-year-old me, but ever so fifteen to the twenty-odd-year-old me (though I admit it did strike me as odd that she still had one best friend at 15). She grew up with the reader as the book went on. I kind of envied her all her pets, but even more I envied the teacher-student relationship with Alberto. I've always liked having older, wiser friends. I wanted a mentor. But I was quite content to have a proxy, fictional mentor in Alberto.

The story? Well, it's explicitly stated in the book that it's not so much a novel as a philosophy textbook - a statement I originally read with a hint of disappointment. I thought I'd been reading a novel, albeit one with a heavy emphasis on philosophy discussions. But now I realise I can't be wrong with my assessment - I think it's a novel. So it is. The setting is quite ordinary, just like Sophie, and barring the later portion of the book, nothing extraordinary happens apart from the friendship between a 38-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl. And that was fine by me too, because I could almost imagine the novel happening to someone just like me. Sophie was me - a Norwegian me with a mentor and a cat and a tortoise - and I identified with her, grew and learned with her.

So when I finished the book after a couple of days of dedicated reading (it's not small!), I was desperate for something else to read. Something in the same vein. I ploughed through the rest of Jostein Gaarder's books (and I can particularly recommend The Solitaire Mystery and The Ringmaster's Daughter). Still not enough. So was there another novel with a similar theme? Perhaps by a different author, treating a different subject...?

Theo's Odyssey

Catherine Clement

It seemed there was. Turn your eyes to the, um, volume to the right (I assure you that the back copy advertises the book as the superior cousin of Sophie's World. Ha!). My first rule for a book is that you shouldn't have to look at the cover 36497 times to check the spelling. OK, this isn't the writer's fault, but the fault of some cloth-eared translators who wouldn't know fluent prose if it bit them in the arse, but let's be fair. If Catherine Clement hadn't written this book, they'd have been out of a job, and although with their ear that would have been no bad thing, they've got to eat.

So this kid Theo gets a deadly disease - according to a google search it's some deadly aggressive leukaemia. I wouldn't know; I wasn't able to penetrate past the first couple of chapters. I was under the impression it was glandular fever, which, while debilitating, is hardly worthwhile of the fuss over it in the book. He's a geek with a particular interest in mythology and an inexplicably attractive appearance, which probably remains unsullied by the strangest form of leukaemia the world has ever known. He has a best friend, which occurrence I would also deem impossible given that he's a 14-year-old nerd. OK, a pretty nerd. We get it. Did I mention he's a sickly, attractive, delicate genius geek? I don't know, so I'll state it again! Just so you know you're meant to like this character! Instead of getting pissed off at his overprotective parents, or just a teensy bit jealous that his crazy harridan of an aunt is taking him on a round-the-world trip, damn the consequences, you're meant to like and sympathise with the nerdy sickly pretty boy... argh.

In an effort to stop getting pissed off by the ineptness of the writing and the fact that my mid-teenage years didn't involve a trip around the world (even if it did have the purpose of teaching me about world religions), I  flipped through the book. Now Theo doesn't have a character so much as a set of characteristics which have hopefully been hammered into your head, so it's not surprising he flips between childhood and almost-adulthood, and the fact that the host characters who tell him about the religions are cardboard cutouts - but it's a religion textbook, right? All this characterisation rubbish can go out of the window, and the plot, well, it can hang like a bedsheet held by two pegs on a washing line. I could almost accept this if reports (OK, Amazon reviews) had not indicated that the information presented was very often inaccurate. So the book fails at characterisation and at information. Let us hope that the denoument....

... no. Theo gets better, sorry to spoil it for you. There might have been a poignancy and poetry to the book if he had died, having come to a spiritual peace through his exploring of world religions, but he's now, apparently, no longer a sickly pretty nerdy boy. He's a healthy pretty nerdy boy. And he gets the girl - the best friend I mentioned before. The girl has been patiently waiting and worrying at home while Theo apparently has the time of his life. Blah. Maybe it's just my wanderlust mixed with jealousy speaking, but I'd want to be out there.

So who would like this book? It has three and a half stars on Amazon. So someone - many someones - likes it. But I'm hard-pressed to think: indiscriminate religious people who prefer anything to secular atheism? Umm... 14-year-olds who haven't read Sophie's World, and think this is as good as didactic lit. gets? Any other suggestions?

I was only reminded of this book because Amazon.de assumes that buying anything from them is license to sending the purchaser endless e-mails containing books that may prove interesting based on previous purchases. From Amazon.de, I have bought one book - Das wiedergefundene Licht (yup... And There Was Light, but in German this time). So apparently I will quite happily read German translations of spiritually-themed books by French authors - WRONG! I want books about resistance. Or the Second World War. Amazon - please use a different algorithm. Anyway, the latest offering included a book called Theos Zweite Reise - Theo's second journey, by Catherine Clement. Another world trip? Think of your carbon footprint, Theo! Apparently he is - this new one's about saving the planet. Now I'm all for some environmental awareness, but Christ Almighty - not through the medium of a Catherine Clement book! Please, Mme Clement. Write a pamphlet. Do not subject the world to Theo.

Optimistic disaster area

I am shit at computer games. I bought Avatar: The Burning Earth today. I saved my Pokemon game, took out the cartridge for the first time in weeks, and put in the Avatar game. And promptly proceeded to have the shit kicked out of me by two grown men with spears who were "just trying to make me go into the Avatar state". I tried to resist them, but ended up sending spinning balls of air in the opposite direction while they stabbed me in the back. Let me remind you I'm playing as a happy-go-lucky twelve-year-old who has funky tattoos and has a ten-ton flying bison with two extra legs. And some bastards are trying to kill me. Yeah, I got Aang killed. Now if I'd only been playing as Sokka, I could have thrown my specially sharpened boomerang and exacted revenge some turns later - now if only I had Sokka's aim. Or if I'd been Katara, I could have... well... given my poor aiming skills, I'd have ended up randomly icing walls and having the shit kicked out of me. Alas. I had to restart the game after about three minutes of lowering my HP into the red. Poor Aang. I'll never forget this cartoon saved to my computer, where a badly injured Pikachu is begging for mercy while a frankly psychotic-looking young boy is grinning and fiddling with his Pokedex and getting out a bunch of Pokeballs. I've gone scratched Aang up all badly. In my hands, he is bleeding heavily and begging for mercy. He's only twelve! And he's so cute and big-eyed! Maybe Sokka would look cool with a big manly facial scar on his right cheek - he'd certainly look less of a boob in his wolf-warrior getup - and Zuko, well, he's already been banged up a bit. I am dreading being able to play as Toph. Possibly because I have even worse aim than she does (at least, when it comes to the wholly airborne). And I don't want to get a tiny twelve-year-old, even one who can demonstrably kick large abouts of arse, all HPed out again.

Well, anyway. I've been carrying on with the Yoga exercises. I have made it a point to touch the floor with my toes every day. Not a big achievement, you might think. Well, I mean touch the floor while balancing on my head and arms. It's meant to be relaxing. It's terrifying. Today I ended up wedged between two walls - my bum was pressed up against one and my head against the other. My legs were sticking straight up into the air. I was stuck for five terrifying minutes, but managed to wriggle out of the position. I decided to try the child pose, which is basically a return-to-the-womb type posture. I have little or no desire to return to the womb; my legs fell asleep.

I come bearing a book! On Saturday I purchased No Plot? No Problem! - by the guy who set up NaNoWriMo. I'd love to sign up some day, if only because I've got A Novel in me somewhere - probably in my spleen or my fallopian tubes, not my heart - and it wants to come out. And it needs a deadline.

No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

Chris Baty

I've not yet finished the book, but I like it already. There's a portion that asks why we give up things that we're not immediately good at, and I thought "Good point!" I've already admitted I am shit at computer games (apart from Pokemon). But I'm not going to give up on the Avatar game. I will learn to aim. By the same token, I'm also not good at yoga. But I'm not going to give up (though I will wisely moderate my attempts after twisting my wrist trying to do the arch posture); I'll take lessons. So next time I start a novel (and it will be from scratch, as long as I can come up with a decent setting and a vague idea of the plot), I'll stick with it. Even if I think it's shit after two weeks. I really want to read the rest of this book now (OK, and do revision), so I'll sign off. Also, I have to wash my hair because I'm going out for an epic bender tonight! I am so not in tune with a yoga philosophy. But one day!

(Actually, that's something else the book advises against: saying "One day I'll do XYZ". Arse. OK, I'll make a resolution. Get better at everything. Good!)

Spoilers. I know the title is weird, but I had to warn you.

It's been so long since I last updated that the system logged me out. I'd feel lazy, but I've spent the last few weeks revising and doing a piece of coursework about bioinformatics. I do wish they'd set us more coursework at uni. I'm not a masochist; I mean, I'd prefer coursework to a heavily-weighted final exam. It's more realistic, isn't it? I mean, I've worked in a research lab. If you want to know a vital piece of information - the exact structure of 5-methylcytosine, or where the gene for lactate dehydrogenase is coded for in a mouse genome - and you're actually working in a lab, you look it up, or ask someone. You don't memorise a whole load of crap that might not even be pertinent to the situation, do you? (Mind you, being given a set of clearly defined, guided questions isn't all that realistic either. But it's easier.)

Anyway. Media. Finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thank God for video uploaders on the web! Otherwise I'd have been deprived of an intelligent animated series. I've decided I love it; it's a Ten out of Ten. I like the lemur best, given that I like small fluffy creatures at the best of times. But small fluffy creatures with big green eyes and wings - hell yeah! I think I'd have an easier time concentrating on the current plotline, though, if Prince Zuko wasn't voiced by Dante Basco. Nothing wrong with that guy per se; it's that long before I'd ever heard of Avatar, I watched "But I'm A Cheerleader", and when Zuko tried to introduce himself to the Gaang (as I believe they're called) I was expecting him to say "Dolph. Homosexual varsity wrestler. How you doing?" and not "Hello. Zuko here!" Personally, I think Zuko would make a pretty good homosexual varsity wrestler, if it weren't for the fact that Toph could kick his ass. And when you don't stand a chance against a tiny blind 12-year-old, maybe it's time to reconsider. Anyway, I'm rather liking the burgeoning Zuko/Aang dynamic. The funny is only funny when the sap's got dignity, and Zuko's got plenty of that to lose when he gets covered in goo or distracted by a lively 112-year-old boy with no hair. Who can also fly. Or when he tells Aang to step back for his own safety at the beginning of the firebending lessons, which Aang dutifully does - only for Zuko to find out that he's all but lost his powers. That must be terrible. The Fire nation version of impotence. But they're so funny together!

I can now touch my toes! I know this has nothing to do with any form of media, but I can do it. Not bad, considering the tendons in the backs of my knees are wound up so tightly I couldn't actually do it for years. But I can do it now! Goodness knows why now, and not three years earlier, when I should have finished my growth spurt and my bones should have ossified for the last time. Life, I suppose. It likes playing tricks on you.

Hmm... what else? Can't write about my revision - it's hopelessly uninteresting unless you're into Drosophila development or bioinformatics, endless bioinformatics. I've almost completely withdrawn from internet life, because there's an incredible selection of idiots there if you only care to look. I'm in some sort of geek limbo. Geekier (in the good, sciency-smart way) than the average girl, but nowhere near geeky enough to own a copy of Lord of the Rings, let alone read the damn thing. I don't play role-playing games (well, apart from  Pokemon, but any game with animals that cute - and where the player character is a  cute ten-year-old - doesn't count).  I  don't do any useless geeky crap, really. I speak another language - a real language - and I can play chess. OK, I've also revealed I watch a kids' TV programme. But really, am I a geek?

Hmm... Pokemon. I've defeated the Sinnoh Elite Four and the Champion, using cunning typematching and brute force. I adore my Dialga. I've also captured the Sinnoh Legendary Psychic trio - I like Uxie the best! - and I've caught a Ditto, Mitosis (so I can have another Piplup - so cute) and Bebe gave me an Eevee, which I've named Mutable. So what should I evolve him into? I'm tending towards Vaporeon, or Umbreon.

Found a page full of yoga exercises for students. I can do... most of them. Although anything involving grabbing my feet will have to wait until my knee ligaments stretch a bit more. And although I can do the shoulder balance and the plough position while lying on my bed (well, not really lying, more posing), it's murder on my elbows if I try to do it on the floor. I need an exercise mat. The boat pose is achievable for about 0.3 seconds before my legs (which are rather muscley, from walking halfway across Germany, and are therefore heavy) come crashing to the ground, which is murder on my heels. For the same reason, you can forget the locust pose. My legs weigh a ton. Forget the arch and bow poses. My spine doesn't like bending backwards - yet. I hope to achieve them one day. Give me a million years of trying some of the less stressful poses. A lot of the poses claim to increase height. I'm almost 5'10"! I'm already tall by every country's average! The Dutch are apparently the tallest average people in the world, but even their average woman is 5'7" or so. One thing I can do is the corpse pose, which involves... well, lying flat on your back and occasionally turning this way and that. I could do it in my sleep. Given my acrobatic sleeping skills, I probably do do it in my sleep. My problem is I'm not a natural gymnast - not of the body. My mind is like quicksilver. My body will quite happily do the normal demands of life - walking, running (unless I walk round Berlin with a suitcase, which hurt my legs so much I literally couldn't move faster than a gentle amble), lifting fishtanks, putting my big toe on my forehead scar - but it will not, at this juncture, allow itself to be twisted backwards. And I can't walk on my hands. It would be a useful novelty skill, though. One day...!

Currently feeling a bit achey from working my way through the yoga positions. I've had a go at every one apart from the ones that involve putting your head between your knees, which seems to be a rather ridiculous level of suppleness. I think I'll go and exercise the mind now; Latin. Latin, with its zillion cases (German's enough trouble with four, and even then the genitive is obsolescent) and fifty ways of declining nouns. German looks positively simple now.

Zzzz...

And this time last year...

Today, I bought a camcorder. I've wanted one since... well, secretly since 1989. But I decided to do something with my birthday money, and they had an offer on at Currys, so £150 later I ended up with a camcorder that records on tiny little DVDs. I'm planning to get my dad to film me tomorrow, Easter Sunday, and if I can work out how to use iMovie I hope to post a video of myself here. AT least I've bought myself a Large Present with my money.

This time a year ago I was writing in my diary about Vienna. I'd just arrived there after an interminable journey - or as close as six hours can get to being interminable - and I was totally shagged out. I ate a meal at the Cafe Heine and retired to the Hotel Franzenshof to write about the distressing discovery that I made - I could read Viennese German fine, but I didn't have the first idea what anyone was saying to me. I suddenly had a lot more empathy for, say, holidaying Americans being totally bamboozled by their first encounter with a strong Scottish accent. I liked the holiday, but I made no progression in being able to understand anything anyone said unless we spoke in English...

So, the media front. I've been watching three animated shows. Space Pirate Captain Harlock is the first; it's an anime from the 70s and I have to say it's pretty damn cool, despite the outdated animation, the frankly bizarre character designs and the fact that Harlock himself has hair that looks like Cousin It clamped itself to his head. Oh, and the fact that there was an entirely incongruous panty shot of a seven-year-old girl, and that the only person who seems to be a 100% competent pirate spaceship crew member is a stick-thin girl who looks about 18 at the most. Everyone else is off playing Go in the corridors, or making model planes, or randomly flying into uncontrolled rages and then being temporarily reduced to the status of a three-year-old. But the show has heart, it has soul, and Captain Harlock is so damn cool with his skull-and-crossbones-themed clothing, skinny jeans (?!) and the eyepatch.

I've just started watching Elfen Lied, an extremely violent and bloody anime... not entirely sure I'm watching it for any more than macabre fascination. But it has a great opening theme song, and I am sort of getting into the storyline and themes... we'll see how this pans out. It's very weird.

I've also started on Avatar the last Airbender. Yeah, I know, it's on Nickelodeon or something. But it's exciting and it's not stupid. It has not once struck me as stupid. The characters are interesting and not obnoxious. I am having a little trouble with Aang. Oh, not the character. It's the fact that his voice sounds exactly like Charlie Brown's voice from all those animated Peanuts cartoons and movies. I will have to stop watching if he ever has to say "Good grief!" Trying to decide whether my favourite character is Toph, who kicks more arse than the entire male population of most major cities, or Sokka, who's funny and clever (but not too clever; he's stupid enough to drink random cactus juice and spend most of an episode hallucinating wildly. I think he had the best of it).

Went to see Juno on Thursday. I'm still conflicted. It was watchable, but I don't think I'll buy the DVD, because of the bits of forced-sounding dialogue, Juno's swings between childishness and immaturity, and the fact that I though Vanessa was an obsessive hyperbitch (and just to show I'm fair, I thought Mark was a creepy perv). Let me never reproduce - not that I had such plans - if it will induce such a personality in me! Soundtrack - apart from Mott the Hoople - was also of the kind of music I almost aggressively don't like; someone who can't sing listlessly strumming a guitar and murmuring crap into a microphone. Not even wacky drug-and-drink-addled crap, which is sometimes whacked-out enough to be funny; just crap crap - emotions taken from a 15-year-old's diary and vocab taken from an eight-year-old's English book. I like music that sounds like musicians had some part in its creation - is that just too much to ask nowadays? I'm struggling to find something good to say about the film. I didn't hate it by any means, but it's not made any great impression on me. Apart from the shite soundtrack.

After that, I bought Art Spiegelman's Maus. It's already in my book list and I have already read it - I borrowed it from the Stadtbibliothek in Wuerzburg. It's a deeply affecting piece of work, but I'm not exactly in the mood to write about it now.

Hmm... what next? List of DVDs I must watch? Cathartic rant about stuff I don't like (it's easier than trying to articulate why I love a book/movie)? I think a good old-fashioned sleep is in order.