(Female) Opinionated Reader

Jetlag Music

2012-01-26T07:17:00.000Z

The following blog post was brought to you by a combination of jet lag, bananas and listening to Spotify playlists for almost twenty four hours straight.

I have been so cocky since my return. “You sound perky,” had been a regular comment on my mood since I landed back on Scottish soil. Jet lag wasn't going to get me. I left Los Angelos six thirty in the evening, managed to doze on the plane and allowed myself a pint once I passed through the hell that is Heathrow's Border Control service. Back on a plane to Glasgow where I dozed again on the short flight. By this point it was five in the evening, GMT style. I had been (relatively) awake for twenty four hours, eaten two dinners and a breakfast in the middle of the night. Somehow I made it through the evening until bedtime.

Then I slept for twelve hours straight.

“You sound perky,” Him Indoors muttered as he stumbled into the living room this afternoon. “I feel great!” I replied.

Yeah, I don't feel so perky now. Wide awake at three in the morning, GMT style, when I should be finishing off my last beer before bedtime, LA style.

One of my New Year's Resolutions was not to get stuck in a musical rut. I am cheating a little bit in January. Due to my travels across the pond, I thought it was a wise idea not to actively pursue any of my goals. Apart from the musical rut. That was relatively easy one to achieve. In total I was spending approximately forty hours on planes plus a lot of waiting around at airports. I assumed I would read on the plane; an incorrect assumption as I entered that hideous state of being too tired to read but being too aware of my surroundings to stay awake. Planes are a sociologist's dream and a OCD nightmare.

Thank God for Spotify and its Offline playlists feature. Below are some of the songs I enjoyed on my trip to LA and San Francisco. Some have stories. Some don't; they're just there to be enjoyed.

The Walkmen – Juveniles

Story: Him Indoors and I decided to partake in a gig whilst we were in San Francisco. Originally, we decided to go and see The Walkmen after catching them as support for Arcade Fire in June. Unfortunately, the decision to buy tickets was left a little late and the gig sold out. I had made up a playlist before I found out we couldn't go. I hummed and hawed about whether I should remove the playlist. We were both determined to go to a gig in San Francisco and had booked tickets to see these guys:

Voodoo Glow Skulls – El Coo Cool

Authority Zero - No Regrets

A bit different, huh? I was worried that I'd love The Walkmen, hate Voodoo Glow Skulls and Authority Zero and spend the evening glowering into a pint. The gig is an entirely other blog post so I'll summarise by saying I threw caution to the wind and decided to listen to The Walkmen.

So that is the tale of the Gig That Almost Was.

(On a side note, I really enjoyed the Voodoo Glow Skulls/Authority Zero gig. More on that later, kidlets.)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll

warning: may contain glitter

(Also many thanks to @kirstininnes for recommending the Yeah Yeahs Yeahs amongst many other great artists)

Lady Gaga – The Edge of Glory

Story: Fortunately for Him Indoors I chose not to renact this video on the fire escape of our San Francisco hotel.

Aloe Blacc – I Need a Dollar

Coming Soon: The true extent of America's poverty problem really hit me in San Francisco. I was staying near Union Square, on the border of the Tenderloin district. This area was described to me by a native San Franciscan as “the kind of place you see everything: trannies walking around in the middle of day, drug dealers, pan handlers. Just give them a look of disgust and walk on.” A bit like Glasgow on Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday evening.

No matter where I went in San Francisco, I was confronted with the homeless population. Golden Gate Park, Fisherman's Wharf, the CalTrain station, swarms of people on the corner of Market and Powell. Always asking for a dollar.

Cold War Kids – Golden Gate Jumpers

Story: Not much of one but not enough material to warrant a blog post of its own. There are no barriers on the Golden Gate Bridge across the Bay. Anyone who jumps is not coming back. This is not a spot for attention seeking suicides.

Coming Up:

A trilogy of songs from The Killers; the 'most played' tracks from my Killers playlist if you wish. Just because. And yes, I know the middle one is a cover but I didn't know that until Him Indoors pointed it out.

The Killers – Read My Mind

The Killers – Romeo and Juliet

The Killers – When You Were Young

College Featuring Electric Youth - Real Hero

Story: The song above is a fitting end to my holiday and, indeed, this blog post. On the plane home, I planned to watch Drive. I had missed its outing at the cinema and had heard great things about it. Ryan Gosling is absolutely fantastic as the lead character, a movie stunt driver that gets involved with LA gangsters. At times my inner feminist bristled at the stereotypical representation of women: the only two female characters featured were passive creatures that were either brutalised, sex objects or passively relied on the men in their lives. Overlooking that minor quibble, the film had a great storyline that kept me hooked. Also its run time comes in at a respectable 100 minutes which is becoming a rarity in today's blockbuster world.

This song plays over the closing credits to Drive. It gave me a timely reminder that music and my personal preferences are constantly growing and changing. At the Voodoo Glow Skulls/Authority Zero gig, the support band was SkyFox*. Ten years ago I would have loved them: their cheeky pop punk style, the crude songs consisting entirely of curse words and about church girls being“easy chicks.” In ten years from now, I may cringe at this blog post and this small sample of my music tastes.

So, to end, here's a song for everyone's inner seventeen year old:

* I'm quite surprised that SkyFox have been around for so long. Their appearance at the gig last week was really clumsy and smacked of a band that had just formed. Mind you, they have a long way to go before they beat the two decade run that Voodoo Glow Skulls have enjoyed.

Goals for 2012

2012-01-03T09:59:00.000Z

I was fortunate enough to spend New Year in a friend's caravan in the Lake District. It's a rather cosy place and I spent most of my time reading books and pondering the year ahead. Five resolutions seemed to work for me last year so here are my resolutions for 2012:

1. To start running again and enrol in a 10k run event

As I was writing my last check in post of 2011, I remembered how much I enjoyed running. It's a real shame I seemed to have ground to halt especially when I was doing ~~reasonably~~ well. In February I plan to join a local gym (gyms in January are like the special circle of hell reserved for unfit fuckers like me) and re-start the Couch to 5k program. A friend suggested that I enrol in a running event and, to add on the pressure, raise money for a charity of my choice. This seems to be a popular suggestion featuring in many articles discussing running and the motivation to keep going. I'm toying with entering a 10k that takes place in June (that requires a bit more research) and raising funds for the Scottish SPCA. Now I just need to remember which corner of my wardrobe my running shoes are currently hiding in.

2. To continue doing morning pages every day

Another activity that fell by the wayside upon the arrival of New Job. Morning pages are an activity suggested by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way. The idea is that, upon waking each morning, you immediately write three pages of.... well anything you like. This allows all the flotsam and jetsam of your mind to escape and, hopefully, opens up the creative taps.

I did enjoy doing my morning pages. They got me up half an hour early and, despite most pages being utter dribble, meant I was still writing every day. This compliments goal no. 3 which is

3. To stick to my weekly schedules

One bad habit university taught me is that I could produce a 2:1 standard essay in the space of a week. Unfortunately this doesn't always translate well to long term projects or the workplace. Part of my plans for this year include taking my writing more seriously; treating it like, well, a job. New Job requires me to work approximately 3 days a week. That frees up an extra 2 days a week to work on my writing as well as enjoying a 'weekend'. I've worked at the weekend since I was sodding seventeen. I deserve to enjoy having a 'weekend' that isn't based around which shifts I'm working that week.

I'm also trying to work out a way of blocking any Internet and television access on my writing days. I do have a small writing space in my bedroom (photograph to follow when I've cleared it up a bit) that is far away from any links to the outside world. On days I need to work on the computer I shall simple pull the plug on the Internet. Stay tuned.

4. To avoid getting into music ruts

This is partly based on a drunken conversation with Him Indoors in the early hours of 2012. I can listen to the same Spotify playlist for months on end whilst he is constantly seeking out new music. Some nostalgia for gigs gone past resulted in us searching Spotify for Franz Ferdinand, Cooper Temple Clause, El Presidente and what I like to call 'Obscure Shouty Guitar Stuff Him Indoors Listens To.'

My Creative Zen died a messy death in November. To compensate for its loss, I subscribed to Spotify via my Blackberry. This allowed me to download playlists to listen to when I was out and about. This musical freedom should have resulted in me waxing lyrical about aural pleasures. Instead I've been listening to the same playlist for two months. This one in case you're interested.

In order to make more use of this blog, I shall choose one artist a month to write a blog post about. Even if they're extremely uncool. Like this

5) To keep track of the books I read and participate in the Sunday Salon once a month

In a hungover haze on New Year's Day, I lay on a massive sofa and trawled through Twitter. A common pattern emerging was people posting about their favourite books of 2011. I have a dreadful memory and could name some of the books I read in 2011. But perhaps I read them in 2009? Or was it 2008 I read that one?

If one wants to be a writer, then they must read. There is no "if" or "and" or "but" about it: they must read. Most importantly, they need to remember what they read and whether it was any good or not. This is where the Sunday Salon comes in.

I was introduced to this lovely concept by Alex in Leeds. Each Sunday, across the world, bloggers discuss what they've been reading. Here's the blurb from the website:

Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book.

Currently there are over five hundred weekly participants. For a time I did attempt to blog on a regular basis under the Sunday Salon banner. A quick glance at my blog's archive reveals my last post was in 2010. I think it's time to kick start that habit.

So there are my goals for 2012. It's your job to give me a boot up the backside if I'm slacking off, okay?

Final Check In of 2011

2011-12-29T16:40:00.000Z

This year I decided to make some resolutions. They're not the stuff dreams are made of but they were important to me. Here's a quick recap of my pithy goals for 2011:

Lose weight
Make more of an effort with my writing
Be more organised (and this does not mean buying 101 pocket diaries)
Be better at keeping in touch with people
Be ~~better at managing~~ in more control of my finances

1. Lose weight

I'd say that this has been my most successful goal of 2011. I am exiting 2011 2.5 stone lighter than when I entered it. This sounds incrediably morbid but I have become more aware of my mortality this year. My flat is located up three flats of (not very steep) stairs which left me wheezing like an old man. The final crunch came when I was running to catch a bus. After paying and finding a seat, my body took a good five minutes to approach recovery. A tad melodramatic but it scared me. Someone in their ~~mid~~ late twenties should not be that unfit.

So I decided to get off my couch and start following the Couch to 5K program. I'm fortunate to live close to Queen's Park which provides a pleasant landscape to my running. Running gave me time to think, to compete with myself, to start regaining my self-respect. My calves have become less wobbly. Unfortunately I've not made time to go running since September. The darker nights and tales of friends having nasty running accidents on the ice made me afraid to venture out. However I miss my 'me' running time and have decided to join a gym until the weather gets better. However I won't go until after the January rush. I've been in a gym post-Christmas slump and it's the closest circle to hell I'll ever get to be.

The other big diet change I made this year was to go vegan. I covered it in this post Check In October 2011 if you care to re-visit my reasons. Being vegan has not made a big impact on losing weight. I suspect I can attribute 0.5 stone to becoming a vegan. What it has helped to do is maintain my weight (with a slight hint of ethical smugness).

2. Make more of an effort with my writing

This goal has had peaks and troughs. I abandoned my attempts at working through The Artist's Way due to landing my 'proper' job. But I still have some achievements. I performed my work at the lovely Three Cord Theatre night held at the Flying Duck. It's a great space for actors, writers, musicians, stand up comedians, film makers and other performers to showcase their work in front of an appreciative audience. The staff working at the event are extremely supportive and are extremely accommodating. I'll certainly be performing again when I get some messy first drafts edited and trimmed up.

3. Be more organised (and this does not mean buying 101 pocket diaries)

This goal, along with no. 5, is probably my least successful. I've tried everything: paper diaries, Remember the sodding Milk, Google Calendar, back to paper diaries. At the moment I have one Google Calendar and one paper diary for work and a separate Google Calendar and paper diary for outside of work. But sometimes the two cross over if I'm working outside of office hours.

And I still forget birthdays, anniversaries and when I'm meeting people for drinks. If anyone has a successful organisation tool, please let me know via the comments on this blog. I'll buy you a pint if it works on me.

4. Be better at keeping in touch with people

I suppose this is a difficult goal to assess. Twitter and Facebook (supposedly) make it easier for people to keep in touch with each other. But then it removes the need for face to face contact on a regular basis. I've noticed in recent social gatherings that I've been itching to check my phone. Although I'm pleased to be meeting people, my attention span has shrunk somewhat. This scares me a little and makes my inner sociologist howl in despair. Earlier this year I did have a Twitter/Facebook/social media free week and I really enjoyed it. On my morning commute I read books, listening to some epic music and judged my fellow passengers on their reading material. Perhaps next year it might be a good idea to have one social media free week every month. I quite like the sound of that.

5. Be ~~better at managing~~ in more control of my finances

Ha! I have discovered an interesting correlation. The more money I earn, the more I spend on crap. This is a worrying development because, after June 2012, I will not have a job. So I'll need to be more thrifty next year. After I buy a Macbook Air. And more ebooks for my Kindle. And a new pair of jeans. And more shiny trinkets.

Ideas for 2012

I quite enjoyed working towards five goals this year. To motivate me, I stuck them on the wall beside my bed so I'd see them most mornings. It makes me sad not to think of them being there any more. So I'm going to spend the last days of 2011 pondering my goals for 2012. Five seems to work well for me. I'm nowhere near the 101 goals in 1001 days standard set by Alex In Leeds but perhaps I will be, one day.

Hope you all have a fabulous New Year when it comes.

Glasgow to Edinburgh via a notebook

2011-12-18T12:40:00.000Z

I have always found the train journey from Glasgow to Edinburgh rather inspiring. Living in a rather urban area of Glasgow, I forget that Scotland really is a beautiful country. It's one of the few journeys I make that takes longer than my usual commute of twenty minutes. I tend to have a purpose when going through to Edinburgh: visiting a friend, going to a gig, work related events. It's not a city I target for a day out, wandering aimlessly around its streets.

One benefit to the journey is that is seems to inspire me to put pen to paper. Over the past year I have some scribblings from the forty-five minute journey that may turn into a bigger story. The structure appeals to me. So here's the first of one of my notebook scribblings. I suspect this was written in early summer when I was popping through to the capital to visit friends.

Notebook Ramblings One

The train speed through the Scottish countryside. Watching the green of the land blur and merge into the colour of the seats then nohing made her feel sick so she stopped looking out the window. Her hand trembled against the glass of the window; the coolness felt re-assuring. It had been a chaotic day.

In the aisle the bored Scotrail employee pulled a metal trolley along, asking if anyone wanted tea or coffee. When asked, she acknowledged the tea attendant with a gentle shake of the head. She had had enough coffee for one day. The caffine was causing the shakes but there was something more.

The rhythm of her stomach matched the pounding, churning noise the wheels made as they thundered along the track. How could her fellow travellers remain so calm, so composed as they flew through the air at over a hundred miles per hour? In the seat opposite a women with a crisply ironed white shirt and sculpted hair to match. The woman occupied a table meant for four, she had claimed the space by spreading out her work papers, laptop and a Starbucks coffee cup standing guard. The woman’s debris screamed I’m busy and very important! The problem was that no-one seemed to care. The flashing red light of the woman’s Blackberry kept catching Cassandra’s eye. An ominous red glow that burned her eyes. Cassandra decided the easiest course of action would be to close her eyes. All around the perils of modern living were attacking her. She needed to think. The train had left its last stop before Queen Street, giving her just under thirty minutes to make her decision.

Today had started off in a boring manner. She had boarded the train mid-morning, coffee cup in hand, her Kindle tucked under her arm. After a moment’s hesitation she selected a two seater sans table and plugged into her headphones. The warm tones of Jenni Murray, guardian of Woman’s Hour, soothed her ears as the discussion panels tackled female genital mutilation, slut walks and the importance of choosing the right lipstick. All worthy causes for the modern day feminist to consider.

Cassandra was not sure she considered herself a modern feminist. Today’s brand of feminism seemed concerned with women exercising the right to flaunt their bodies at will. As she listened to tales of the slutwalk, Cassandra wondered if she could have attended one wearing a baggy jeans and t-shirt. Slutwalks jarred with the statistics that a woman was more likely to be raped by someone she knew than a complete stranger. Luckily the conversation moved on onto the virtues of pastille pink verses rich red. Cassandra smiled. Woman’s Hour reminded her of her own mother and her contradicting views on being a woman. ‘Pretty not tarty,’ Mother would whisper as Cassandra shoved yet another load of baggy clothes into the washing machine.

The train juddered to a stop at Falkirk High. Cassandra had no strong desire to visit Falkirk or its misleading train station name.

Wasted Opportunities

2011-11-29T20:19:00.000Z

I have realised, of late, I have squandered creative opportunities in order to make more money. This has been a regular occurrence since I was seventeen and got my first part time job. Since then I feel I've let money (and other things) cloud my judgement somewhat. My original intention for this post was to write out a list of my wasted opportunities. However, that is a little too narcissistic even for my tastes.

At the age of fifthteen I was published in an edition of New Writing Scotland. I even got a wee mention in the introduction by the editors. It gave me hope that writing was something I was good at; something I should pursue.

Then I'm not sure what happened. Writing drifted away from me. The words didn't come as easily as they used to. My time got swallowed up by university, friends, the pub, romantic interests, work, other things that make up life. At times the reading stopped too. That's when I knew I was in big trouble. As any student of writing knows, a good writer has to do a heck of a lot of reading too. How else are the words supposed to come?

It's time I took a big step. This week I handed in my notice to one of my part time jobs. After Christmas, I should have half a week to write, edit, ponder about the stories that have been floating around my head for the past decade.

I cannot bloody wait.

Occupy Glasgow: Move On?

2011-11-05T12:41:00.000Z

I have been noticeably quiet on this blog for the past couple of weeks. Occupy Glasgow seemed to be collapsing in on itself and I wanted to see what the outcome was. It would be unfair to post any thoughts on the group before the dust had a chance to settle. There has been a lot of controversy about a rape that took place in the camp. It is disgusting to use a horrific event that happened to a young woman as a method of criticising an entire movement. Other women decided to speak out on behalf of their sisters in the camp – despite never having set foot in the place. I have had the privilege of speaking to women that were camping out in George Square. They state that they are treated as equals and are furious at other people speaking on their behalf. One commented “I hate feminists because they tell me what I can and can’t do.” It made me sad that the actions of women were taking away the freedom of their sisters.

So I decided to do something about it. Last week I organised a Women’s Working Group at the camp. It was a great opportunity to talk to the women campers. One woman brought up a valid point – instead of being a Women’s Group it should be an Action group. The camp was being the focus of every GA I attended. There were security issues with vulnerable people coming to the camp. This highlights Glasgow City Council’s shocking inability to handle Glasgow’s homeless and vulnerable people population. This was not the camp’s problem to solve but they were facing it every night. The same people were camping out each night and they were facing activist burn out. Also the Council were keen to move the protestors out the way for the Altar of Capitalism that appears every year: the ice rink and Christmas market.

A lot of people within the Occupy Glasgow group were keen to move, myself included. Internal camp matters were taking up too much time and effort. One of the proposed sites was Kelvingrove Park; to be more specific the patch of land next to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. High footfall, near transport links and shops, busy place. Sounded great.

Until I heard the news on Thursday. Occupy Glasgow were moving to Kelvingrove Park. Unfortunately they were moving to a patch of land just off Kelvin Way. That would be Kelvin Way that has a large number of sexual assaults then? Or the section of the Park that is notorious for cottaging? Or down the road from the “splendid chaps” at the GUU who are known for antics such as this? Any woman in Glasgow is well aware that Kelvin Way is not the safest place in Glasgow, not by a long shot. I mentioned the relocation to some female friends and they were horrified by the move.

I believe in the Occupy movement. It has highlighted that we live in a culture of greed: materialistic, financial, environmental greeds. Capitalism is broken and unsustainable. The system drastically needs to improve. The Occupy movement’s purpose is to show people across the world are concerned about the same issues. This is what unites us as human beings. Occupy Wall Street, and its sister movements, is a non violent statement to the 1% puppet masters: we’re fed up with your shit.

As much as I support the Occupy cause, I cannot support the move to Kelvingrove Park. It is not creating a safe space for anyone involved in the movement. The council can install as many floodlights as it wishes; it still does not create a safe space. I will join Occupy Glasgow on their activism ventures whether that’s writing letters, promoting the message or marching together through the streets of Glasgow. However I will stop at the entrance of Kelvingrove Park.

Vive la Revolution!

2011-10-25T21:02:00.000Z

I do not cope terribly well with being busy. For the past year I have been working, and living, a part time lifestyle. I would like to say I spent my time productively, like re-reading interesting books from my undergraduate days or learning a new skill. Unfortunately I spent most of my time hitting refresh on Facebook and Twitter. Rock on, sister.

This weekend I volunteered to help out at Document 9, a human rights film festival. I can honestly say I had such a blast and a few instances of serendipity. The highlight came on Sunday evening when I was given a free ticket to watch How To Start A Revolution. After watching the film, I realised I had been waiting for this for years.

The documentary is about Doctor Gene Sharp, author of a little book called From Dictatorship to Democracy. Originally written to help the Burmese in the 1980s, this book has spread across the world as a vital tool in overthrowing dictatorships. Sharp's work has been credited with aiding non-violent revolutions including Serbia, Georgia and, more recently, Egypt. It contains 198 tools for non-violent protests against figures of power. It sounds so simple, so beautiful, so logical. Sharp's work doesn't claim to fix all wrongs in a society shaped by dictatorship. But his work is a delightful alternative to people that want to show their discontentment with the society they live in. I was reading parts of the book on my morning commute and kept muttering "That's brilliant" to myself. Unsurprisingly no-one sat next to me on a busy bus. I like Gene Sharp's method of revolution much better than the blood that has been shed recently in Libya.

His words are spreading. Already they're being adopting by the Occupy Glasgow moment (and putting their own stamp on it) and I'm sure his name has already cropped up in other Occupy movements across the world.

This has been a week of revolution on an international and personal level. For the first time in years I actually feel like there's a real sense of change in the air. When I hear the phrase "We are the 99%" I feel like I belong to a political group that represents me. In the last election I spoiled my ballot paper. There, I've admitted it. I had to vote, it's simply something I have to do to honour all the women (and men) who fought for my right to do so. But, when faced with a ballot paper, I thought "I can't imagine a single member of these shower of shites representing my best interests." So I drew a big cross across the paper.

Democracy - it seems such a hollow word. Growing up I knew it was important and something to be respected. The Occupy movement is a fine example of non-violent democratic protest. I feel excited, almost like a paradigm is shifting under my feet. The masses are getting pissed off about their power being chipped away. It's time to reclaim it from the 1%. I'll be standing there, with my copy of From Dictatorship to Democracy tucked under my arm.

Occupy Glasgow: A Week On

2011-10-22T11:19:00.000Z

The past week has been a bit of a whirlwind. Since my post on Monday, the Occupy Glasgow movement has been gaining attention from the local population to sister movements across the world. There has been some negative coverage in the Daily Fail based upon a mis-leading press release issued by Glasgow City Council. One point I would like to touch upon is Armistice Day. Some people have been extremely upset by the incorrect information issued by the Council. All the occupiers have the upmost respect for Armistice Day and the history behind that day. Already they have had discussions at their meetings about to accomodate the upcoming events that also includes the Christmas lights switch on. I know the truth because I have been attending Occupy Glasgow's daily meetings held each evening at 6.30pm in George Square.

It has been an inspiring week for me. I've met some fantastic people including this young man who is only 14 and is taking such an active role in the movement. People participating in the occupation come from a range of backgrounds and political ideologies. They're all united by one thing: the need for change in the way society is run. The current system is running very close to empty and that needs to be addressed.

Today Occupy Glasgow are holding a rally in George Square at 15.00. They hope to have 1, 000 people there this afternoon: families, greens, Socialists, feminists, anti-war demonstrators, trade union groups, students, young people, teachers, artists. What do all these groups have in common? They're human beings that are concerned about the way that the world is run by the 1% at the top of the pile.

Sadly I can't make the rally today because I have to work to pay for my winter heating bill. But I'll be watching via the George Square web cam.

The Revolution Will Not Be....

2011-10-17T22:25:00.000Z

This is happening in George Square, one of the most well know areas in Glasgow. In 1919 tanks rolled across its ground against the mass demonstration taking place. In 2011 Glasgow City Council are welcoming the protesters - for now.

It took Occupy Wall Street almost a month to be reported in the main stream media. Will the same happen in Glasgow: home to the 'Red Clydeside'; home to the famous 'nae hooligans...nae vandalism...nae bevying...' ethos adopted by the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in the 1970s?

Get down and show your support to them. They're based on George Square. Look out for the tents and the gazebos. They need bin bags, warm clothes but most of all they need your support.

This revolution will not be televised. Instead it will be broadcast via the web. Find out more at:

Occupy Glasgow Twitter

Occupy Glasgow website

Occupy Glasgow Facebook

Check In October 2011

2011-10-02T13:55:00.001Z

This blog has been rather neglected of late. My life has changed quite a bit since my last update in July. I’m a fan of the old bullet point update so let’s bring things up to speed:

• I started working on The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It really is an excellent resource and it got me writing something every day via the morning pages method. Granted some of it was utter rubbish like ‘Had a weird dream last night involving bricks, peanut butter and Shaun the Sheep’ but I enjoyed the routine of setting aside time to write. Even if it was utter bollocks. I’ve taken a wee break from the program due to things becoming utterly mental. All shall be revealed further down.

• At the beginning of September I performed my work to an audience for the first time at Three Cord Theatre run by acquaintances at Sonic Boom Theatre. It was a fun experience and my work seemed to go down rather well. Unfortunately it reminded me that I haven’t written or edited work of performance quality for quite some time. Fortunately I made a good enough impressed at TCH that I can return any time I wish. Top stuff. One of the stories I read out was Wedding in the Botanics which you can read here.

• Went to Prague in September and fell in love with the city. Here’s a lovely photo of me looking hot and sweaty with Kafka’s statue in the Jewish Quarter:

(c) Colin Brown 2011

• I’m still plugging away at Write in for Writing’s Sake but that has been a little neglected in the past couple of months. As mod I should really be contributing to each topic so I plan to do this until the end of the year. If contributions don’t pick up then I’ll need to decide whether or not to continue with the venture.

• Since starting Weight Watchers in February, I have lost 1.8 stone(s). I’m chuffed to bits and trying to avoid rewarding myself with lots of cake. Still have a bit to go before I’m back in a happy weight range (and out of the BMI scale charmingly labelled ‘Obese’). Sadly some of my clothes no longer fit me so I’ll need to have a clear out of the old wardrobe soon.

• Recently I changed from being a vegetarian to becoming a vegan. I met Gillian and she helped to remind me why I become a vegetarian in the first place. I read Fast Food Nation about five years ago and thought the practices surrounding the milk industry (and, in turn, how that feeds into the veal and leather industry) were horrendous. So what did I decide to do? Give up eating beef, pork and chicken but continued to consume dairy products. Erm, well done love. After doing some reading, I decided to finish what I’ve started and go vegan. It’s going well so far; Glasgow is quite a good city to go vegan in. The only difficulty has been buying new shoes. I have a dodgy ankle and it’s easier to try on shoes in shops than go through the mail order process. Still, it’s not that much of a pain and is manageable.

• The biggest change is that I have a new job as a Proper Archivist. I’m not entirely sure what the organisation’s policy is on personal blogging so I won’t name them. I have spent September getting an induction into the archive and the various duties that go with managing the collections. The staff is lovely and it’s probably one of the best places I have ever worked. Due to the meaty induction, I have spent September either working, eating, sleeping and, possibly, shouting at Him Indoors for leaving mouldy bread in the kitchen.

So there you have it. And, dear readers, how have you been?

Reflections on a Writing Retreat

2011-07-07T17:40:00.000Z

This week I have been on what I've called a writing retreat. My parents were away on holiday and I asked if I could borrow their house. It's located in a relatively quiet suburb and most of the neighbours are approaching retirement age. Bonus points: there was a nice garden I could sit in of an evening with beer. Unfortunately, most of this week has been spent writing indoors, staring out at the pouring rain. I did have to deal with a minor roof leak that saw Him Indoors ascending some wobbly ladders when he came to visit. Poor sod, the first thing I said to him was not "Honey I've missed you!" but "Can you help me fix a leak in the roof?"

Asides from roof leaks, the week has been reasonably productive. My original plan was to create a body of short stories intended for e-publishing. That course has changed a little because I have found a character I would like to slot into a novel. Originally the character started off as a bit player in a short story I'd written. Then I found myself thinking "Actually I'd like to spend more time with this dude." Currently my story is set in New York City and the gay scene in the 1950s. It's a period of history I know little about but I'm going to have fun writing about it. Even as I type one of the characters is shouting in my head (someone has just broken a bottle of very expensive bourbon) as though he's a real person. I'm taking this to be a good sign and not that I might be hearing voices.

Another interesting occurrence: I have been writing plot outlines. This is not a technique I have done before. When I wrote in my teens, I just kept typing at the computer until I ran out of steam. No character profiles, no plot outlines. I would have struggled to physically describe how most of my characters looked, talked or thought about when they weren't appearing in the Word doc. files on my computer. The OU course I completed earlier this year went over the importance of getting to know your characters and planning your writing. I realised it made sense why I ran out of steam when I was writing stories. In a previous writing class, the tutor asked me "Why did you end this story a particular way?" Unfortunately they were not entirely impressed with my answer of "I was bored and wanted to finish it the quickest way possible."

Earlier this week a friend got in touch with me concerning a possible script writing venture. This is all shiny and new so I'm not going to talk about it too much. I have been working on those plans these week when The Novel has been annoying me. Now I have an extra two scenes that I didn't have last week. Same with the The Novel: I have an extra 3, 000 words and a plot outline I didn't have a week ago.

This week has been good. It reminded me that I enjoy writing, that I'm happier when I make time to write. Now I'm determined to keep up this commitment. There's a sign on my living room wall that says If you have time to piss about on the Internet, then you have time to clean! Perhaps I should change "clean" to "write."

On a side note, I told the Mothership I was writing a novel. Her response was "Hmmm.....that's nice." Since she found out there were "naughty" bits, she is demanding advanced copies.

Goals for 2011: Halfway Point Check In

2011-07-01T16:54:00.000Z

Ho hum, it has been a little while since I’ve posted an update on here. I cannot believe it is almost halfway through 2011. Where has this year gone? So much for writing a monthly update about my progress. Bet some of you can guess how well I’ve done for goal no. 3: Be more organised.

1. Lose weight

This has probably been my most successful goal of the year. At the end of February I had had enough and decide to bite the bullet (pardon the awful and unintentional pun). One of my friends had re-joined Weight Watchers and was having a great success with it. However he was not going to the dreaded meetings. He was following their online system which was a bit nicer than being weighed in a drafty church hall in front of lots of people. Instead you can leap onto the scales in the comfort of your own home and without anyone tutting their disapproval.

I joined Weight Watchers at the beginning of March and have lost 1.5 stone since then. Tracking what I eat has really helped me lose weight. The points system helps my brain make sense of how many calories foods contain. For example, a bag of crisps is the same number of points as five portions of my breakfast porridge. That helps me reach for the bananas at snack time.

Two months ago I started doing a Couch to 5k program and I have been really enjoying it. Before the start of June I was easily mastering 1.5. The last time I did proper exercise was at P.E. in school: over ten years ago. To do 1.5k was a major achievement for me. Alas I have discovered the hard way that you cannot take time off from running. I took two weeks off due to a hen weekend and a cold I caught whilst on the hen weekend. Last week I went back on my route and was really struggling to run 1k. I was so disappointed in myself but I’m not giving up. One of my goals for 2012 is to run the Women’s 5k in Bellahouston Park.

On a side note I have noticed my calves becoming more toned since I started running. Unfortunately that has not happened to my other wobbly bits! A yoga class might be in my future but that’s still to be confirmed. I’m not, and highly doubt I ever will be, a gym bunny. However I need to find a method to tone up and yoga seems to be the best way to go about it.

Assessment: Excellent, keep going

2. Make more of an effort with my writing

I finished my OU writing course in April. It was a struggle towards the end to find time to complete the assignments. In March I was asked to provide cover at my old job because someone was on long term sick leave. Straight away I lost two full days I had been using to work on my OU assignments. Him Indoors became a freelancer around the same time and suffered from the freelancers’ curse of working all hours and taking any job that came his way. I snapped up what little time we could spent together, free of the bloody laptop. What I’m really trying to say is that excuses kept cropping up and I couldn’t find time to write. Scratch that: wouldn’t make time to write. I did send off some submissions at the end of May. So far I’ve had one rejection and I’m still waiting to hear back from the others.

On Monday I went to a talk by Sara Sheridan which you can read more about here. The short version is that I am going to work on creating a collection of short stories to self-publish on Amazon. Fortunately writing does not need to be my full time job (although it would be lovely) so I do not need to make a lot of profit from it. I would love more people to read my work so perhaps self-publishing a good path to take.

Assessment: You were off track for a wee while but stick to the path you’re on

3. Be more organised (and this does not mean buying 101 pocket diaries)

Again, I’m plodding along with this goal. I became the owner of a Blackberry and have managed to sync it up to my Google Calendar. This has helped keep me a little more organised. Remember the Milk has been a great help especially with self-imposed deadlines. I appear to respond well to deadlines highlighted in red.

I have done away with carrying a paper diary and stick to using my Blackberry to mark in appointments and meetings to remember. The only drawback is that its calendar only syncs my Google Calendar entries that are happening in the next four weeks. In order to check more long term plans I have to log into my Google Calendar on my netbook. Not a major problem but it does annoy me, especially if I’m being asked to do more shifts in work.

Alas I sometimes still forget certain things, especially if I’m changing handbags over. I have toyed with pinning a checklist to my front door. That does tap into my mild OCD a little too much so I may avoid doing that.

Assessment: Don’t forget your bloody purse.

4. Be better at keeping in touch with people

There’s an amazing correlation between being more sociable and having a larger disposable income. Since my wages increased I have been going out a lot more for friends. Some of us are getting grown up and meet up for coffee rather than heading to the local pub. Shocking state of affairs.

As mentioned above, I went on a hen weekend in the first week of June. It was for a friend I had known since my first round of college, when we were both seventeen. Her hen do was fabulous but it made me sad about all the times I’ve forgotten to met up with her or made excuses not to. That’s something I plan to resolve when she returns from her honeymoon in a couple of weeks.

Assessment: Could do better

5. Be ~~better at managing~~ in more control of my finances

This goal has been a complete joke recently. When my income increased not once did I think “I’ll use some of that to clear my student debt.” No, instead I bought stuff. Lots of stuff, especially stuff that comes in brown boxes from Amazon. That came to an abrupt halt earlier this month. My dear bank decided to end my interest-free overdraft despite several assurances earlier this year that they would allow me to keep it until September. Fortunately I have some untapped resources I can use to pay it off and stop incurring the ridiculous charges they have.

That, dear readers, was my wake up call. I’ve managed to pay off some of my overdraft and should have it cleared by mid-July. One more step to being in more control of my finances. Looking back on my last entry, I can see not much has changed.

Assessment: Use the mantra of “Can I afford it? Do I need it? Can I buy it somewhere cheaper?”

All in all not a bad position to be in for this time of year. I have lost pounds from my figure and my purse (har har). Still as unorganised as ever though I never see that changing. Full steam ahead and let’s see what the rest of 2011 holds.

Write on, Explorers

2011-06-25T14:21:00.001Z

On Monday I went to a talk given by Sara Sheridan, author of Secret of the Sands and explorer of the archives. It was hosted by the Section for Specialist Repositories and I went along as a baby archivist and as a dabbling writer (I should really mention there was also a fantastic free lunch). Some of my inspiration for my writing has come from handling documents in the archives. The first story I wrote in years was based upon my work with Gartnavel psychiatric records called Weber’s Puzzle (which will remain in the dreaded ‘To Edit’ pile for some time). Historians can lean towards writing historical fiction; especially if their research covers time periods with large gaps in the records. I attended a talk given by Alison Weir a number of years ago and she stated that such writers have to make a decision: do I write a monograph or do I write a novel based on the facts? Sara mentioned that a lot of historians are jealous of her job of ‘making things up.’

Sara was a fantastic speaker and I wonder if she has some archival fever in her blood. She covered topics that are important to today’s archivists: access, digitisation, copyright, the dawn of e-book readers. She spoke of chasing people through the records which struck a chord with me. I have dealt with many enquiries about individuals that bounced in and out of Glasgow’s asylums in the early twentieth century. My heart would break as the records revealed the sad truth of someone’s life. Post-natal depression was a common feature. Today that would be treatable. Back then, women were kept locked away for years with a little note that said Cause of Insanity: Post-partum melancholia. Many times I have wondered what that woman’s story was. What was their house like? How many children did they have? Did they miss being around their family? What was their favourite food? and on and on.

I was fortunate enough to chat to Sara over lunch. I was touched she had looked at this blog after I said hello to her on Twitter. It reminded me that I have neglected it over the past couple of months. She gave me advice about publishing my work for the Kindle; something I had not considered. At times I felt guilty about the advice she was giving me: after all, she was here to give a talk about archives not fight off a plucky young writer. It made me realise that I need to do something with the things I make up.

With this in mind, I have managed to borrow a house for a week in July. I plan to use this week to fire through my ‘To Edit’ folder which holds at least twenty doc files. Hopefully I will end the week with a decent body of work that I can create a collection of short stories from. Perhaps I’ll find a character I can squeeze a novel out of during that time. I am in awe of people who can write novels or find characters that they want to spend that amount of time with. My character might be languishing in my C drive, waiting to be discovered.

So thank you, Sara, for giving me that push and tweeting a link to this blog.

Writing Wednesdays: Gusto and Relish

2011-06-22T13:48:00.001Z

Gusto and Relish

729 – 731 Pollokshaws Road

South Side

Gusto and Relish is two doors down from Tapa, the first cafe I reviewed in this series. I had not visited Gusto before but had heard glowing reports of its food. As well as being a cafe, Gusto has a deli counter filled with lovely goodies to take home. Due to the on-going diet (upcoming post about that) I resisted the temptation today. Though I may return to buy some of the chilli chocolate bars as a treat.

For the newbies, I divide my reviews into the following categories:

· Feed me for a fiver

· Good coffee

· Table space

· Power outlets and Wi Fi access

· Friendliness of staff

· General atmosphere

Feed me for a fiver

Goodness me, Gusto certainly rose to this challenge. I was immediately offered cake by the friendly girl at the counter. As tempting as it was to have a purely cake lunch, I declined and asked for a look at their menu. The choice for a vegetarian was excellent with the lunch menu taking the humble sandwich and making it sound exotic. Eventually I chose the bruschetta with haloumni, olive tapende, red tomato and red onions at £5.65. Over budget by 65p but oh so worth it. I had a generous two slices of bread and hearty helpings of haloumni to chomp down. The plate came with a lovely salad and some delicious cous cous. You can find out more about Gusto and Relish’s menu here. They also have daily specials which you can find out more about on Facebook.

There’s table service and my order arrived rather quickly, despite it being busy with the lunch crowd. Extra thumbs up from me, especially as I was doing battle with my Wi Fi dongle (more on that later).

N.B. Gusto and Relish take credit/debit card payments but add a charge of £0.50 for transactions under £10.00.

Coffee

A black coffee with milk on the side (I’m a fusspot) comes to £1.85. It tasted wonderful and much better than some of the watery concoctions that some chain coffeeshops offer. Excellent value for money.

Table Space

The tables at Gusto must be magic. At a table for two I could easily fit my netbook, A4 notepad, Kindle, glass of water, coffee cup and pencil case with plenty of room to spare. After all, they need big tables to accommodate the HUGE portions they dish out. The front of the cafe appears to cater for large groups (4 or more) while the back has more tables for two. Tables at the back have a mixture of bench and small stool seating which I can uncomfortable for long periods of time. Instead I decided to park at one of the tables for two with your standard-chair-with-back. The tables are well spaced out so you can spy on your neighbours or you can lose yourself in your work.

Power Outlets and Wi Fi

Alas Gusto seemed a bit short on power points. I spotted two but they were up the back beside the bench seating. Instead I decided to brave my netbook battery which seemed to behave for once.

There is no wi fi available at Gusto which is probably a USP for people. I had a wi fi dongle with me but it had run out of credit. Poor planning on my part so I decided to give up on the Web and actually do some work for a change. The battery on my netbook did last longer than usual and I spent less time refreshing Facebook pages. Still, this is a very minor negative and only affects writers that prefer the keyboard over the pen.

How friendly staff are?

As hinted above, the staff here are very friendly. Despite being busy, every customer got a warm welcome and a smile. Nothing seemed to be a bother and they seemed unfazed by the large groups coming through the door. They put up with my numerous questions and were apologetic about the lack of wi fi. My stay was not very long today but I didn’t feel under pressure to buy more coffee for the time I was there.

General atmosphere

I visited during the lunch period and it was very busy; especially with large groups. However the atmosphere was pleasant and I wasn’t distracted by the traffic coming in and out. There was quiet background music being played which become cancelled out by the chatter. I was working on some rather emotive material but I felt so relaxed in Gusto which took the edge off a little.

I have passed Gusto and Relish several times at the weekend and it has been packed out. After visiting today, I’m not surprised. Friendly staff, great food and a lovely atmosphere. What more could a writer girl (or guy) want?

Writing Wednesdays

2011-05-18T14:26:00.000Z

As some of you may know, one of my goals for 2011 is to take my writing more seriously. Alas I do not work very well at home. There are too many distractions such as numerous repeats of Desperate Housewives, dusting, one of the pets. The list goes on and on. So I decided to explore alternative venues for writing outside of the house. Initial searches on Google did not not bring up what I was looking for. Which cafes were writer friendly? Would they hound me out for ordering one cup of coffee in two hours? Then I saw an excellent post by Liz Broomfield, a woman of many talents and who runs her proof reading business alongside various other projects. In her blog post she reviewed a local cafe for a suitable (co)working venue. And I thought "Hell, why don't I do that for cafes around Glasgow?"

So, ladies and gents, I give you my first review of one of Glasgow's many writer friendly cafes. I decided to start local, and cheating a little, a cafe I had used before.

Tapa Coffeehouse

721 Pollokshaws Road

South Side

Tapa has become a Glasgow institution in a very short time. They opened their first outlet, a bakery, in the east end of Glasgow. I remember friends living in Denniston raving about Tapa's bread and other goodies during my undergraduate days. In 2008 they expanded out into the south side and opened a coffeehouse. Amongst Tapa's many talents they roast their own coffee and provide a variety of mouth watering specials on a daily basis. I'm a vegetarian and it's such a lovely experience to be able to choose from a variety of items on the menu.

I have based my review upon the following criteria and what I'm looking for in a writing venue. These are:

Feed me for a fiver
Good coffee
Table space
Power outlets and Wi Fi access
Friendliness of staff
General atmosphere

Feed me for a fiver

Tapa has a range of sandwiches available for under £5.00. On my visit I purchased a falafel sandwich with hummus and a side salad for £4.65. The bread came from Tapa's bakery in the east end and tasted very fresh. Did I mention that you can buy some of Tapa's loaves to take home? Unfortunately I had to resist temptation due to my ongoing diet. They also have a small selection of cakes, including wheat free chocolate brownies, available to fuel mid-afternoon writing frenzies.

N.B. Tapa do take credit/debit card payments but only for payments over £5.00.

Good Coffee

One word sums up Tapa's coffee: sublime. It packs a punch, exactly the way fresh coffee should. After two cups my hands were dancing over my laptop keyboard. Unfortunately most of the typing was sending messages on Facebook. A cup of black coffee (with milk on the side) is an absolute steal at £1.90 and extremely wallet friendly to most writers.

Table Space

Tapa is spread over two levels with seating available in the basement. From previous experience they only tend to open this up during busy weekends. Downstairs doubles as their coffee storage area so its understandable. Some of the tables are a wee bit too close together which can make you feel like you're spying on your neighbour. And this leads me onto....

Power Points and Wi Fi access

I counted a total of four power points. They are mounted on the walls that are very close to tables. You don't need to worry about causing any accidents with your laptop power cable. When I arrived the tables beside power points were occupied with non-laptop users. I was a bit shy about asking people to move but luckily a power point friendly table became available not long after I arrived. Still it might be worth charging up your laptop before venturing out. My Acer Notebook has a shockingly bad battery life so I am tied to my charger.

The wifi access was easy to log into. All I had to do was scan for the networks using my notebook and ask a member of staff for the password. The connection speed is best described as "zippy" apart from when a chap next to me started using BBC iPlayer. Still I was rather impressed by the speed especially as I counted at least three other laptop users over the course of my visit.

Friendliness of staff

Tapa provides table service which can mean a bit of a wait for your order. They did seem a bit over stretched which was puzzling for a Wednesday morning. There was a delivery being made when I arrived so I assumed it was down to that. However the slight air of "panic" did linger after the delivery men had departed. Less than half of the tables were occupied yet the wait staff seemed in a bit of a flap. This has happened on my other visits but it adds to the quirkiness of the place. The staff were quite happy to leave me on my own and I was not pestered to order more drinks during my time there. Thumbs up in that case.

General atmosphere

Tapa manages to maintain a rather tranquil atmosphere even when it's busy. The background music playing ranges from The Clash to Mumford & Sons but is kept at an audible level without infringing on your conversation or your concentration. The coffeehouse seems to be popular for people coming in for a morning coffee and a read of the paper. Personally I love the downstairs which has ‘false windows’ installed which gives you the impression that you're not below ground level. I never felt rushed or unwelcomed by staff even though I was there for over three hours.

All in all Tapa gets a solid thumbs up as a writing venue from me. Just don't forget to charge up your laptop.

Reading Update: 1/4 of 2011

2011-04-04T10:23:00.000Z

I am rather boastful when it comes to talking about books I've read. Past attempts to keep lists have usually fallen flat on their backsides. However I have got into the habit of keeping 2011's reads in a Google Doc which I can access each time I open my email (which is far too often). My reading tastes have been graphic novels of late. I find them rather fast and easy to read; I can usually polish one off in half an hour. Him Indoors got me a Kindle for my birthday and I have been downloading a lot of the classics I should have read years ago, like Pride and Prejudice. Unfortunately I have been somewhat distracted by easier reads. My brain finds it difficult to process the writing styles pre-mid 20th century when I'm tired. As I do most of my reading at night, this can slow my reading intake. There has been one book that kept me way up past my bedtime though.

That book has to be Any Human Heart by William Boyd. I love whacking huge literary books, especially ones that span decades. The portaginst is Logan Mountstuart and the novel is written in the format of his "personal diaries." I had to keep checking the back cover to make sure it was indeed a work of fiction. We follow Mountstuart through his time at Oxford, reporting on the Spanish Civil War, his sour friendship with Edward VI and Wallace Simpson, the knowledge that 'it all comes down to luck in the end. That's all it [life] is: good luck and bad luck.'

Here's my list so far:

January
1. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
2. A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks
3. Isabel Dalhouise: The Lost Art of Gratitude - Alexander McCall Smith
4. The Election - Tom Percotta
5. Dead White Men and other Important People - Ralph Fevre and Angus Bancroft (DNF) *

February
6. Any Human Heart - William Boyd
7. Y The Last Man Vol. One: Unmaned - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Pamela Rambo
8. The Abstinence Teacher - Tom Percotta
9. Hope for Newborns - Rodge Glass (DNF) *

March

10. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
11 Y The Last Man Vol. Two: Cycles - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Pamela Rambo
12. Y The Last Man Vol. Three: One Small Step - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Pamela Rambo
13. The Walking Dead Vol. Nine: Here We Remain - Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn and Robert Kirkman
14. Y The Last Man Vol. Four: Safeword - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Pamela Rambo
15. Y The Last Man Book Five: Ring of Truth - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Pamela Rambo

*DNF = Did Not Finish

Web 2.0 Tools aka My Happy Sticks

2011-03-29T22:50:00.001Z

Today marks the beginning of an (almost) week off work. I need to go in on Thursday to provide some cover but I can live with that. Obviously a week off is golden time. Something to be savoured. Did I go out for a long walk in the sunshine? Did I indulge in some writing? Did I hell. Instead I faffed around on Twitter and answered the following question posed by Kate Theimer : Which Web 2.0 tools do we rely on socially and in the workplace?

The two worlds of "social" and "workplace" are starting to merge together. On Facebook I have a long list of ex-colleagues that I would never have kept in touch with pre-Web 2.0. Last week one of those ex-colleagues emailed me regarding a job I might be interested in. The same ex-colleague is someone I regularly have banter about music and other such non-work topics. It got the old brain ticking. I got my first mobile phone when I was thirteen. Since then I have been able to keep in touch with friends around the clock. You could text your friends after the forbidden time of ten pm and not have parents barking at you to hang up the phone. Perhaps that laid the foundations for the Web 2.0 generation. The latest label I have heard is the "Google generation" which is used to define anyone born after 1992. Just pause for a second. 1992?! There's something scary yet gently awesome about that. Then again I dislike tagging generations with wide sweeping labels; it makes for lazy sociology.

Anyway, back to the point at hand. Here follows a list of Web 2.0 tools I would be lost without:

Dropbox

This is a fantastic file sharing and storage service. You can install an app onto your computer and simply "drop" files into the assigned Dropbox folder. This is then mirrored by your Dropbox account which is stored on the cloud. From there you can download and upload files to computers that do not have your Dropbox app installed. This is very handy if you have numerous Dropbox accounts in one household or office area. A key feature is that you can revert back to previous versions of a file. Very handy if you have an "Oh whoops!" moment.

One drawback to Dropbox, but a very minor issue, you cannot edit files stored on the cloud. Currently I'm using it as a back up service for my netbook and as a method of transporting files across numerous computers. It's more reliable than using USB sticks and you're less likely to have issues with corrupted files or leaving the bloody thing on a train.

Diigo

I came across this website when the demise of Delicious was being banded around the web. The issue of sharing two computers was getting on my nerves. Having a cloud based bookmarking service would suit my purposes more than going between computers. I can't remember exactly how I came across Diigo but the brightly coloured website (yeah, I know...) attracted my attention.

The best feature of Diigo is the interaction the user can have with information stored on the web. You can highlight sections of a website, add your own sticky notes to specific web pages and the usual stuff like adding tags and descriptions to bookmarks. Diigo is iPad friendly and you can install an app in Google Chrome. I can log into my bookmarks from any computer with internet access. This has come in rather handy especially as I moved from work to volunteer placement to home.

I notice that they have more advanced settings for the premium account such as annotation specific areas of text. I'd consider paying for such a feature if I was still in full time education or carried out a lot of research on the web.

Adobe Workspaces

Ah, now this fills the gap left by Dropbox. Sometimes you might be working on something you don't want to download to a computer. In those quiet moments in work you may want to dabble away at that secret best selling novel you're writing. This is where Adobe Workspaces comes in.

The basic account is the only option available to those outside North America. Still, you get a pretty good deal for your money. You can upload read only documents such as PDFs and Word docs if you wish. Or you can import documents into Buzzword which allows you to edit the content. As with Dropbox, Adobe records the history of your document and you can revert back to previous editions of the document. The best bit is that you can import Word docs or Open Office docs and Buzzword retains a lot of the formatting during the conversion process. I've heard reports that Google Docs tends to jumble up the formatting and can get very clunky with documents over 20, 000 words. The largest word processing file I have stored in Adobe comes to around 12, 000 words. However I have heard of people using Adobe for NaNoWriMo without any problems.

An honourable mention should go to bit.ly for providing handy URL shortcuts. It looks a lot better than pasting lots of code into an email and potentially freaking out the recipient. Bit.ly appears to have a lot more advanced features than mere URL shortening but I have been too lazy to find out.

No doubt this list will change as time goes on. New, stronger, faster, fitter, better tools are being release all the time to facilitate the growth of born digital information. This time last year I was singing the praises of Zotero. Now I have left further education and have no need for an academic-centric tool. As the needs of people change so will the tools they use. Fortunately we are social creatures which fuels the ethos of bookmarking webpages. This very blog post is an example of this. I want to share my great experience of the above tools with others and spread the word. Evangelists of Web 2.0. That sounds a lot better than the "Google Generation."

Please note I've left the more obvious tools out like Gmail and Google Calendar. As for social networking; I wrote so much about using Facebook and Twitter for my dissertation that I'm a little burned out on it. But they are still nifty tools for the Web 2.0 traveller.

Tories and School Libraries

2011-03-23T11:01:00.000Z

The following news story keeps cropping up so I feel I should blog about it. After plans to close a large number of local libraries; Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has proclaimed that children should be reading "at least 50 books a year." Another typical Tory gaffe. In my personal experience school libraries have come very short on the pecking order when it comes to school finances. Perhaps things have changed in the nine years since I left high school.

Being an inquisitive creature, and for the sake of nostalgia, I decided to Google my old high school. Good old Google found this blog. My Web 2.0 spidey-sense went into overdrive when I saw this. The blog is not hosted on the official school's webpage which creates the perception that it's a separate space for students to interact in. Although the librarian has a great deal of control over the content, there's still room for students to project their own personalities. The library now runs a manga drawing club and a creative writing group at lunchtimes. Some of their work is posted on the blog or provides links to the external Flickr page.

I think this is wonderful. When I was there, it felt like that administration favoured the sciences over the arts. Students who enjoyed drama, music and art were seen as a bit "wacky" and to be indulged. Best to invest more time in the sciences and ignore students who wanted more options beyond bloody test tubes. In the years after I left something seemed to change. The school had a successful music group that seemed to be winning a lot of prizes. More drama teachers were recruited after demand increased for classes. Suddenly the more arty subjects became more prominent. Science is Latin for the pursuit of knowledge. Shame that none of the senior management staff realised this for a long time.

Enough about the failings of the school almost a decade ago. Times are hard and education needs to play an even bigger role in people's lives. Instead, with the current head-in-the-clouds government, it looks like it's going to revert back to a luxury of the middle classes. Apparently the upper class no longer exist according to the Independent. That is why a person's experience at school is so important. Looking back, I have quite a few subjects and teachers I have to thank for the person I am now. English, Drama, History and Information Systems helped me expand my knowledge and look beyond the confines of the classroom. It's only now I realise that.

The library blog gives me hope. Hope that it helps instil a love of learning, reading, books, ideas, research, thinking, processing. Otherwise we let our brains become wasted away by the mundane routine of everyday life.

I should sign off by thanking Michael Gove. His ridiculous statement set me off on a path of discovery and a reflection of my own education. Still think he's an utter twat though.

Why I Love My Job (and despair sometimes)

2011-03-18T10:36:00.000Z

This entry was started last night but interrupted by Him Indoors coming home from the pub. I'm probably not going to see him until Sunday due to conflicting social events. So I decided to finish writing my post this morning.

I started writing another post under this title which has turned into a rather long tract. Instead I shall use this post to get to the point of what happened today.

Recently I have been asked to provide cover at my old job. It's on a temporary basis but it's a rare archivist these days that turns down the chance for paid archival work. The job is a semi-specialist repository that has a mix of general public enquiries to academics. Today a student came in looking for more information about their dissertation. My previous, and current, knowledge of the collections meant I was able to provide Student with more information about their chosen subject. I answered their questions and pulled documents out from the repository to help them. Student left very happy with some seeds planted for their looming project.

Today I loved my job. I loved being able to help someone find out information and help guide them on their way. I loved taking documents off the shelves so someone could write information recorded hundreds of years ago. No bad photocopies, no jarring transcripts, no digitised representations. The real deal perched on a book pillow in the searchroom. Living, breathing history. Perhaps I breathed in the dust that people seem so keen on.

That is why institutions, especially public facing ones, need archivists. In particular, they need archivists who have spent time working with collections and building up their knowledge. You can create as many finding aids as you want. You can digitise as many records and put them "out there" on the web. What you cannot replace is the knowledge an individual has built up over time through experience and working with the records in collections. Unfortunately with looming financial cuts in the libraries and archives sector that is exactly what's happening. This is a topic I have blogged about in a previous post. The vicious circle of charging more for higher education means individuals are going to turn to other outlets for learning and information gathering. Yet the institutions designed to help this are struggling. The repository I am working in used to boast excellent opening hours, with at least two late evening openings and all day Saturdays. Now these hours have been cut to one evening a week and Saturdays by appointment only. All because a member of staff left, a qualified archivist, and the Powers That Be decided it was too expensive to hire a replacement. This is a very busy archive; yesterday the numbers of users in the reading room was well into the double figures. On another day the reading room was bustling with members from a local history group cooing over records. Like I said, living, breathing history.

I love my job. I'm just sad that the people that appear to be in charge don't.

January 2011: Books read

2011-02-02T12:10:00.000Z

I have been trying (again) to keep a list of books I have been reading this year. Google Docs is very handy for this because I usually have a Gmail tab open on my browser. According to my list I have only read five books so far; one of which I did not finish.

Here's the guilty list here:

1. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
2. A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks
3. Isabel Dalhouise: The Lost Art of Gratitude - Alexander McCall Smith
5. The Election - Tom Percotta
6. Dead White Men and other Important People - Ralph Fevre and Angus Bancroft (DNF)

Currently I am chomping my way through Any Human Heart by William Boyd. I confess to being a reading snob and assumed that Boyd's writing catered for a certain market. The covers of his books seemed a tad glossy and I thought they may have been an upmarket blokey version of chick lit. I am glad to report that I am wrong. Any Human Heart follows Logan Mountstuart as he travels through the 1920s at Oxford, 1930s working as a writer, 1940s as his time in the Royal Navy and 1950s/60s working at an art gallery in New York. The novel is written in a journal format and it works very well. At times I almost forget that I am reading a work of fiction.

Need to get back into the habit of writing reviews more often. My OU course encourages this and has a nice little checklist of things to think about. I may not do this for every book but it's a good start.

Goals for 2011: January

2011-01-31T17:01:00.002Z

So, how have I done with my five goals so far? Well there's some good, some bad and some of it is downright ugly.

1. Lose weight

This goal has not gone well at all. In the past month I have managed to make it to my local Zumba class once. The excuses have mounted up and made me realise I need to look for other exercise opportunities. My current workplace has a gym onsite with a reasonable monthly membership. I may try pay-as-you go at first to work out if it's cheaper than paying a monthly rate.

My attempt to stop eating so much rubbish has not gone well either. However I have made one positive change. Instead of investing in ready meals I have been cooking big batches of meals in the slow cookers. I have inherited some plastic takeaway meal containers from my mother and they are a handy portion size. All I need to do is remember to take the meal out the freezer the night before. Him Indoors and I have noticed a big change in our weekly shopping bill since we adopted this tactic. On average we're spending £30-£40 on our weekly food budget. This is a massive drop from the average £50 we used to spend and still run out of food halfway through the week. Finances will be discussed later.

Assessment: Could do better.

2. Make more of an effort with my writing

Thankfully this goal seems to have gone a little bit better. This week I started the Open University course A174: Start writing fiction. The fees are covered by the lovely ILA and is part of the reason why I applied for it. My life is rather hectic at the moment and I like being able to study when and where I choose. Today I spent two hours working my way through the first block and I've been very impressed with the content so far. The course materials include an anthology and audio CD. I was chuffed to learn that Alex Garland and Tim Pears were contributors to sections covered by the CD. It was very inspiring sitting on the shitty bus into town and listening to writers express their love for their craft as well as imparting some words of wisdom.

One of the exercises encourages you to use a paper notebook for assignments. Today I've enjoyed scribbling down ideas on paper. I may decide to start writing first drafts on paper before committing them to an Open Office Writer file.

Write in for Writing's Sake is chugging away nicely. Being the moderator has encourage me to contribute and get more writing down. You've got to lead by example, haven't you? Some of the stuff I have produced has not been amazing but at least it has got me writing. I have got some ideas for the site and which direction I want it to go in. The first big change is moving it over from Tumblr to a Wordpress platform. Tumblr is a tad clunky and I'm wary of how often its servers seem to go down. Also the site is a bit irratic in IE, as I discovered from user feedback and my own experience when I tested it. You forgot things like that, especially if you use other browsers (I'm a fan of Chrome personally).

Assessment: Doing well, keep going!

3. Be more organised

At the moment I'm channelling this goal into small areas such as planning teas for the upcoming week. I hate wasting food and try to avoid throwing things out whenever possible. I've started using my pocket diary the Mothership got me as a graduation present. More of my social events tend to be written in there than on Google Calendar these days. Lately I have been using Google Calendar for long term events, such as reminding me to pay off my overdraft before the interest free period runs out.

Next month I would like to be better at managing housework. I am a very messy person and it takes me a real effort to tidy up. Also I'd much rather spend the time cleaning doing other things. But then the mess builds up and it takes twice as long to clean up as it should do. Also I am very bad at starting something then wandering off halfway through never to return. Last Monday I cleared out some old Masters coursework and it still needs finished off.

Assessment: Good start but need to make time for boring tasks (and finish them!).

4. Be better at keeping in touch with people

This is my most successful goal in January so far. In the past month I have seen a number of friends I had not met up with for a while. Sometimes this was bitter sweet. Last Thursday I had tea and cakes with a friend who is moving to another city for job purposes. It made me sad that she was going and I regretting not making more effort to meet up on a regular basis.

Yesterday I went to see Glasgow's local ice hockey team, the Braehead Clan. It was a really good atmosphere and surprisingly chilled out considering the violent nature of the game. Fans were good natured despite the Clan's defeat to the Belfast Giants (who seemed to play rather dirty in my opinion). The tickets are a tad pricey for a weekly outing at £15 for me. I could stretch to going to two games a month at the maximum due to current finances. However the best part of the day was seeing friends that I had not seen since New Year. There was some good banter and that helped make the day.

Next month I may have to cut back on social outings due to my OU class. This is unfortunate but we shall see how it goes.

Assessment: Excellent stuff!

5. Be ~~better at managing~~ in more control of my finances

This month has not gone well. At the beginning of the month, myself and Him Indoors sat down and made ourselves do the budget outlined by moneysavingexpert.com. It highlighted some good areas but there were some ugly bits. I was horrified to find out how much money I had withdrawn and had no idea where most of it had gone. Now I have started writing down what I spend in a little cashbook to help keep track. It's a start and hopefully a good habit to keep.

Alas I had a slip up last week. In my folly I decided to withdraw the last of my cash the day before I got paid. I thought it would not be a problem. Except a payment for something online came off my debit card and pushed me a couple of pounds into an unauthorised overdraft. Lesson learnt this month: don't clean out your account the day before payday.

Assessment: Not a great start to the year but it's onwards and upwards from here.

Why Libraries Are Important

2011-01-12T12:27:00.000Z

I feel I'm going to be preaching to the converted with this post but here we go.

This morning the Museums Libraries and Archives twitter feed tweeted a link to this article posted by the Guardian about the closure of libraries in Yorkshire . The article itself doesn't concentrate on librarians views but more on the users (who are the important group here). Most users were rather horrified at the thought of their local library being marked for closure. The reporter visits an area called Eastfield, fifty miles from Scarborough. The library has been renamed a 'community resource centre' but it appears to live up to this glamorous title. According to the report only 1 in 4 homes in this area have access to the internet. The centre provides a vital resource by offering computers which is vital in the age of the digital economy. Many jobs call for basic computer literacy skills. I'm not sure if the reliance on computers is a good or a bad thing but that is a topic for another post. As well as offering computers the centre lends books and offers meeting room facilities for local groups. The average age of users did seem to be fifty and upwards. Either they filmed the report during school time or perhaps the local schools have well equipped libraries. I doubt the later is true.

One important issue highlighted here is the concept of digital poverty. I discovered this term when reading Don Tapscott's work for my Masters dissertation. As society and information moves into the digital domain, we forget people are left behind. Some people are lucky to afford to pay off their gas bill every month let alone splash out on a basic computer which still costs hundreds of pounds. You forget the monthly cost of paying for internet access as well (and the electricity to run it). This assumption that everything is online forgets that people need a decent amount of disposable income before they can consider having internet access at home.

Books, the internet, other information mediums are expensive. Libraries provide a vital centre point for access to information. That is where trained information professionals, like librarians, come into force. These individuals have spent time and effort studying navigation tools and access points for information. They know to make information available, how to help point people in the right direction. Yesterday I spent a good ten minutes trying to explain to a library user why articles they found on Google Books did not reflect the database systems and journals that the university had available. University is the first time for many people start navigating information for themselves. Without having trained individuals present to help guide them, people may find themselves overwhelmed with information whilst never finding what they are actually looking for. I am not being patronising, even after six years of being a student I still find information and research over whelming. How many times have you read an entire Wikipedia article without finding what you were looking for? That is why universities have subject librarians to help students. On a local level, outwith the education sector, a reference librarian can help the keen amateur, the confused high school student, the new parent wanting 'How to...' guides.

Although with the increase in tuition fees, many individuals may find university closed off to them. They will not have opportunities to learn how to gather and analyse information. Local libraries may find themselves picking up the slack with hardly any resources to combat it. Volunteers are useful (being a volunteer myself I have to speak up for them) but people that are time rich may lack the skills needed to provide a good service. Volunteers might be unable to see past the services they want from a library and be blind to what others want. They may choose to reduce the number of computers to make way for more Catherine Cookson books. Or sell off the DVD collection to raise more money for comfy sofas. Or they may choose to weed out books they find unsuitable for readers. Or decided to end the costly subscription to online journals because they don't see the point of it.

A user at my volunteer workplace with was so grateful for the service of the library. Without it they would not have a quiet, suitable place to study. Without the services of the librarian they would have not been able to find relevant material for their coursework. The librarian at this institution is a paid, qualified member of staff who is currently re-cataloguing the book collection. They have created a catalogue/access point that is suitable for the users of the library and is much more effort than labelling each book a different number. Without her experience and knowledge it would be impossible to navigate the available resources this institution has to offer.

Closing libraries is robbing people's entitlement to knowledge and learning. Libraries, learning and resource centres, information signals, whatever you want to call them are vitally important. In times when people's disposable income is being cut there needs to be access to resources. Not everyone can afford to buy books off Amazon nor do they have the internet access to use their service. This concept might be difficult for the Powers That Be to understand. After all, most of them were educated during an era of free grants for students. Most probably did not need to use their local library due to facilities they had in their parents' homes. They forget that not everyone has that luxury. Closure of libraries highlights the widening gap between Britain's rich and poor in society. The new poverty this decade we will see will be those who lack access to information. That is a truly depressing thought.

So I had a think....

2011-01-05T15:26:00.000Z

Yesterday I had myself a little ponder. What do I want to do with 2011? This is the first time in my life that higher education has not been on the horizon ~~as an escape route~~. I'm not sure if one HNC, one BA Honours and one Master of Science has done me much good in life.

Here I present my goals for 2011:

Lose weight
Make more of an effort with my writing
Be more organised (and this does not mean buying 101 pocket diaries)
Be better at keeping in touch with people
Be ~~better at managing~~ in more control of my finances

A little explanation is in order:

1. Lose weight

This is something of a tried and failed venture. I'm not going to post very much about that goal on here. It's a little too personal to have blabbed across the internet; even in this day and age. However I will give you an idea of what I need to do to achieve this goal. A friend is getting married in June and I plan to have lost two stone by them. I've done the research (and by that I mean Googled) and losing two stone in six months is do-able. For those who know me in the "real world" and see me picking up another chocolate, feel free to slap it out my hand.

Another way I'm going to achieve this goal is to not drink during the week. I've noticed my weight tends to bob up and down when I'm guzzling beer. It is very easy to slip into a 'beer a night' habit especially when there is lots of it lying around after New Year. Don't slap a beer out my hand but a stern finger waggle may do the trick.

2. Make more of an EFFORT with my writing

I enjoy writing. Unfortunately I am easily distracted especially when writing on my netbook. As I mentioned in my previous post I have installed StayFocusd which has a nifty nuclear option. You can select an option which will block ALL websites for a specified time, with the minimum starting at one hour. I used this the other day and found it be an excellent feature. I knew that I would not be able to faff around on the Internet for hours. So I got stuff done.

When I write I know I write reasonably good stuff. The trouble is that I lack the motivation to finish pieces or go back to edit them. During my writing class, the tutor would take in pieces of work and return them with feedback written on the drafts. Instead of reading them I flung them in a folder. It's time to take them out and start reading the comments.

By the end of the year I would either like to have performed in a slot at Words Per Minute or have my work published in some medium (this does not include Write in for Writing's Sake). There's a whole world of online writing sites out there and it's about time I explored them.

3. Be more organised.

My friends will tell you I have a shocking memory. There have been times I have received texts asking "Where are you?" Or I make arrangements with one group of friends, forgetting that I have other commitments. Last year I started using Google Calendar which includes an option which sends a text to your phone to remind you of an event. This has been rather useful; the only drawback being that I don't own a smartphone. I can only update the Calendar when I'm on a computer. Not always a problem but not very handy if I'm out and about.

The Mothership bought me a snazzy University of Glasgow pocket diary as a graduation present. I know I said no more diaries but this one really suits me. It's pocket sized with lined paper (surprisingly difficult to find) and feels rather robust. As part of my decluttering I am moving towards only using certain bags on a regular basis. This should make it easier to have my diary to hand when making arrangements. Which leans me onto...

4. Be better at keeping in touch with people

On New Year's Eve myself and Him Indoors hosted a party. At this party I saw a lot of people that I had not seen since our last party in November. Prior to that party (do keep track) I could not remember the last time I had seen a lot of my friends.

And that scared me a little.

As you grow older you sometimes grow out of friends. Time is short so why spend it with people that you don't care for? The simplest way of assessing this is by thinking of the friends you have interacted with in the past three months. Is there a reason why people are off this list? Perhaps they live in another city. Or they have been dealing with some personal issues. Or maybe it's a subtle sign that this person is no longer important on your social spectrum.

Or, like me, you've been too lazy to arrange to meet up with people. Lack of money didn't help in that black hole between finishing university and getting a job I enjoyed. People are becoming more open about saying "I can't afford to go out for dinner and drinks. How about we just do drinks?"

To end the waffle, I am going to find out if I have been too lazy or simply out grown a friendship.

5. Be ~~better at managing~~ in more control of my finances

This may surprise some people but I am a bit rubbish with money. I tend to be an impulse buyer especially where Amazon is concerned. Online shopping suits me. Physically venturing out to the shops fills me with dread; I think this is due to the screaming fights I had with my mother clothes shopping as a teenager. Also being the above average size makes clothes shopping a painful experience.

Shopping online is so easy. Click, click, card details, click, click. Sit back and wait for the postie to arrive with your goodies. Then I wonder why it rolls around to the end of the month and I haven't got a pot to piss in.

Moneysavingexpert.com has been a help. For months I have been getting the email updates, primarily for the money off vouchers. But I started reading some of the main articles and have realised that I am truly a bit rubbish with money. This shows how grown up I'm becoming: I'm doing a budget with Him Indoors in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully being more aware of my money will lead me to consider my spending choices a bit more wisely.

So let's press that button for 2011. It's going to be a bumpy ride...

2011: The Year of Good Intentions?

2011-01-03T21:11:00.000Z

Greetings everyone. I ushered in the new year by hosting a small soiree at my flat. By the time the clock struck midnight on 2010 (and closed that door behind me) around 25 people were crammed into my living room. It was a sea of people hugging and kissing and shaking hands and wishing everyone a Happy New Year. I wish I had thought to take more photographs.

2010 was not a bad year. Not the best year of my life (I think that belongs to the later half of 2002) but not down there with one of the worst (1997 was the start of a steep decline). In 2010 I:

Completed a Masters in Science
Turned 25 and had a wonderful time on my birthday
Moved flats
Got a new job more suited to my qualifications
Went to my first professional conference
Started cooking properly again

So what do I plan for 2011? In the last days of 2010 I started feeling a bit lost. This is a usual cycle for me and hits every couple of years or so. It didn't seem to matter when I was a teenager. After all, when you're fifthteen, you think you're going to live forever. That feeling starts to ebb away when you're twenty five. My mother retires this year. My mother is old enough to retire. "Life is too short" was the wave that came crashing over me this year.

And this time I am determined to do something about it. By coincidence an article appeared in yesterday's Sunday Herald which was part of a section of columnists writing about trends we would see happening in 2011. One article tackled the subject of alternative lifestyles; primarily a move away from the greed of consumerism and the constant need to acquire material goods. The first half of the article about minimalism really spoke to me. Despite my better attempts I have tried not to fall for the consumerism trap of always wanting more. But I have. My wardrobe is full of clothes I hardly wore and were expensive impulse buys. There are boxes of unread books stacked high in my bedroom. Enough is enough.

Part of the above article discusses a blog called Minimal Student. Last night I was up until two in the morning reading through the articles. The blog's writer, a girl called Jessica, seems to be writing just for me. Of course I know she isn't but that is the mark of a good writer; making the reader feel like they are the intended, and perfect, audience for this material.

I'm going to ferment on what I have read over the past day. Already I have taken baby steps by an extension to Chrome called StayFocused. It is a handy tool. You can list websites that you are allowed a certain amount of time to browse. For example my blocked sites include Facebook and Twitter which are bad for eating up my time. Initially I didn't realise that the time you set includes all the sites listed on your blocked list. So I had used up my allotted time by the end of breakfast time today.

Which meant I got stuff done. I put away the weekly shop Him Indoors ventured out to buy, cleaned out the kitchen cupboards, finished some work owed to someone else and caught up on some Write in for Writing's Sake admin. Late afternoon I settled down to watch The Usual Suspects in memory of the late, great Pete Postlethwaite who died today. Another reminder that life indeed is too short; he was only sixty-four.

I feel like I have collected my thoughts a bit better. Tomorrow I am going to spend time thinking. Proper thinking not just "Oooh what shall I have for tea tonight?" Then I'll come back here and decide what I am going to make of myself in 2011.

Why I Gave Up on NaNoWriMo

2010-11-23T10:05:00.000Z

I talked the talk. I was all prepared for NaNoWriMo this year. Even carried out some research which is something I rarely do when writing. The writing process for me is usually a blank Word file and I get typing. Sometimes I have an idea in my head. Or I start with a line of dialogue. I type and type to see where it takes me. Then, in theory, I go back and edit it. Sadly I lack the ability to reach the editing process which is something I need to work on. When I was doing my evening classes last year I had to have a finished product for sessions. Take away that external deadline and I wander around, not doing much. It's the pattern I've followed since I started to write my own stories when I was 10. On an old Apple Mac for those interested. Like a really old Mac that had a screen about the size of your standard iPhone nowadays.

November has been a busy month for me. I started a new job that pays monies. My voluntary work began to pick up and required three days out of my week. I took over the admin for Write in for Writing's Sake.The old social life began to re-awaken. And there's that dirty bugger called Christmas lurking around the corner. Plus the mundane old stuff of making sure I have enough clean clothes to wear (which did become a slight problem last week) and that I was starting to eat properly and trying to ditch a lot of processed crap. Alas eating properly means spending more time cooking. For someone that can't really cook this poses a problem and simple things, like chopping an onion, takes twice as long as it really should.

The biggest problem is that I felt I didn't have enough time to read. I was clocking in 10 minutes at bedtime and cramming some words in during the commute. After waiting for ages, my library requests began pouring in. I wanted to read them rather do writing.

So I said

A good friend gave me the gentle push to stop writing. If I want to go off and do the research then go and do the research. My story is located in a particular time and place. Yet I was throwing in references that were all over the place. As an ex-History student it's important for me to get these things right (write?). If I decide to take part in NaNo again then I shall decide to write a silly story. One when it doesn't matter about time and place and setting. I think I'll have more fun that way.

Goodbye NaNo for another year. I am sure we will meet again.

November: The Month of Activity

2010-11-08T21:54:00.001Z

November is shaping up to be a busy month. Having a new job means more time to socialise which is always welcome. Alas, Christmas is around the corner. Do you know that November is the last pre-Christmas pay for a lot of people? That scares me a little; especially as I am not terribly good at buying Christmas presents for people. Then there is always that conundrum of "What if someone buys me a present and I haven't get them one?"

I have other things on my mind. Once again I am attempting NaNoWriMo and taking it a bit slow this year. Last time I peaked too early (hit 15, 000 words in the first week then my enthusiasm tailed off after that). Also I had the distraction of Masters coursework which did not help matters. This year I have been writing for 30 minutes which usually sees me hit the bare minimum quota of 1666 words a day to cross the finish line. And I did plan a bit more than last year like outlines for each chapters and character cards to help me keep on track. Writing can be a solitary activity so it's nice to take advantage of the community that NaNo provides.

Him Indoors and I are working our way through Season One of Mad Men. My father has been raving about it but he automatically loves anything that features America in the 1950s and lots of smoking. Personally I have been surprised at how much I am enjoying watching each episode. Usually when I'm watching television I'm texting a friend or on the Interwebs. With Mad Men I am drinking in each piece of dialogue and being enraged at the same time (Him Indoors thought I was going to explode during the episode involving the girls and the lipstick testing). I hope someone out there is teaching the Sociology of Mad Men or at least using the episodes for sexuality and gender classes. Out there, in library land, someone has come up with the great idea of a Mad Men reading list. Unfortunately getting a hold of some books in my local area has proved rather difficult. I may have to wait until after Christmas before picking up cheap second hand copies (if I can get them).

Finally I have to wave the pom poms for my current blogger crush, Ms Alex Wolf. Not only is she attempting NaNo this month but she is also going vegan for a month AND blogging about it every day. Alex has been attempting 101 goals in 1001 days since 1st January 2009. She has been doing amazingly well and I am in awe of her progress. I'm finding her vegan blog to be of particular interest as I attempt to expand my limited cooking skills. My diet is primarily pescetarian but with a lack of regular fruit and vegetables. British supermarkets tend to be rather limited for fruit beyond the standard bananas and apples (at least in my experience). I live a bit closer to an more ethnic area now and the appears to be a wider range of fruit and vegetables available. When I have a bit of time I shall venture out and see what they have to offer.

Time Lapse

2010-10-21T10:39:00.000Z

Blimey I cannot believe I have not posted on this blog since the end of July. The Dreaded Dissertation took over my life in August. Last minute panic panic set in as the September deadline loomed. I finished the work the weekend before the due date. Some of my classmates were still writing their drafts on the day it was due. That scares me a little bit. Why give yourself that stress?

September was spent moping around a little. Said goodbyes to classmates returning home which was a little sad. Some people are making Glasgow their home for the time being which is good. It's nice to have chats with people about archives stuff. Some have paid jobs; lots of us have volunteer work. I have a new job working in a university library (which shall remain nameless on this blog). It's loosely connected to my Masters but does not involve archives. So I am volunteering at a local community archive. Again it will probably remain nameless on this blog, unless they give me a green light to name (but not shame) them.

Lots of rubbish television has been consumed in the past couple of months. Television is cheap entertainment when you don't have much cash. A friend in a similar situation agreed with me. She said she does not like Friends but has started following it on E4 because it's something to do.

I developed a slight fear of reading after I finished my dissertation. Just in case I gleaned something from the books I read. Silly I know but the course I was on promoted the idea that you can find "evidence" in any resource. For one of my archives essays I quoted from Bridget Joneses' Diary and Possession. So I stayed away from fiction. Luckily my love of reading has returned and I am currently chomping my way through The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. It's a massive tome of a novel and is about building a cathedral in 12th century England. My knowledge of that period is a little hazy but I'm enjoying the lives of the characters and the twists their lives take. The one constant is the cathedral and I'm intrigued to see how it ends.

This year I am taking part in NaNoWriMo for the second time. Last year I stupidly decided to take part in the month when I was on a placement with a daily 4 hour round trip. The work load at university began to pile on and I lost interest in sitting in front of my computer on a nightly basis. So I'm hoping to do better and at least hit the 50, 000 minimum word count.

Finally I have set up another blog to discuss my experiences in the archival sector. On both sides of the pond there has been a massive outcry about the lack of jobs available to newly qualified archivists. Anyway I decided to set up this blog to discuss my thoughts about the subject. It can be found here and I have called my blog Wannabe Political Archivist. This stems from my experience of archival work which has had a focus on working with collections that have political overtones. My belief that "the personal is the political" is a big reason that I enjoy working with archives.

WFWS: Flood

2010-07-29T08:14:00.004Z

For some time I have been watching Mark's blog and his weekly contributions to this little idea: Write In For Writing's Sake. Each week people are given a single one to stimulate some writing. So far most examples I have seen on the site have been in the format of a short story. This week I have managed to finish a piece in time to be submitted. It’s not perfect (and a little clumsy if I’m honest) but at least it got me writing something.

I present Flood:

Cerys was having a Virgina Woolf moment. She wanted escapism of the higher order. Right now nothing was more appealing than filling her pockets with stones and wading into the river. It was December, the water would be cold. Would she drown before her heart stopped beating? Feel her lungs strain under the pressure and explode within her rib cage? Would her life flash before her eyes or would it just be a black nothingness?

Suicide was a toy she picked up now and again. Something to be fiddled with, played with and then put away again. It was not a serious option but she enjoyed playing through the scenes. As her body floated down the river she felt herself lose consciousness. No scenes from her life played across her dying brain. No memories of ironically happy birthdays or playing in hazy summer days with friends or hugs from her parents. No memories of a first kiss or first bra or first period. Nothing but a black void, an empty space where the electrodes inside her brain were slowly starting to snap in two. Like ropes snapping off a pirate shop she had seen on the television a long time ago.

Would anyone see her? The river ran past a local primary school so there's a high chance a child could spot her empty shell. Choosing the time of day would be vitally important. In her imagination she picked eleven o'clock in the morning. Enough daylight to feel the sun on her skin one last time (it would be a sunny day, the day she died). She sighed deeply as the sensations danced across her skin. The coldness of the water. The weight of the stones in her pockets. The warmth of the sun against exposed parts of her flesh.

That was another thought. What would she wear? Not a skirt; that would remove any dignity. Besides her body was likely to betray itself in her final moments and soil any undergarments. Wearing trousers would avoid this indignity in death. Black, she decided. Brighter colours would attract attention to her. Cerys didn't want to be saved. Besides black would mean she was already dressed for the funeral.

Now this was interesting. She was entering the stage that people called the 'out of body experience'. Cerys could see her long brown hair spreading out across the water. She always had been proud of her hair. At night she would lovingly brush it, using a soft bristle brush, a hundred times on each side. By now the river current had flipped her onto her back. Her small mouth was curled into an 'o' shape of surprise. As if death had come as a shock to her in her final moments. Cerys had lost consciousness by that point but her body had other plans. The combination of the heat and the coldness had had an effect on her muscles. Her eyes remained closed. Open eyes looked so unsightly in death. She was confident her body would be found before it become bloated and disfigured.

“What are you thinking about?”

Cerys was broken out of her daydream. She took a moment to realise where she was. For an instance she thought it had actually happened. Death: a welcome escape.

“Nothing.” She coughed. “I was sleeping.”

“Nice dream?” Her mother's attempt at a neutral tone was not very good.

“In a way.”

“What was it about?”

“A river.”

There was a pause. Her mother could stay and play the 'short answer game' or she could go. Unfortunately she was in a playful mood so decided to stay.

“Were you swimming?”

“I'm not sure. I might have been waving. Or drowning. I don't know.”

A beep from the unit at the side of the bed stopped the conversation. “Ah I knew why I came in. It's time to change over your catheter.” Cerys winced. Why couldn't her mother do this later? “And I'll give you a bed bath as well.” The treats came pouring in.

She closed her eyes as her mother fiddled around with the tubes. Ever since 'The Accident' Cerys had had no privacy. Even solitary acts, such as going for a piss or brushing her teeth, had to be carried out by another person. Sometimes as her mother brushed her teeth, Cerys felt she had no control. Since 'The Accident' she had become a prisoner in her own body. That is why suicide appealed to her. In her head she could die as many times as she wanted.

Sometimes she replayed 'The Accident' in her head. In her imagination, when she was falling from the tree, she heard the screams, the shouts, her mother shrieking “My baby! My baby!” This time, when she hit the ground, she wouldn't wake up. There would be no repeat of the ambulance ride when she overheard the paramedic say “She can't feel her legs.” There would be no repeat of a balding doctor using a pen to point at X-rays and had the cheek to say she was “a very lucky girl.” There would be no pain of seeing her childhood friends grow up without her, gradually fading away as the selfishness of puberty set in.

As her mother washed her body, Cerys was back in the river. The water cascading over her body, flooding her mouth, her nose, her ears.

“Flood,” she whispered.

“What was that?” Her mother stopped rubbing the sponge over Cerys's body.

“Nothing.”

“I thought you said something.”

“I didn't.”

One day Cerys's dream would come true. But not yet. Not yet.

Dissertation: The Fear

2010-07-20T14:48:00.000Z

The past couple of weeks have been a bit mad. Him Indoors and I moved to a lovely new flat. As I type I can look out onto the nearby trainlines and can see the distant Campsies in the horizon. In many ways this new home is much more suited to our lives and I'm going to enjoy living here.

The dissertation fear has hit hence why I have added a word count tracker to the side of my blog. It saves me having to keep checking the word count on the university's website. And I like having a progress bar cheer-leading me on. Technically I still have seven weeks to hand in something resembling a dissertation. As I'm not working full time, seven weeks is adequate to finish off my research and churn out a couple of drafts.

For those interested, my dissertation is looking at the relationship between Web 2.0 tools and archives. Although the preservation of Web 2.0 output is important, my focus is more on archives that are using such tools. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a lot of literature from the archives sphere on this topic. So I have been wandering around the Sociology and (occasionally) the Computing Science sections of the library. The American Archivist, journal of the Society of American Archivists, has been a God send. My poor printer nearly died last week when I printed out all the articles I needed to read.

Today I have had great fun doing my literature review and slamming ideas of people I don't like. Huzzah!

In non-dissertation news, I joined a local writing group. Strangely I have found it more stimulating than my evening class I took last year. Perhaps because it is a smaller group (there's only going to be a maximum of 12 participants which makes a lot of sense). I've found myself writing more outside of 'Oh dear, I have a submissions due!' panic. Also I have started carrying a notebook around with me to scribble ideas down or overheard conversations on the bus. When moving house I found lots of pretty notebooks that will do just nicely. Last time I counted I had around 10 empty-of-content-notebooks. Time to fill them up methinks.

Next Stage

2010-06-27T09:47:00.001Z

I cannot believe it is almost the end of June. This month has zipped by, probably because I have been busy. This month I have:

Gone on holiday to Yorkshire for a week
Avoided my dissertation
Went to a local writer's group
Found a new flat to move into with Him Indoors
Put in a fair bit of overtime at Work Wot Pays Me
Started putting some work into my dissertation

Alas my reading record for June has not been very good. Only five books read so far and two WIPs. My WIPs are:

Both are quite big volumes. I started Wolf Hall when on holiday and have been slowly making my way through it. Its size makes it unsuitable for a commute/work breaktime read and I have been reading it in bed. I love books about the Tudor period and Mantel has done an excellent job of this one. She takes established historical figures, such as Wolsey and Cromwell, and makes them into living, breathing people. Only 170 pages in and I can see why she won the Booker Prize for this.

On another note, the booking for the Edinburgh Book Festival opened yesterday. Surprisingly I managed to get access to it at 10am and booked tickets to see the almighty Lionel Shriver. Funds this year mean financially I could only afford to attend one 'paid' event. Shriver won hands down. Cargo Publishing is hosting a free showcase of new Scottish writing one evening so I may venture through for that. Unfortunately the Book Festival is a tiny bit too close to the dissertation hand in date (31st August) so I might be limited for time to play.

This afternoon I'm going to watch the England v Germany match at a friend's house. Alas I am working early tomorrow so it will be a tame time (for me anyway). Him Indoors has volunteered to make a complex dinner (Leek and Cheese Souffles) so there might be time for some book reviews later on. Cannae wait.

Mailbox Monday

2010-06-14T15:11:00.002Z

OK, a bit of a cheat because these were books awaiting on me when I got back from my holidays:

Dystopian fiction is working for me at the moment. Before I went on holiday Spook Country by William Gibson arrived at my local library via an ILL.

This one is a bit iffy. A couple of weekends ago I was watching Cabaret and I popped onto the IMDB boards. Cut a long story of wading through posts and I came across this book. It is the true story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf who was born a boy in Germany. Alas this was post-Weimar and pre-Nazi Germany so having a queer identity was not a good idea. Charlotte is, apparently, one of the few openly gay individuals who survived the Nazis' cull of atypical individuals within their society (or boundaries of what being atypical was). von Mahlsdoft received a lot of criticism because her wealth came from helping clear out Jewish homes after they had been deported. Still, the book looks like an interesting read and the historian inside me will enjoy comparing the book with the facts.

And the final one, the latest Sookie Stackhouse adventure. I started it yesterday morning and finished it over my morning coffee. More characters are being introduced but Harris has a helpful knack of introducing or re-introducing characters with helpful tid bits such as "Claude loved guys. And he's a fairy. Literally. Not just because he's a homosexual." All fun and giggles.

Holidays & Writing

2010-06-13T20:28:00.002Z

After promising to update more; I go off and disappear. Last week I was on holiday in Yorkshire with Him Indoors. Saying in such a public sphere that I am leaving my home empty does not appeal to me. Of course I am not suggesting anyone on my friends' list has a history of breaking and entering but you can never be too careful ;)

The holiday was lovely and was spent doing things such as: ambling along at the local market, pints, good grub, reading and making coal fires. I took lots of photographs and am toying with trying to keep a camera on me at all times. Mind you, I've said that often enough about keeping a notepad on me yet I'm always scrabbling around, writing things on bus tickets. Then getting annoyed when I find them, months later, and have no idea what "Badgers, tuna and a time travelling towel" means. A post on Southside Happenings alerted me to the foundation of a new writers' group on the south side. I enjoy writing but do need a kick up the bum to get things done. I shall go along to this meeting and see what it's like. Alas my experience of the writing scene in Glasgow has not been terribly positive so fear. Fingers crossed this does not go down the same U-bend.

Another writing venture I like the sound of is Write In For Writing's Sake which encourages participants to write 1, 000 words of fiction based on the 'word of the week'. A fellow blogger has been participating in these ventures and I quite fancy giving it a crack myself. In my writing class the tutor liked doing off the cuff exercises. Such as "You have 20 minutes to write a piece of fiction involved pineapples, the Moon and Harry Potter." Classmates groaned at this and many dreaded these assignments. The tutor would pick on people to read out their unedited pieces at random. Personally I am a bad editor and very rarely re-write my work; including university assignments. There's the odd re-draft here and there but the differences between that and the original piece of work are very limited. Oh to have my own editor who can tell me where I'm going right or wrong! Perhaps when I win the lottery.

Whilst I was on holiday, the latest Sookie Stackhouse book arrived. Tonight I plan to stay up late and finish gulping it down. Nothing like some guilty McDonald's literature to end a holiday.

May Reads Round Up

2010-06-02T09:39:00.004Z

May 2010

1. After the Fire - Karen Campbell
2. The Tin-Kin - Eleanor Thom
3. The Declaration - Gemma Malley
4. Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
5. A Perfectly Good Family - Lionel Shriver
6. Plan B - Emily Barr
7. The Mobile Library: Mr Dixon Disappears - Ian Sansom
8. So Much For That - Lionel Shriver

Sadly I stayed up a bit later on Monday (last day in May) to finish off my last read, So Much For That. My lack of reading n' reviewing activity should pick up after the lack of activity that was May. After my exam I reverted to my usual lazy state. May saw more social invitations and overtime at work so I haven't been at home too much.

I'm quite pleased that I am sticking to my rule of only reading female writers. The exception is Ian Sansom, purely because it was a ILL. There's an outstanding Library Loot post I should really get round to writing. It may not surprise people to know that one of my library requests includes a time management book.

What?!

2010-05-31T20:35:00.001Z

Lately I have been keeping a note of books I've read in a Google Doc file. This evening I checked it to add a book to the list. According to this list I have only read six books so far in May! Which is a shocking state of affairs.

Hopefully June will be a more fruitful month.

Sunday Salon: 16/05/10

2010-05-16T09:25:00.002Z

It is a lovely sunny Sunday morning here in Glasgow. I went out to buy morning rolls and newspapers and the street felt rather tranquil. Except for someone playing rather loud jazz which I stopped to appreciate. Although I wouldn't like to be their neighbour. Tellingly, the flat below them had a 'To Let' sign on it. Perhaps loud early morning jazz isn't to everyone's taste.

This week my attention has been occupied by

It was due back at the library on Friday and I didn't start it until Tuesday. Other readers had forewarned me that it takes some suspension of belief to read this novel. Not a hard task considering Niffenegger's debut deals with time travelling as a 'normal' condition. Anyway, to start, a synopsis here:

From Amazon.co.uk
Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers - normal, at least, for identical 'mirror' twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn't know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin ...but have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twins' mother - and who can't even seem to quite leave her flat. With Highgate Cemetery itself a character and echoes of Henry James and Charles Dickens, "Her Fearful Symmetry" is a delicious and deadly twenty-first-century ghost story about Niffenegger's familiar themes of love, loss and identity. It is certain to cement her standing as one of the most singular and remarkable novelists of our time.

There is so much that happens in this book. The running theme throughout the book is grief and loss of a lover (or two), of youth, of a sister, of a sense of being and purpose. The book deals with the idea of a life after death that isn't filled with angels or meeting with loved ones. It's a grim existence with the spirit required to stay within the boundaries of their flat (slightly confusing as this character died in a hospital in the first couple of chapters). I am reluctant to talk too much about this book because I feel it's a wonderful discovery of a story. There are other sub plots, such as Martin who suffers from OCD and is unable to leave his flat, even to find his wife. Niffenegger writes about a sense of longing very well.

One criticism I have is the characterisation of Julia, the dominant of the twins. For storyline purposes, more time is spent on Valentina's development. We don't hear much from Julia until later in the book and we only glimpse clues behind her personality and character.

On a personal note, I enjoyed the sub-character that was an archivist. Albeit a ninety-five year old gent with too much time on his hands. Damn, I forgot to type up an extract before I took the book back. At the beginning of one of the later chapters, volunteers at Highgate Cemetery were commentated about user expectations and assumptions that all records are being digitised now. This is something I came up against when I was working in archives and it was nice to see reference to my chosen profession.

I have been very lazy with book reviews this week. In fact this entire week has been one of laziness. Although I did decide on a personal reading challenge. I was looking at my Mount TBR and noticed a lot of books are by female authors. So I am going to set myself the challenge of only reading female authors for the next couple of months. Please note, this will not be a 'strict' exercise. Female writers do deserve more attention but not at the expense of male writers. I shall attempt to justify my decision if I review a book by a non-male author *grins*

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, folks. I have coffee, Spotify and buttered morning rolls. Canny get much better than that.

Politics

2010-05-13T15:46:00.003Z

Those living in the UK can't have failed to have noticed that an election took place last week. For non UK readers, two centres of power control my life. One is the devolved parliament of Scotland which is based in Edinburgh. Its representatives are elected using a proportional representation system. The Scottish National Power has the biggest share of seats but not enough to claim a majority of government. They have 47 seats of a potential 129. At the moment they are puttering along and doing reasonably well. Although I strongly think they will lose their hold in the next Scottish elections but that's for another time. The Scottish Parliament deals with a lot of issues excluding taxation and foreign policy. These powers belong to Westminister, which was the subject of the elections last week.

Despite having a devolved parliament, Scotland is not a sovereign country. As much as I would love to live in a completely independent country, I do not think we have the economy to support this. Scotland has been hit badly by the recession (not as bad as previous recessions but still.....) and would have probably been crippled if we had been operating outwith the UK political framework. Anyway, the representation system at Westminister is slightly different. It operates on a First Past the Post system. The party that reaches 326 seats first wins the election. So far, so unfair. But that didn't happen this time round. The problem has arisen due to the Conservatives only polling 306 seats. Not enough to make a majority government. The British political scene has been interesting to watch the past couple of days. Unfortunately talks have resulted in a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition.

Having the Conservatives in power does not bode well for Scotland. I am too young to remember the Poll Tax protests yet the effects are still being felt. In my last job an older colleague admitted he was still paying back his Poll Tax 'debt' after refusing to pay for it. It speaks volumes that Scotland only has one elected MP at Westminister. Scotland was once the jewel in Britain's heavy industry crown; the Clydeside in Glasgow had hundreds of shipyards churning out ships day and night. Now there are only two active shipyards if my memory serves me right. The Tories do not care about what happens in the UK, outside of their southern English strong hold. The Scottish Parliament's purse strings are controlled by Westminister. With the Tories in power, I can see those funds being dramatically cut.

Alas the SNP became something of a joke during this election, with their attempts to the broadcast of the televised debates. It smacked of a child spitting its dummy out of the pram. I do believe that more parties should have been present in these debates. It was the first time such debates had been broadcast. I understand these are a staple part of the American Presidential campaign and I hope we keep them. The SNP could have teamed up with the other 'minority' parties and presented a united, dignified front for other parties to have a chance at the debating podium. Instead they cried "WAAAAAHHHHHH!" and stamped their feet.

All I can say is that I did not vote for any of the big three parties (Labour, Lib Dems or Conservatives) or the SNP. I vote but rarely find a party that corresponds to all of my political beliefs. Yet I find myself unable to not vote. Perhaps it's because I'm a woman and am well versed at the struggle for female voters. To be quite frank, the struggle for women is still going on. At least I live somewhere that I have the freedom to vote, for whichever party I please and for my political voice to at least have the illusion it is being heard.

With the Conservatives in power, I hope for more people to engage with politics. Not to think politics is boring or a waste of time or useless. This time I am old enough to take part in the protests because there will be protests. Anyone who is not exclusively white, male, upper middle class, married with children and leans politically to the right of the centre is going to be fucked over by this new government.

Will the revolution be televised?

Service Resumed

2010-05-10T09:47:00.001Z

The awful exam was on Saturday. It went not as bad as it could have done and I stayed in for the full 3 hours. I had spent a lot of time studying Data Protection and Freedom of Information legislation and it didn't come up. I was not amused. We finished at 5pm so it was straight to the pub and then to a friend's party. There was some good chat and I really enjoyed it. One major benefit to doing this course has been the new friends I've made. The archives world is rather small (well, in the UK it is) so no doubt we'll meet up again. There's already talk of us heading to Edinburgh in 2011/12 when the ICA have their conference. I have started saving my pennies. Although a lot of people are staying in Glasgow to write their dissertations which is good. Ah the dissertation *sighs*

I am trying to get get up at the same time during the week to avoid slinking around the house in my PJs. Also if I get up early then I see Him Indoors for a bit before he goes to work. And I quite like making morning coffees for us both. Hark at me, I sound like a Stepford Wife.

Not watching television is going well. I've stuck to my guns and actually find it rather hard to be around the television now. I'm enjoying having free time and not building my evening around what's on the box that night. At a study session last week I admitted I had 'given' up television. People were gob smacked but calmed down when I admitted that I was sticking with Glee and Doctor Who. After some soul searching I have decided to abandon any attempts to get back into Lost again. I may pick it up in the future but right now it doesn't interest me. The radio gives me much more satisfaction and the BBC programs are rather good. Also Stereo Mood has been a God-send for studying. Music is a much better way of killing my free time. It has been lovely lying on my comfy sofa and listening to the different lyrics and music styles coming through my Interwebs box.

Also I am taking up knitting lessons, kindly supplied by Not Just Laura. Knitting is something I have always scoffed at but I'm attracted to making something with my own hands. I'm not a very good cook, baker, woodwork, crafty person. If you screw up knitting, you can always turn it into a scarf. I quite fancy making a hat or tea cosy but shall start small with a scarf.

Giving up TV has allowed me to spend more time reading. This month I have decided to keep track of what I read and I am reading more fiction by female authors. Reviews shall follow shortly.

So yeh, I am back.

Belated introduction.

2010-05-02T09:16:00.002Z

There have been some new faces appearing on this blog. Hello and welcome :) I thought it would be nice to do a quick introduction and explain a bit more about me.

My name is Laura and I am a 25 year old student living in Glasgow, Scotland. Currently I am studying towards a MSc in Information Management and Preservation. Hopefully this will allow me to enter the field of archives and records management. Unfortunately, as with every other industry at the moment, jobs are a bit thin on the ground. There are big sporting events taking place in the UK over the next four years: the Commonwealth Games in 2014 in Glasgow and the Olympics in London in 2012. Funding for public archives tends to fall under the umbrella of 'Culture' which includes sport. As a result a lot of money is disappearing into this black hole and fewer permanent non-project jobs are available. I highly doubt I will be able to get a job in my chosen field for the next couple of years. At the moment I am trying to fix up some volunteer posts once I have finished my course.

My situation is part of the reason why I have become more interested in book blogging. My free time is going to rapidly increase and I am not very good if left to my own devices. Much as I hate to admit it, I need some form of schedule or routine. Hopefully I can get a better structure to my blog by timetabling topics for different days, such as the Library Loot posts on a Tuesday/Wednesday.

That's the doom and gloom over! What else? I live with my lovely boyfriend, Him Indoors, our goldfish, Dougal, and our lovely kakariki, Dante. Him Indoors is not a big reader but he does try. We're currently going through an experiment to cut down the amount of television we watch. We have a nasty habit, me in particular, of having the television on as background noise. I read Living Outside the Box this week and a lot of comments in the book struck home. The author explains watching television is a passive experience. Whilst watching a favourite TV show can be good for us, watching TV for the sake of it can have a negative effect. I was one of those people who would say "I don't watch much TV apart from the news. And Wife Swap. And *insert reality show title here*....." Once I thought about how much television I watched, I was rather horrified. Him Indoors and I discussed it and decided we are going to seriously trim the time we spend watching TV. Exceptions are Glee and Doctor Who which amounts to under 2 hours a week. We are currently working our way through Battlestar Galatica so that maybe takes us to six hours a week. Also, we are going to have one evening a week with no scree time; including laptops and other computers (between us we own one PC, two laptops and one netbook!).

I switched to the radio for my 'background' noise this week and have really enjoyed it. BBC Radio 4 has had some excellent programs and their breakfast show is a lot better than the fluff BBC1 has become. The threatened BBC Radio 6 is fantastic and has some wonderful music choices. Apparently audience figures have risen dramatically since the BBC announced it was being axed next year. Fingers crossed they keep it.

Next Saturday is my exam so I shall be a tad quiet this week. Last minute panic works for my studying method so I will be tearing through my class notes at rapid speed. I have got some books I want to review in the near future. Google Docs lets you post directly to your blog which is excellent. I am going to try and keep a list of the books I read to keep track of potential reviews.

Enjoy your Sunday, fellow bloggers. I have coffee, BBC Radio 6 and some chilling out to do.

Service Announcement

2010-04-27T09:10:00.000Z

"Attention those at platform 9 and 3/4, please move away because IT DOESN'T EXIST!"

Although it didn't stop a friend of mine going to check when he was in London at the weekend.

This post is to say that I might not be blogging as much. A week on Saturday I have my exam. I also need to put some serious work into my dissertation. I'll still be reading but may not be posting as many reviews as I have been lately.

It's typical of me to get into something then need to take a break from it. So if it all goes quiet, I haven't abandoned my blog. I'm just frantically cramming for my exam!

Library Loot 27th April - 4th May

2010-04-27T09:04:00.000Z

Technically I went to the library yesterday but didn't have time to make my post. Next weekend it's a bank holiday weekend which means the library will be closed this Monday. Also, I have my exam the following Saturday so will need to avoid extra distractions such as books. So I have binged on the following books:

The above are all two week loan books. The librarian was a bit grumpy when he pointed this out to me! Although he was the chap that dealt with me when I had to pay off a rather large overdue fine *ahem* so that may explain the grumpiness. I started After the Fire last night and am hooked already. It's set in my neck of the woods (the south of Glasgow) which I'm always a sucker for. It's a novel about the police but not really a detective story as such. It's such a good read that I even turned down on catching up with myself and Him Indoors's box set watch.

And I am the first person to take out The Long Song which always makes me a bit excited!

Diary of a Chav: Too Cool for School is my YA pick this week. It's part of a series and I read them a little out of sequence. I've read books 2 and 4 and this is book 3. Nevermind, the story is not terribly complicated but still a funny read.

Sunday Salon: Mini Reviews

2010-04-25T14:20:00.002Z

Time for another Sunday Salon. This week has simply flown by!

After last week's Sunday Salon post I have joined Bookmooch. I have joined quite a few book swapping sites in my Internet life by this seems to be the best one by far. Most sites I've used mean you have to choose a book from the requester's collection. Instead Bookmooch lets you gather points that you can request from other Moochers. Fab idea. Also, Royal Mail allows you to pay and print surface mail at home which makes sending books internationally a lot easier. As I type two books are parcelled up and waiting to be posted (when the rain stops....) and I have a third I need to do later.

This week I have read three books but none "wowed" me enough to assign each one an individual review. So here we go:

I have been a fan of Alexander McCall Smith for such a long time. His books are great for dipping in and out of. That might be why he was commissioned by newspapers to write a mini story column. The fantastic Scotland Street series was born from such a serial in The Scotsman. Corduroy Mansions came from The Daily Telegraph and has some similarities to Scotland Street. The main characters either live or are connected to someone who lives in this building in London.

My favourite character was Oedipus Snark, a nasty Liberal Democrat. For non-UK readers, the Lib Dems (as they are called) are the "third" party in UK politics and are regarded as being a bit nicey nice. Snark is a loathesome toad who declines events six months in advance "because he is attending a funeral." The UK has a General Election on 6th May and it's looking exciting because the Lib Dems have an excellent chance to gain quite a number of seats. Corduroy Mansions was published in 2009, a good bit before the announcement of the election.

This was a good bedtime read because I could dip and out of it. There are 100 chapters in total; each one no more than 4 pages. There are plenty of characters to keep you amused. William whose feckless son Eddie refuses to take the hint and move out. Caroline, art student who has a dilemma about men (which art student doesn't?) and one time graced the cover of Rural Living. Bertha Snark, Oedipus's mother, who loathes him too and is writing a 'warts an' all' biography about him. Plenty of characters to keep the reader amused and memorable enough to have numerous storylines running through the book.

My other reads this week have been:

Both books dealing with various teen issues. The Divorce Express deals with the aftermath of a divorce. Phoebe spends the week with her father in Woodstock and travels to New York to spend weekends with her mother. She also manages to find the time to acquire a new best friend, lead a protest about school meals and a new potential boyfriend. Can You Sue Your Parents? has similar themes. Lauren's parents are not happy (although they didn't divorce in this book I would not be surprised to see a sequel about that!) but Lauren has other problems. She likes a new boy at school but he's the year below her. It's funny but I remember that being such a big issue when I was at school. Yet it was OK for a boy to date a girl younger than him. *sighs*

Again both books are a little dated. Can You Sue... was published in 1979 and one storyline revolves around Lauren's father refusing to let her mother go out and work. Another storyline is about her sister moving in with her boyfriend before getting married. Society has relaxed a little since then but other issues, such as 'how far to go with a boy?', are still there.

It has been fun reading these books with an adult eye. I'm 25 and probably read these books when I was 13/14. Scary, back then 25 seemed like a million miles away. But I can still remember what I was worried about. My hair, what my friends thought, how my marks were doing and so on. Somehow I don't think much has changed.

Book Blogger Hop: Who did I meet?

2010-04-24T10:38:00.001Z

Thank you to all who visited my blog during the hop. I'm looking forward to reading most posts from fellow book bloggers :)

Apologies for the belated post. Yesterday turned into one of those days when Real Life and Socialising With Other People came into play.

Book Blogger Hop: 23rd April - 29th April

2010-04-23T07:49:00.006Z

For the past couple of weeks I have been watching this hop from afar. This is my first Friday without a pending deadline so I thought I would give it a go.

Book Blogger Hop is host by Jen at Crazy for Books and is a weekly opportunity to get to know fellow book bloggers. Follow the link below to add your blog to the list. Make sure you put the following information in the link:
*Name of your blog
*How long you've been blogging
*A brief description of the genres you enjoy reading
Clicky here for more detailed rules.

Happy hopping!
And if you've stopped here as part of the hop, please say hello :)

Book Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

2010-04-22T14:37:00.003Z

Amazon.co.uk does not appear to have a full review for this book. So, in a nutshell, this book is the second in a trilogy called The Hunger Games. Society has crumbled and, what I assume are the remains of America, has been divided up into twelve districts. The Capital is the tyrant over this civilisation. As punishment for previous rebellions, and a form of social control, each year two children from each district have to compete in what is called 'The Hunger Games'. If you have seen Battle Royale that is a mild interpretation of what happens.

I discovered this book in a Ms magazine article that recommended books with positive feminist role models. Katniss, the lead character and from whose perspective the story is told, is a kick ass girl. However, the kick ass-ness is partly due to survival. In the first book, she manages to win 'The Hunger Games' along with Peeta. To appeal to the Capital's thirst for reality styles, she and Peeta create a believable love affair.

Unfortunately the Capital are not terribly happy with this. This sinister note is how the second book opens. Katniss is now back in her home district with her mother and younger sister. This happiness does not last for long. To celebrate the 75th Hunger Games, it is announced all previous contestants are to compete instead of choosing new participants. This includes Katniss and Peeta. Then all the fun starts.

This book was a terrible distraction from coursework I had due in last week. Collins keeps the reader hooked. The story is seen from Katniss's perspective so the reader is left guessing. What are people's true intentions in the Hunger Games? Why has there been a crackdown on activity in the districts? Who can Katniss really trust? Which is probably why I read this book in an entire sitting.

Collins paints a torturous and futuristic world. In an interview (at the back of printed copy of the first book) she admits the idea came from channel hopping on the television on evening. She was going from Survivor, other reality TV shows to news coverage of war, famine, people fighting for daily survival. This may explain the emphasis she gives to 'manufacturing' of Katniss. As a participant in the Hunger Games she is given a team to spruce up her hair, nails, everything. In the Capital, presentation is everything. A stance I think our current society is not a million miles away from.

Katniss is a true icon for feminist teens. If I had a teen daughter I would prefer she was reading about strong women than love sick girls; mooning over vampires. Collins' book is full of more admirable role models. Katniss's mother who has powerful healing skills but struggles to cope with the loss of her husband (Katniss's father died in a mining accident prior to the events in the first book). Johannes, a contestant in the Hunger Games who has lost everyone she cares about but is still fighting. Even Prim, Katniss's sister, is a character worthy of admiration.

A fantastic, gripping book that appeals to both teens and adults alike. Can't say fairer than that.

(Belated) Library Loot: 20th April - 27th April

2010-04-22T13:50:00.013Z

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Belated post this week due to looming deadline. Then I had a revision session on Tuesday and a dissertation meeting yesterday that sent my head spinning a little.

Onto Library Loot! As I have mentioned in previous posts I have access to two libraries. One is located in the Current District I live in. The other is Next Door To Current District; where I grew up. Both libraries have their pros and cons. One district charges for Inter Library Loans; the other doesn't. One charges more for late fines (oops!) than the other. The list goes on.

This week's loot comes from Next Door Library. It has recently been refurbished and I was feeling nostalgia when I went there. Hence the large number of YA fiction present:

I am trying very hard to avoid this book until after my exam. There have been some mixed reviews and I have a feeling I might be sucked in by the story. So this book will be hanging out on my TBR table for some time.

Another pick from the library selection table (am awfully fond of them!). It's a novel about the Victorian period (tick!) and is about Spiritualism (double tick!) and torrid affairs (ding, we have a winner!). The Crimson Petal and the White appears to have me addicted to this genre of fiction. I don't think Cover the Mirrors will be as awesome as The Crimson.... was but I can keep my fingers crossed.

I loved Paula Danziger when I was a teen. She used to have a book slot on a Saturday morning kid's show called Live and Kicking. Her outfits were always cool with big earrings and chunky jewellery. She may have been responsible for my own fascination with similar accessories. Alas I could not carry them off as well. These books have been a nice distraction although seem a little dated now. Not many teen girls these days would go out on a date wearing a nice sweater and jeans. But the humour is still there with the silly pranks (such as Super Glue-ing everything in the school building). Need to find out if I still have these at my parents' house:

Sunday Salon: What to Read?

2010-04-18T09:17:00.001Z

As some may notice I have been floating around other book blogs the past week. Partly due to course work avoidance. Partly due to looming 'no job post-qualification' which means I need a project to keep me going through unemployment.

Unfortunately nearly every blog I read has books on it I want to read. Two problems arise. One: a majority of the blogs I have found are American-centric. No disrespect to fellow readers on the other side of the pond but their book supplies seem a lot richer. My lack of funds means I am relying on the local library. Well *ahem* technically I still have access to the library near where I used to live which is part of another local authority. So I have access to two sources of books. Yet most books supplied by these bodies are UK-centric. It makes sense, of course. Library users in the UK are more likely to borrow books from writers known in the UK.

E-books are an option. That brings me to Two: Money. Again, with low lack of funds, buying books is something I'd like to avoid. With a looming Mount TBR I really should be tackling that instead of moping about books I can't borrow from either of my local libraries. But it is so tempting when I go into the library and see lots of books smiling back at me (not literally of course, that would be a bit weird!). Or read some fantastic reviews on a book blog.

For those who read many book blogs: how do you decide what to read? How much are you influenced by your fellow bloggers' reviews? Do you access your existing resources, such as a local library? Is there a magic book fairy that leaves you books under your pillow at night? Or kind relatives who supply you with book tokens on birthdays and other celebratory occasions?

Finally, I have not been reading as much as I'd like this week. My sleep patterns are a bit out of kilter. When that happens, I stop reading in bed to help kick start my routine again. There are other things I give up, such as no TV or Internet an hour before bed, but I really dislike giving up reading in my lovely, cosy bed.

Yesterday I gorged myself on the fantastic The Hunger Games: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. It's a fabulous YA series and has been touted by Ms as a great feminist book for teen girls. I was going to write a review under this post but I don't think I can do it justice at the moment. Because tomorrow, a deadline is a-looming and I still need to finish off two reports. That's what I get for reading instead of studying.

Despite the attempts by a mad, bad, volcano it is a lovely day here. Blue sky, lots of cheerful looking white clouds. Before I knuckle down to work, I shall be taking a short walk to pick up Sunday rolls and some newspapers for tonight's entertainment.

Book Review: The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom

2010-04-14T19:24:00.005Z

This is a book I should have mentioned in my library loot post. It has a bright red cover and chickens; a combination that made me look twice. It's a terrible thing to judge a book by its cover but a crime I can be guilty of.

At the moment I'm tweaking some of my review structure. Previously I didn't have a synopsis or outline of the plot. This is due to my personal preference of finding out for myself what a book is about. I can read the blurb on the back; sometimes quite a misleading piece of text. However some people have commented that they prefer a synopsis and that seems in line with some of the other book blogs I've been reading.

So, a synopsis:
Introducing Israel Armstrong, one of literature's most unlikely detectives in the first of a series of novels from the author of the critically acclaimed Ring Road. Israel is an intelligent, shy, passionate, sensitive sort of soul: he's Jewish; he's a vegetarian; he could maybe do with losing a little weight. And he's just arrived in Ireland to take up his first post as a librarian. But the library's been shut down and Israel ends up stranded on the North Antrim coast driving an old mobile library. There's nice scenery, but 15,000 fewer books than there should be. Who on earth steals that many books? How? When would they have time to read them all? And is there anywhere in this godforsaken place where he can get a proper cappuccino and a decent newspaper? Israel wants answers!
(From Amazon.co.uk)

First of all, this book really isn't a detective story. It is very much so a book about "books". The plot device of finding the books is a way for Sansom to introduce the story's reluctant hero, Israel Armstrong. Bless him, Israel reminded me a bit of myself. Poor lost soul who reads a bit too much and grows up wanting to be a librarian. Unfortunately he graduated with a 2:2 and has not been able to find a single library job. Instead he's been working in a discount bookshop. As someone who faces a similar future post-qualification, I read this book with a grim smile on my face.

The book is set in Northern Ireland and Sansom is not afraid to make mild jokes about the political situation. In one section Israel mentions the IRA to Ted, his unwilling sidekick, and is sharply reminded of the ceasefire in place (although a bit shaky these days, unfortunately). Due to the gentle and warm nature of the book, these references don't jar too much. Sansom makes other gentle jibs such as Israel trying to resist bacon his hosts have given him for dinner. He also pokes fun at people who say stuff like "My best friend's Jewish" then launch on a tirade of anti-Semite remarks. Alas have encountered some people like that in real life, sadly.

That is what I loved about the book was the people. England Robertson, the black South African minister whose mother loved the United Kingdom so much she named her sons after each country. England adds that Ireland did die as a young boy, a bit of irony there on the author's part methinks. Zelda and Minnie who run the local cybercafe that is not what it seems. The unpleasant Linda Wei, Deputy Head of Entertainment, Leisure and Community Services for Tumdrum and District Council who is addicted to crisps and Diet Coke. Pearce Pyper who seems to be aquintanted with almost any Western culture figure from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Irving Berlin.

The book is written with Sansom's tongue firmly in his cheek. In one sequence Israel is being chased by an Alsatian and shoves a copy of Life of Pi into its mouth to prevent being bitten. To quote "a fine use for a copy of Yann Martel's Life of Pi if Israel said so himself....The dog was whimpering and thrashing about to try and dislodge the Booker Prize-winning fable about the relationship between man and beasts from his mouth, so Israel didn't have much time."

Despite some of the melodrama (after all, many detective novels are melodramatic in nature) there are some true human moments. Israel and Ted attempt to round up the missing books by visiting various patrons in the area. One is Rosie, part-time childminder and part-time barmaid at the First and Last pub, established by an ex-member of the Plymouth Brethren. She lives on a mobile home site in a caravan that has seen better days. Israel comments he's from London and Rosie replies she has an aunt there she'd always love to visit. "Why not?" replies Israel. "Look around," Rosie replies. "Look at where I live."

I am cheered to find out this is indeed first in a series. The book does have that feel to it but that doesn't spoil the reading. To support the message of the book, I have requested an inter-library loan for the next installment.

EDIT: Would like to add that I have been so involved writing this book review that I ignored my glass of wine for an hour! Poor lonely little glass of rose :(

Library Loot 13th-19th April 2010

2010-04-13T10:11:00.011Z

I've had some time on my hands lately. This time really should be spent doing coursework but I like to work under pressure. As a distraction, I have been wandering around various book blogs and stumbled upon this rather interesting idea:

Library Loot which is a wonderful idea from Eva at A Striped Armchair.

My low funds mean I have started using my local library for books. Usually I bought them from Amazon Marketplace but I cannot justify that expense any longer. Last week I requested Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins and recieved a phone call to say it was in. Yesterday was a surprisingly sunny day so I decided to wander down and collect my book. My local library is only 10 minutes walk from my flat. It's rather small but I was surprised how busy it was.

It's the Easter school holidays and the children's book department was full of toddlers, tweenagers, ratty parents and babes chewing on book corners. The available computers were all in use by the time I left. Turning a corner, I stumbled upon a book group having tea and a good old natter about the book they had been reading. Yes, it might be a small library but it was a used library. And there's nothing nicer than seeing a library in use.

The other advantage to the library is the book displays. I try to read a range of fiction but dislike Amazon's marketing choices sent to my email. One stand appeared to be devoted to How to Use.... books with an emphasis on Web 2.0 such as Twitter and Blogging. They are rather short books but I was amused to see printed books as a resource for Web based tools.

But hey, you want to know what I chose, right? Two books came from the The Herald/Tesco Summer Read campaign. The readers are either all Scottish or based in Scotland (Alexander McCall Smith for one) and small presses are represented as well as big sellers.

Finally (I hear you cry!) here is my library loot for this week:

(These two came from the library stand.)

It is doubtful I will get all of these read this week. Surviving and Corduroy Mansions are both two week loans whilst the rest are four week loans. Currently these books are proving good distraction techniques from looming deadlines.

Ask a stupid question......

2010-04-12T19:41:00.002Z

Lately I have been dipping my toe back into the blogging waters. Not just writing posts but reading them as well. I have been rather impressed with people who post images of the books they're talking about. So, people who know more than me, what's the best way to do this? I know Blogger allows you to insert an image but is there a better method?

Death of an ipod Touch

2010-04-03T22:42:00.003Z

Earlier this week my second ipod Touch in a year died on me (this was a replacement after my first one had some sound problems). I took it to my local Apple store and was told it would cost £106 to repair or I could trade in the frazzled model and get 10% off a new model.

The thing is that I'm not too sure I want to. Sure, I loved my Touch when I first got it. It was so handy to check email, Facebook and Twitter while I was waiting for the kettle to boil. But recently I have become a little uneasy about how much of my life was being swallowed by this little device. Bit ironic posting about the Internet stealing my life on a blog but bear with me.

Sometimes I can't sleep and I would spend hours on the Touch, jumping from app to app. Check out the news? I had my Guardian app. See who else is up at this time? Twitter and Facebook. Still can't sleep? Then I have ZombieFarm to play (don't ask). Trouble is that this started to seep into my 'awake' time. A day before the Touch died, I was horrified to discover that I had spent an hour faffing around on it. An hour! Surely Facebook wasn't that interesting? Although I'm on study leave I still have lots and lots of work to do. Work that wasn't getting done because I was distracting myself with the sodding Touch.

So I have decided to go retro. Him Indoors has an old ipod that lacks the snazzy new Interwebs access that the Touch posses. By doing this I'm hoping I don't waste so much time on doing nothing.

And, on that note, I am going to log off and go to bed ;)

Sunday Salon: DNF

2010-04-03T12:16:00.005Z

I hate not finishing books. Absolutely hate it, even if I'm not enjoying reading it. Over years I have tried to implement a X page number rule. Always a little voice says in the back of my head "What if page X+1 is much better than the previous X pages? Keep going." Hard to do when I survey my Mount TBR which has been culled over the Easter break. I haven't counted my books but I have two tidy boxes and small piles scattered across my room. My two (small) bookcases are usually reserved for books that I plan to keep and are comprised of a mixture of books I have read and TBR books.

In the summer I am moving house after living in my current place for roughly two years. Despite the small space myself and Him Indoors live in, we have gathered a lot of stuff. Memories of our last move made me shudder, due to a combo of weak boxes and too many books. With this in mind the book scythe has been swift and without mercy.

But what book is this post about? The Book of Dave by Will Self. I like Will Self, I like his sarcastic opinion pieces, I liked his appearances on Shooting Stars. But, try as I might, I don't like this book. For those unfamiliar, the story is split between two time zones. One is set in the future after London has suffered from a major flood. This society follows the teachings from 'The Book of Dave'. The other time zone is set in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century and follows the story of Dave, an irate and clearly mental taxi driver going through a painful divorce and custody battle.

The problems I'm having centre around the sections set in the first time zone. Self has quite skillfully built a new world, complete with vernacular language. It's tricky to follow and my brain has been too lazy to follow it. Instead I've been skipping those sections and reading the 'easier' passages set in a more contemporary era. Though someone told me that those sections won't make much sense unless I read the A.D. (stands for After Dave) sections.

This is my second attempt to read this book. I think I'm going to add it to the pile of DNF (Did Not Finish). It hasn't put me off trying another Will Self book though so perhaps I'll return it again.

In other news, I have been re-reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller for a university project. I have to encode a text so I chose Act III of the play. Alas, due to copyright issues, there is no electronic version. I had to key in the Act whilst checking it against my paper copy. Twenty-eight pages later, it's proof read and I can start tagging it.

The Crucible is impossible to avoid if you study Drama or English at an advanced level. At least it was when I was at school (almost ten years ago now!). Due to this it's a favourite of local drama companies because it guarantees bums on seats. To me, a play is not there to be read, it's there to be performed. Although I'm not reading it for this purpose, I have enjoyed re-reading the dialogue and getting caught up in the action of Act III (the act when Proctor confronts the court, Abigail and his wife, amongst other things).

This week's entry might be getting posting a little early. Tomorrow I have Easter lunch with Him Indoors and his family. Then it's off to my parents for Easter dinner. Busy old Easter Sunday.

Sunday Salon: A Day Late

2010-03-29T13:12:00.004Z

I know, my bad. My Twitter feed has been clogged up for the past couple of weekends with numerous Sunday Salon updates. Each week I've thought 'I really must sit down and write a post.' Hence why this one is a day late.

My reading tastes seem to be swinging towards non-fiction at the moment. My bedtime book is currently a biography called The Bolter, written by her great-granddaughter, whose husband is the Shadow Chancellor. Not the most taxing read but it does prove the theory that real life can be more exciting than fiction. Idina Sackville was married, and divorced, five times between 1918 and 1945. Scandalous for those times, heck even scandalous for this day and age. Osborne did make an interesting point that the perception of affairs changed in the early twentieth century. In the Edwardian era, having affairs was a way of married life for the upper classes. As long as no-one got pregnant or wanted a divorce, all was hunky dory (in theory) and become something everyone knew about but didn't talk about. Once divorce laws became looser and went on the increase, affairs became more public. Hence more scandal.

Idina seems to have trumped them all. She emigrated to Africa with her second husband and set up home in Kenya. Her parties become known as "orgy hotspots" and romantic entanglements ahoy! I'm halfway through the book, on husband no. 4 (I think...) and the story is becoming more about the author's grandfather, Idina's child from her first marriage. Not sure where that's going to go but I shall keep you posted.

I finished No Logo which was my bus book for most of February. I thought it was about time I got around to reading this book about the power of the branded world we live in. As much as I hate to admit it, buying ethically can be very difficult for the ordinary consumer to do. People do appear to be shunning brands for cheaper retail shops such as Primark but, in turn, this creates a market for cheap labour to produce clothes. In the age of a recession, ethics can be an entity that goes out the window very quickly. Klein's prediction of a short term contract and freelancer job market seems to have hit in some industries. Not sure where that's going to leave us.

Currently, archives are seeing something of a 're-branding' in the UK with moves to encompass libraries, archives and other areas as 'information management' and break down barriers of job titles. This has caused bristling in some areas and I don't think this change is particularly welcome. Yes, working together with libraries but not interchanging archive and library work without good reason. Lots of archive money is being sucked out by the Olympic Games hoover which has lead to a decline in jobs. Most jobs advertised are for short term jobs, average pay with lots of uprooting. So I read Klein's 'No Jobs' part with some bitter pessimism. Apologies for the tangent.

My current commute read is The Search which is about the rise of the search engines. It's hard to believe but, in the early days of the Interwebs, people didn't think search portals were going to make any money. Hard to believe in this so-called Google era. This book is not necessarily about the foundation of Google but about the change in how business can be conducted on the web. Some information is slightly outdated. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is treated very cautiously rather than a staple of on-line marketing.

So yes, a very weird switch to non-fiction over the past month. It hasn't been intentionally. Fiction is still a major love judging by my piles of books everywhere. Study leave has started for this semester so my reading intake could go up. In lieu of doing any revision of course.

Valetine's Day and Why I Hate It

2010-02-12T09:12:00.005Z

Personally I am not a big fan of Valentine's Day. When asked, as a "grown-up", I usually respond with some rant about how it's capitalist, just another way of spending our money, how insecure your relationship is if you need a £2.99 card and an expensive meal to reaffirm your affections, blah blah blah.

"But what about Christmas or Easter?" they usually cry. Well, the reason is that I was happy at Christmas or Easter. Valentine's Day was just another humiliation event to face during the school calendar.

Hence why I agree with this school's decision to ban Valentine's Day cards. Most comments are from outraged parents, including this mother who says: "It's a tradition, I can remember when I used to receive cards from boys in school. It's a lovely thing to do." Yeah but you got cards, didn't you love? Speaking as someone who never received a Valentine's Day card that wasn't from her gran, it hurts. Like most schools, there was a postbox system for delivering your cards. Actually it was the same box used for delivering Christmas cards to classmates except a massive heart was stuck on the top; with the fake snow almost hidden from view. In high school, it was incorporated into "Business Enterprise" and plucky students would go from class to class offering a range of services. You could buy a fake plastic rose for £1 going right up to a small box of chocolates, a card AND a rose for £3. The one year I was brave enough to send a card, I was laughed at. And it hurt.

Seeing these cheap gifts and expensive cards being handed out only reinforced how unpopular I was. Being constantly told I was ugly and disgusted chipped away at my confidence. Early high school was not fun. Therefore banning these cards will help those who know they will not receive such gifts. Yes, it's a bit of fun for those involved. But those left out? It sucks.

Out of interest, this Sunday Him Indoors and I will be celebrating Valentine's Day by eating lots of takeaway food and watching that romantic classic of Hackers.

Sunday Salon: Writing on the Page

2010-02-07T12:25:00.004Z

I started writing my response to this post on my Facebook profile but I felt I could squeeze a blog post out of it. For the link-phobic, the article concerns the issue of unrelated marginalia. The author goes beyond annotating the text to using a book as a temporary notepad (repository?) of their immediate thoughts. One such tale includes a scribbled note to phone someone. Now they cannot remember why they needed to contact this person but it remains a constant reminder of a point in their life.

Sometimes I am not sure where I stand on annotated books. Books have always been precious objects to me. In primary school I lent a so-called friend pristine copies of my Roald Dahl books to read in class. Two months they came back, tatty, dog eared, one cover even ripped. Even now, that moment when she handed my prized possessions back to me still brings a small lump to my throat.

Then I started university and had a massive reading load to battle with. Luckily I could afford to buy most core texts but still refrained from writing in the margins; preferring to make my notes on paper. Then I got a Sociology teacher; probably one of the best teachers I have ever had. Her class had a mouthful of a title (Titles of Comparative Sociological Thought and Theory, to paraphrase) but she had taught a previous class in Sociological Theory that I had been rather impressed by. I signed up and went to the first class. There the teacher said it would be "extremely" helpful to annotate the texts that we were studying. "Bring a pencil, do it in pen, use those colour tabs, anything! Even buy a cheap second hand copy," she told us. Now, one problem I have with annotation is that I have big, messy handwriting. On an average line of paper I maybe fit five-six words; less if I'm in a lecture and writing fast. So I took a deep breath and got my pencil out. To make a confession, I rather enjoyed it. The text I remember most was Persian Letters by Montesquieu. My copy is still somewhere in my mountains of books and has notes scrawled all over it. It makes me happy seeing them; reminding me at one time I loved and enjoyed studying Sociology.

However I have not continued annotating every book I own. My reading taste is dominantly contemporary fiction and I enjoy analysing in my head, as I go. Sometimes I annotate a text for studying (if my camera hadn't died I would have posted one of my course textbooks that has a forest of colour tabs growing out of it). I especially enjoying doing so to printed out journal articles. But I would never do so with a library text. It still narks me when I get a book out the library and someone has left their notes written in the text. Or, worse, highlighted passages. It's very distracting if I'm reading the same text but for different purposes.

At the same time, my stance seems hypocritical when you consider my Bookcrossing habits. For those who don't know, Bookcrossing is a website that tracks books. When you register a book, it is given its own unique tracking number called a BCID that needs to be written or recorded on the book. You can simply write the number on the book or stick a bookplate into the book that captures the same information. A lot of Bookcrossers have similar feelings to mine. "You want me to do what to my books? Write on them, stick labels in them, good Lord!"

A theme that keeps cropping up on my course is the sanctity of the text, or specifically, the printed book. As a potential archivist, it is part of my job to look at objects, manuscripts, notebooks, journals, anything to assess its uniqueness and importance for future study. Take your bog standard printed book, Mass Paperback by A.N. Other. Typically it will not be accessioned by an archive. But what if this book belonged to Barack Obama in his student years and, being the rebel he is, coated the book in his own annotations of his thoughts and feelings? In that example it is the information that matters, not the medium it is recorded on.

In an attempt to conclude, I am not promoting the mass annotation and defacement of books. Even in this 'age' of the e-book, many readers still favour the interaction with the physical object of the book; the touch of the page, the smell, the spotted front cover. Shared texts should not be actively annotated. For a new reader, this can interrupt their interaction with the text, that wonderful feeling of entering a new world that books open up. But for your own personal collection? Go wild. Annotate, highlight, scribble. Alas I will not be joining you (she of the messy handwriting) but I wish you well and God speed.

Name Change

2010-01-31T19:36:00.003Z

There have been some changes going on lately. Hence the change of my blog name. This woman still has opinions but this blog has grown into a forum for my thoughts on books. My name change does still reflect my previous identity as Women with an Opinion but I do like this new title a lot better.

Sunday Salon: January Round Up

2010-01-31T18:39:00.003Z

Highlights so far:

Sookie Stackhouse
I finished the most recent addition to the True Blood saga. This is probably the first time I have dipped my toe into the paranormal fiction genre and completed my mission (Twilight ended in a ball of fire and an unfinished read). Dead and Gone has a 'Final Battle' feel to it and I'm not sure where Harris is going to go after this. The book opens with the Weres/shape shifters coming out of the closet. And the small matter of a murder occurring in the backyard of Merlottes. Believe it or not, Sookie has more pressing concerns such as mad, bad fairies turning up. Thoroughly enjoyed this adventure and read it almost in one sitting. Now I just have to wait for series 3 of True Blood later this year *grumbles*

The Believers by Zoe Heller
Absolutely loved this book. It's a short read (comes in at just over 300 pages) and follows the Litvinoff family in New York. The patriarch, Joel, suffers a massive stroke and this provides the framework to explore the relationships in his family. Audrey: his hypocritical Socialist wife. Rosa: their eldest daughter who is looking to religion to answer her empty life. Kara: the youngest girl who is stuck in a loveless marriage, trying for a baby. Lenny: the adopted and feckless younger son.

Heller has such a fantastic way of writing that highlights the flaws of characters. Kara's weakness for high calorie snacks, Audrey's nasty and downright cruel temper. The Believers is an adpt title for the book as Joel's stroke provides a stimulus for his family to question the very (shaky) foundations its based upon.

Despite this, the book does have a bittersweet ending. I found myself cheering for one particular character and mentally jumping up and down, waving pom poms. Although I was surprised Heller chose to end the narrative at that particular point. Was it, perhaps, to convey a small sense of hope and optimism for the characters she had created?

Go read it. Go on, I dares you :)

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Farber

Finally finished this door stopper of a book last week. My creative writing tutor had warned us about the ending. Silly thing to say but it just ends. Although you can guess what happens, Farber doesn't explicitly show us where some of the characters end up. It is nice to read something in which you're not spoon fed an ending but it did leave me wanting more.

The language and sometimes explicit sex scenes may put some people off but please read past this. In the later stages of the book, it truly doesn't matter and there's very little sex that takes place. An important feature of the narrative due to the changing role of Sugar, the book's prostitute and some may call her the heroine of the book too.

February looks like it's going to be the month of the Millennium trilogy for me. I broke my aversion to buying hardbacks and used some Christmas money to buy The Girl Who Kicked A Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson. Already I've been sucked into the final installment of the lives of Lisbeth Salander and Michkel Blomskiv. It does make me sad that we won't see any more from these books due to Larsson's untimely death.

Finally, I was saddened to hear of the passing of JD Salinger. Thank you, sir, for writing The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was 12, didn't understand it very well but numerous re-reads later and Holden Caulfield has a small place in my heart. A glass will be raised in his honour this evening.

Verdict so far?

2010-01-25T23:02:00.003Z

For lots of reasons I won't go into, 2010 has not run terribly smoothly so far. At the moment I feel like I'm limping from one drama to the next. And it's only the end of January. One positive offshoot from my current 'oh woe is me' state is that my writing productivity has seen a small spike lately. The last time I was this miserable I was 15, hated school and wrote obsessively to escape from my festering pit of teenage depression.

This reminds me of something my current creative writing tutor said. He remarked that not all writing had to be a brutal, bearing open the soul process. Sometimes I'm not too sure about that. When I hit 18, I found myself happy. I had a good social circle, a course with little practical use for real life but something I enjoyed, a possible boyfriend (though that turned out to be an utter car crash....), a part-time job that awarded me some financial independence. Then I stopped writing.

Now I find myself scribbling away at the back of my notepad, writing random lines, pieces of dialogue, characters that have popped into my head: some to stay for a while, others just a flying visit. Perhaps I have to be a little bit miserable to want to write. That doesn't feel like an entirely bad thing. Now, when I refuse to come out of my flat and have stuck post its all over the floor then people should start worrying....

FYI

2010-01-15T12:19:00.003Z

And so another semester commences. Due to the nature of the course I am doing (MSc Information Management and Preservation, thanks for asking), the class has been split into those following the Theory route and those who are doing the Digital strand. I am firmly in the Digital camp; purely because I couldn't cope with another semester of reading about what I'm meant to be doing. Also I have never really written reports or embarked on a formal project; something I think I need to experience before I venture into the working world. The Digital strand is assessed via two projects and two reports.

So far the classes have been interesting. They are a hybrid of I.T. and archival theory; strange bedfellows. Yesterday's pratical session involved basic elements of appraisal, document handling, all the stuff I learnt whilst on various pre-course placements. We share the class with some I.T. students and some of them looked so bemused, bless 'em. Some of the language triggered ten year old high school computing classes such as DPI, 8 bit, 600 resolution. Nice to realise I have forgotten all that. And I'm learning similar stuff that I was learning ten years ago. That's a bit scary and makes me feel I haven't moved on terribly much.

So that's where I am at the moment. How are you guys?

The Sunday Salon: New Year, New Turn of the Page

2010-01-03T11:37:00.003Z

Not posted here for some time. Hopefully something that will change over the next year or so :)

In the final months of 2009 I became obsessed with the Sookie Stackhouse books. They are not the best books ever written and sometimes Sookie does your head in but, by golly, there's something about them that sucks you in. The television adaptation just hit UK screens a couple of months ago and nearly everyone I know has been watching it.

It does feel a bit hypocritical due to my intense hatred of Twilight. Essentially the Sookie Stackhouse Saga is Twilight but with more sex. A hellva lot more sex. No subliminal abstinence messages here. Oh and the telepathic abilities but that's it. But they are highly addictive. One negative offshoot of reading the entire series almost in one go is that the books seemed to merge together. I could tell you the plot of the first and second books but any further on and I start getting mixed up with the characters' activities.

But they make a nice distraction from 'orrible uni reading. I am currently anxiously awaiting the most recent book in the series from Amazon. This might be swallowed up rather quickly if it arrives before the Christmas break is over (lucky me, I don't go back until the 11th).

However, my first 'proper' read of 2010 is the tome that is The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber. It was on my reading list for my writing class and I happened to spot it in a charity shop a week later. The tutor had described it as a 'typical' Victorian novel but written in the twentieth century. I have to admit I find it hard to get into Dickens and other books of that era. I do feel ashamed that I have only read the children's abridged version of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and David Copperfield.

The book weighs in at c. 1000 pages but I have been gobbling it down. Last night was a quiet one at work so I managed to reign in 100 pages. The story revolves around numerous characters. The people at the centre of this saga are William Rackham, a feckless man turned failed writer turned master of his father's perfume business and Sugar, a prostitute that William becomes obsessed by. Faber's writing is a joy to read, his descriptions of Victorian London are so vivid that you can almost smell the filth and the squalour; the perfumes that Rackham's factories make. Some of the language in the book would make a genteel Victorian lady faint with shock but it does paint a picture of the less than prim Victorians that people skirt over. They were dirty bitches some of them, so they were ;)

So far, the start to my reads of 2010 is going rather swell.

2010: The Year to Gain?

2010-01-03T11:20:00.003Z

And the festive period is over for another year. This season went more smoothly for myself and Him Indoors. Last year we were both ill in the run up to Christmas and could not be bothered with being sociable. On Christmas Day we visited both sets of parents and it went better than expected. I didn't eat too much (read: stuff myself silly) and felt the better for it. I also wore a dress on Christmas Day with my lovely new Doc Marten boots with roses up the side. Alas my camera has given up the ghost after many years of service so no pictures.

I have been mulling over making a post here. 2009 was not a great year for lots of reasons; most notably two deaths of matriarch figures in the family within a week of each other. The pain is still there for some family members left behind and I feel a tad helpless. There's not much I can do to help the grief. 2009 was a year for regret and petty guilt for not spending enough time with the people I cared about - still care about.

Resolutions are something that I am sceptical about. You set yourself up in the bleakest month of the year. All these fabulous goals for you to achieve by the end of the year. And, if you're like me, they are all broken by the end of February.

So I am going to keep it simple. 2010 is going to be the year for preparing to stretch my wings. The last days of 2009 were spent having a massive tidy up and clear out of the flat. I came to realise how much random crap and possessions I have in my life. By Bookcrossing standards I committed a sin by tipping two boxes of books into the charity shop bag without even making release notes for them. Shock horror! By then I felt so over whelmed with the amount of bags of rubbish, recycling and charity shop donations that I would have dropped a bomb in the hallway to help clear the mess. At one point we could hardly get out the front door.

I have been watching the efforts (such a pithy word but I can't think of anything better at this time of day and only halfway through my first cup of coffee) of Ms Wolf to complete 1001 goals in 101 days. Post-uni it's something I'd like to try out and see how I get on. 2010 is going to be the year when I get more organised, a skill I seriously lack at times.

This post can be easily summed up by a conversation I had with Him Indoors this week. "I don't want to hit 30 and all I have achieved in life is an in depth knowledge of fecking Come Dine With Me. I want to do something." Not to blast the almighty CDWM but there has to be more to life than this.

What is the Point of Data Protection?

2009-11-26T20:31:00.004Z

This article caught my eye today. There are calls to make a rough census from 1939 public. I am amazed at the comments from people that say this information should be made public. No doubt these are the same people who get annoyed when they recieve telemarketing calls or junk mail. Or their personal data being used for other purposes, outwith their control.

When I worked for the NHS archive, you used to get a lot of people coming through the 'back door' to trace relatives. This usually applied to individuals who were adopted or who had lost contact with their birth parents. In the eyes of the NHS record keeping authorities, the ownership of someone's birth record does not lie with the child but with the mother. So if these enquiries came in then we had to ask the enquirier to follow a certain procedure. They either had to provide written permission from their mother to release the information or evidence of her death. You'd rarely hear from these people again.

This is why I believe the 75 year rule is fine and dandy for these kind of records. In Scotland, the census is locked tight for 100 years for the potential problems they could throw up. Like the situation described above. How would an elderly woman feel if someone turned up at their door one day and said they were her child given up for adoption? Hence the existence of agencies such as Barnardos who handle such enquiries. It is not always a person's right, or appropriate, for them to have such information at their fingertips.

Yes records have been kept so people can use them for informational purposes. But we also have to respect the data subjects recorded in these documents. That is why I believe the early release of these records should not be considered. Although the introduction of an application basis with evidence that individuals are deceased could be the way forward.

This surge of legislation does not automatically mean people have the right to access information that does not relate directly to them as data subjects.

Sunday Salon and NaNoWriMo (not in that order though)

2009-11-15T21:45:00.006Z

So it's the end of the second week of NaNo. I didn't post at the end of the first week but let's ignore that little fact.

In two weeks I have poured out over 25, 000 words (just over the target for the end of Week 2). I started with the names of two main characters, the idea that Soviets (I intend to keep that term) and zombies would be involved as well. Fast forward two weeks and I don't like one of the original main characters and the boyfriend she seems to be have picked up. My narrative has completed left these people behind and moved onto two new characters I am enjoying spending time with. It does annoy me that they are men but there's not much I can do about that at the moment. Perhaps I'll do an Alien casting decision in the editing process.

I feel tired and broken but know I have to put out another 25, 000 words by November 30th. Why? Just to prove I can. And to finish something. Although I beginning to think my 'talents' do lie more in the short story arena. I'm not sure I have enough words in me to attempt the great novel everyone is supposed to be capable of.

Please note, this is not a post looking for sympathy. It just sums up how I feel at the moment.

On another topic I have finished reading On Writing by Stephen King. It's half-memoir and half-writing guide. He has some great guidelines that I'm starting to adopt. One is to write with your Ideal Reader in your head. Him Indoors has been extremely helpful and I'm not sure if he realises he is being groomed into my Idea Reader. Already there has been a slight bickering moment over a title for one of my finished short stories. Nothing too serious though.

King discusses the importance of the writer's toolbox. On the top level you have important stuff such as spelling and grammar (yeah, I know, I have a lot to learn). Then the levels further down are the tools you use to chip out the fossil of an idea. Cheesy sounding but does make a lot of sense. As a writer, when you sit down to write that first draft, you're effectively using a sledgehammer to shake out those ideas. Then the editing process is using the top layer combined with more delicate tools to weed out the gold from the shit. More importantly King has a section at the back of the book which takes you through a step-by-step example of editing. I suck at editing and found it extremely helpful.

I suppose this doubles as a Sunday Salon post as well. At the moment I am currently cruising my way through Stephen King's The Stand. For a tome of a book, he certainly holds your attention. All I will say is that the story can be summarised as deadly flu wipes out most of population, the survivors that are left start coming together, crazy dreams and the horrors of trying to rebuild society. There's already been one crucifixition but not one of a JC. Unless JC took heroin. Oh dear, I really am rambling now.

Need to choose a new commute read now that I've finished On Writing. As I type I'm surrounding by books and I can the ones in my room calling to me. A tough decision and not one to be taken lightly.

Tomorrow I return to the horrors of university and I need some escapism on the commute. The best method I have of making this decision is giving the piles of books a swift kick and seeing what falls out. The first one that catches my eye goes in the rucksack for tomorrow.

Well it sure beats Inny Minny Mo.

And now time for a round up

2009-10-30T15:37:00.003Z

Today I handed in my first essay of my post-grad career. It's OK, nothing outstanding and will (hopefully) do well enough to pass me and no more. My energy levels feel zapped and nothing seems to lift them.

Last night I went to the Glasgow's NaNoWriMo kick off party night. Due to my own stupidity I thought it started at 6pm and was wondering around looking for potential writers. Turns out, it started at 7.30pm, the time I had arranged to meet Him Indoors for a romantic meal at China Buffet King. After meeting some other NaNos I politely made my excuses and left.

My writing class this week was *ahem* interesting. I took offence to someone using rape imagery in their assignment and no-one agreed with me, in public anyway. Of course someone has the right artistic freedom but they don't need to be so smug about it. Interestingly, my poem received different interpretations from the age groups in the class. It's a poem aimed at Remembrance Day and about letters being censored from the front line. Older members of the class got that. Some of the younger members thought it was someone reading letter revealing someone was having an affair. Was very puzzled by that but appreciated the criticism. So I have re-written parts of the poem which I will also post here. At some point. If only you could scan a notepad into the computer and it would automatically convert it into Word.

Yes I am Insane

2009-10-28T23:59:00.005Z

Yes, in the year I am doing my MSc, ya know something kind of important, I have decided to try and write a 50, 000 word novel in one month. In the same month that I have a cataloguing placement with a possible 2 hour commute each way, 2 essays to hand in and a creative writing class to do battle with as well.

I have a vague plotline in my head involving Soviets, zombies, oven gloves, hockey sticks and other useful tangents to explore. And now I need to go and get some sleep so I can edit my 1st essay due in on Friday. And possible find out a way to steal some strong drugs that will allow me to work 24 hour days during November.

The Beauty Is In The Tea

2009-09-25T19:50:00.006Z

On Thursday I went to see White Tea, a fantastic and very intimate show at the Tron Theatre. Reviews for this production had included the advice that members of the audience could sit on the stage, wear paper kimonos and drink white tea. On its own this sounded extremely cool to me and I tried to see it at the Edinburgh Fringe. Obviously, due to the small audience numbers needed, it was always sold out. My heart leapt when I found out it was coming to Glasgow. Tickets were booked and I fully expected my cup of white tea.

I had a vague understanding of the plot. Something about grief, loss, mother-daughter relationships and general human emotional pain. My cup of tea, if you don't mind the pun. I certainly got my physical cup of tea when I arrived at the theatre space. We sat on hard benches (which did become uncomfortable after a while) and the hostesses passed out pristine china cups of white tea to us. Both were dressed in kimonos made of thick white paper. The audience had their own kimonos to wear with a small tag asking us to kindly re-fold them after the performance. Bizarrely it made me think of the showers at Auschwitz - "Remember your peg number."

As I looked around the set, it appeared it be almost entirely constructed out of paper. The walls acted as a projection screen, with news screen footage of the nuclear bombings in Japan in 1945. My eyebrow was slightly raised at this. However it all made sense later. And it probably added to my thoughts of concentration camps.

I really want to avoid too much time on the plot for fear of ruining it for other audiences. Naomi is living in Paris, almost the other side of the world from her mother and is happy with that situation. Until she receives a phone call saying her mother has suffered a stroke. As Naomi debates whether or not to go, Tomoto, her mother's nurse, arrives on her doorstep and brings her to Kyoto via a plane and Tokyo. On the way, secrets coming out, the usual occurrence when a family member is on their deathbed.

Parts of the performance were inter cut with sound bites with a Japanese woman, later to be revealed to be Yoko Ono. Again all dealing with concepts of grief, her mother having an accident in Japan and Yoko being in America, too far away to help. What her and John were talking about before he was shot outside their apartment building.

Grief, unfortunately, has been a large part of my life for the past year. I found some comfort in the Japanese representation of this emotion. I wasn't entirely sure if it was Shinto or Buddhist philosophy they were presenting to us, the audience. One attraction I do have towards Shinto is the idea of honouring ancestors, an important reflection of Japanese culture. Honour and ritual, from burying the dead to the act of making and drinking tea.

I will go to Kyoto one day and there I think I will feel at home.

The Truth is I Know Nothing

2009-09-24T08:14:00.004Z

Last week was the dawn of my MSc course (I still cannot believe I am doing a course that is considered a Master of Science. My Chemistry teacher from 10 years ago would be pissing herself laughing). And it's bloody hard. Already I can think of at least 4 presentations I need to prepare or 'leading the discussion'. Why does the discussion have to be on ISAD(G) and not the contents of last night's Hollyoaks? Joking aside and to repeat my above point: it's bloody hard.

Apparently postgraduate teaching relies on discussion from the students (which must be a bit cheeky for those students who have forked out almost £4, 000 for fees alone) and this has been the basis of this week's classes. Despite working for a year in an archive, I am coming to the conclusion I know nothing. Well, nothing about the theory of archives. Point me at a pile of boxes and tell me to go box list, I will go box list. Ask me to tell you about the theoretical approach to this? Nah, can't do that mate.

Yes, we need to be taught theory. Understanding the theory allows us, as records managers, archivists and so on, to make the weighty decision of deciding which records are to be preserved for the "historians of tomorrow". And it is a tough decision to make. Some decisions are easy such as chucking out bank statements, junk mail (that actually comes through a physical and not a digital letterbox) and other rubbish. It is a common occurrence for someone to be clearing out their house, decide to donate to an archive and dumping a lot of rubbish into the boxes. Though I did make a nice sweep of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles badges which were going in the bin.

But, cynically, I can't help wondering about the practicalities of the job. In the first archive I volunteered in, the archives team was very small and the Archivist had a lot of other tasks lumped onto their daily 'to do list'. Worrying about theory can come to second when faced with the physical job. One fellow student worked for a corporate archive, whose first and foremost role is to serve the company, and remembers the entire office dropping everything one day to retrieve records for the CEO who wanted them like yesterday.

This is the job I want to do. Despite lacking tidy skills in my domestic life, there is a sense of achievement following the cataloguing process from start to finish. There is a cataloguing placement in a couple of weeks time and I'm looking forward to it. One option may involve getting the hell out of ~~Dodge~~ Glasgow for a bit and that's an attractive solution.

Enough naval gazing. Despite not having classes until Monday, there's still a hellva lot to do.

Sunday Salon: Lack of reading

2009-09-20T09:58:00.003Z

This week I started my long awaited Masters. Granted, this has been an induction week and the 'real' work will start tomorrow. But it was still rather tiring and we had to prepare a presentation in a matter of days. The topic could be on anything we liked and I chose Bookcrossing. Despite nerves it seemed to go down well and everyone likes free books, don't they? However, the commute and change in hours has meant I have been quite content with sitting on the bus and listening to the contents of my iPod. One day I forgot to put a book in my bag and didn't realise until I got home, the cover picture staring at me, accusingly.

On Friday there was a course meal and I had a rather interesting conversation with an American girl. Obviously a lot of people had guessed I was interested in books due to my presentation. She found it rather interesting that I was "so well read" (ha! I have friends (who know who they are) that would wet themselves laughing at that description of my reading habits) compared to her friends back home. Many of them did not view reading as a leisure activity but as a means to an end. Read this book, write a paper on it, pass the class, end of.

I will admit studying English in my last year of high school did kill reading a bit for me. The over analytical approach to literature seems to forget the key concept of enjoy what you read. Or, at the very least, have some personal reaction to the text even if it's "I hate this book and I hope it burns".

Today I am reading. Unfortunately it's not for my pleasure but hopefully I will learn something from it. And, failing that, I still have the second Steig Larsson book winking at me from the coffee table. Oh yes.

Sunday Salon: Shameful how it has been

2009-09-13T09:51:00.003Z

One of my new year resolutions was to try and update my blog each week to contribute to the Sunday Salon which a fellow blogger introduced me to. The idea is simple (like all good ideas). Each Sunday imagine you're bustling about a busy reading room and sharing ideas about what you have read that week.

My last post was in January (!) so instead I shall be content with updating about the two recent reads that have made an impact on me, The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson.

The 19th Wife was a misleading book. From the blurb on the back, it looks like a book dealing with a murder in a contemporary Mormon sect that still follows the laws of polygamy. Actually it's a comprehensive book dealing with 'manuscripts' from the 19th century, centering on Ann Eliza Young who was the 19th wife (well, not exactly, there appears to be a lot of debate on that topic) of Brigham Young, who lead the Mormon movement after the death of its founder, Joseph Smith.

Esbershoff flits between manuscripts, letters and archived documents (no doubt with their basis in truth but something he's allowed his imagination to run riot with) as well as the modern day story involving Jordan. The book opens with Jordan, an outcast member of this sect, reading on the Internet his mother has been arrested for the murder of his father. Jordan was outcast from the sect a number of years before for holding hands with one of his many sisters, although it is later revealed in the book that Jordan is gay. Another no-no for this sect. At first, I thought this book would fail my 50 page rule. The sections with Jordan seemed clumsy, that anyone could have written then. Without the story to unravel, there was nothing to keep me here.

Then Esbershoff moved onto the manuscript belonging to Ann Eliza and from there I couldn't put the book down. He paints a very vivid picture of individuals involved with the initial stages of the Mormon faith, the fragmentation of the faith (and before everyone flames me, yes I do know that the section that believes in multiple marriages is in the minority. Alas, that story sells more newspapers) and very believable female characters. I tend to find female characters written by a male writer don't always ring true but Esbershoff hit the nail on the head. Also, the added introduction 'written' by Harriet Beecher Stowe was a nice touch as well.

This book was a real page turner and I was almost disappointed when we returned to the present to Jordan's story. The manuscripts chapters provided an interesting contrast between the hopes of the founders of the faith to what people have warped it into. Certainly a book with food for thought and will certainly spark a lively discussion.

And now I have poured my coffee, turned the washing machine onto to spin and Him Indoors has been roused from his slumbers, I shall turn to my next book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.

I picked this book up out of mere curiosity and the hype surrounding it. Larsson died not long after he completed his third manuscript in this series (called Millenium) so it has that edge of sadness over a living author (especially one that died so recently). According to his bio, he was a leading authority on right-wing politics and this shines through in this book.

The story opens with Mikael Blomkvist, a Swedish journalist who has been charged with libel against a Swedish industrialist suspected of foul play. He is offered a chance to get away from it all, by Henrik Vanger, another Swedish industrialist. Mikael's 'cover' job is to write a biographical history of the Vanger family, with all its skeletons, including many colourful right-wing family members who were part of the Nazi movement in Sweden. In reality, he has been asked to investigate the disappearance/possible murder of Harriet Vanger in the 1970s. What follows is a roller coaster ride as Mikael battles to solve the mystery as well as attempting to save his floundering magazine, Millenium, which is suffering badly after the libel case.

I really don't want to reveal too much more of the story apart from two elements. One, the twist had my jaw drop open in disbelief, I simply sped through the final pages and was not disappointed. Two, Lizbeth Salander is a fascinating and troubled female character. Some of the scenes portraying some of the sexual abuse she suffers is horrifying but a small part of the militant feminist inside me cheered when she got her revenge.

A small warning: some parts of this book are extremely graphic and did turn my normally strong stomach. But Larsson is not merely using them for 'shock value', these incidents gel well within this story.

That's my lot for the week. My current read is continuing the Frost In May series (which I only discovered earlier this year) and whatever my course throws at me (starting tomorrow - weeeee!).

Lessons in Writing 101

2009-09-10T22:34:00.002Z

Don't save two Word files with the same name and roughly the same content. Because you'll update one file with a great and amazing piece of writing.

And then save over the updated file with the un-updated file.

*slams head on desk*

It's all about the style, dahling.

2009-09-08T14:55:00.006Z

Due to that gap between full-time employment and being a full-time student, I have been spending a lot of time on the internets. I know, you never would have guessed! And one activity that has been taking up a lot of my time is Twitter.

When I first got the Internet (ah, my lovely AOL dial up account!) almost ten years ago, I did spend a fair amount on-line chatting or IMing people. As anyone who has used AOL as an ISP will tell you, it is geared towards this idea of 'social networking', in fact a good bit before I think a formal social networking site came along. MySpace doesn't count. But I did enjoy chit-chatting with other people, replacing my earlier fascination in life with pen-pals whom I wrote actual letters to. Very bizarre. I wonder if anyone under the age of 25 has pen-pals.

Yesterday I was adding people on Twitter that I found interesting. Predominantly fellow writers. I work on the principle that the more I am surrounded by a certain person or object, the more its 'usefulness' will rub off on me. That is how a fellow writer asked me a certain question: "what do you write? literature or the lighter stuff like crime, women's fiction, etc?"

I have to admit this question stumped me. I find the idea of 'literature' to be a rather loaded term. My friend Dictionary.com defines it as the following:

1.	writings in which expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest, are characteristic or essential features, as poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays.

2.	the entire body of writings of a specific language, period, people, etc.: the literature of England.

3.	the writings dealing with a particular subject: the literature of ornithology.

4.	the profession of a writer or author.

5.	literary work or production.

6.	any kind of printed material, as circulars, leaflets, or handbills: literature describing company products.

7.	Archaic. polite learning; literary culture; appreciation of letters and books.

Now I find all of these definitions interesting. Perhaps the strongest case I can find for the definition of 'literature' is no. 7. To me this perhaps sums up the best case for literature. Or simply put the appreciation of books and letters. Should a reader feel guilty because they would choose Dan Brown over the latest AS Byatt? Should Bridget Jones's Diary be shunned from the halls of literature despite the response and the love its readers had for the protagonist? No, because they love the letters and words that make up their chosen writer's world.

I would like to point out I am not belittling the person who asked that question about. I am somewhat influenced by a current fireworks display going on in the world of Scottish literature sparked by this incident. In turn, this has lead to a number of Scottish crime writers coming out in defence of their genre. I'll admit this straight up, I am too thick to write a crime story. Or the gentler term is that I lack the lateral thinking to write a decent whodunit. The crime genre is something I dip in and out of as a reader but as a writer I shy away from it. Partly because everyone would guess immediately who had done it within two pages.

Going back to the posed question, I answered that my writing is 'dark'. And it is. For my Creative Writing class, my final submission for the class was a short story encompassing some of my more violent rants on the subject of mankind. My writing group has set a rather pleasant writing piece entitled What The Bee Saw. My first draft of that piece is turning into a World War II Spitfire style shoot out. Though I did try to start it off nice and cutesy *sighs*

My task for this week has been trying to get my handwritten notes and ideas onto the computer because I find it easier to continue with the plot, character, whatever spews forth from my pen. And, to be quite frank, I was really shocked at some of the things I had written. Now I know why my high school English teachers would gingerly hand me back creative writing pieces with the advice to make my stories less gruesome.

I can brood on things, God knows I can. I can naval gaze with the best of them. But even sometimes I step back from myself and think "Oh dear, I am very surprised you're not out there drowning hamsters." For someone who had a fairly normal and, let's face it, boring upbringing there is a lot of venom in the pen.

Is there a genre out there called 'dark'? Or will I have to edit my writing to suit the horror/fantasy/insert other genre here market? Maybe I'll be relegated to that safe category within bookshops that is called Literature.

Second Test Post

2009-09-07T18:44:00.001Z

Because clearly I am an idiot and can't seem to obtain the settings I want on my Twitter *throws tantrum like a spoilt child*

Test post

2009-09-07T16:54:00.003Z

This is a test post to see if my Twitter feed is working correctly.

So here's a photo of my kakariki, Dante to keep you amused.

Warning: This May Surprise You

2009-09-07T14:15:00.004Z

One character quality a lot of people assume I have. Can you guess what it is? It is not terribly exciting or interesting or fascinating. A lot of people assume I am an extremely organised individual.

True, in some areas I am. Anyone who has ever travelled with me knows how scary I am about being on time. Surely it's correct to be at the train station/bus stop/airport at least an hour before departure, right? If I don't have the relevant tickets or documents on my person, I get very panicky and insist the other person shows me them at all times. Until they get sick of my constant asking and eventually hand the bloody things over to me.

But that, my friends, is where it stops. I am a truly awful and forgetful person when it comes to things. There have been times friends have rang me and asked "Where are you?" and I have forgotten we were meant to meet. I have tried putting this information on my mobile, my iPod, even a traditional paper diary. But nothing seems to work.

Another crime I am guilty of is procrastination. The Internet is partly to blame for this. After all, where would my urge to suddenly look up Unity Mitford or find out what capers look like go? Possibly channelled into something more productive, like posting that important letter or writing that essay. As a result I can spend an hour going from Wikipedia article to Wikipedia article and truly wonder where the time went. The refresh button is my friend on the evils of Facebook, Gmail and other such wonders.

Also, and this is down to being lazy, I am a really untidy person. This is partly due to wanting to hang onto most of my crap such as theatre tickets, leaflets for theme parks and other useless information. Plus my slightly scary obsession of having lots of books about the place. Despite wanting to be an archivist (which, let's face it, part of the job involves being quite a tidy person) I am not very good at tidying things away at home (and sometimes at work...). Sometimes I blame the smallness of the flat I live in. True, it's small but Him Indoors manages to restrain his scatter tendencies and keep them in his own room.

I should also face up to this fact that this blog post is providing some escapism away from tidying up the living room and kitchen. Gawd bless you internet!

Why I Hate This Advert

2009-09-04T10:04:00.004Z

I originally came on here to rant about the latest advert trotting the rounds for Oxford Notepads. On YouTube I was trying to find a clip of the advert to prove my point. Now, I found a rather interesting and longer cut of the advert aimed at (I assume) the French market.

Now the British section of the advert skips the sections showing the young woman escaping a war torn town and sailing (for some unexplained reason). It merely jumps from her sitting on the bench to the nightclub scene and cuts off roughly 0.25 into the video and jumps straight to the end. The feeling left from that edit of the advert is "Woman: know your place! Go to university, not to further and improve your brain, but to find a mate to procreate with. After all, your destiny is to have children." This message enraged me, along with the fact that notebook is ferking expensive.

Now, the full advert I have linked above is interesting. Instead of ending 0.25 it shows the protagonist rejecting this option to have a 'wild torrid affair' with the rather attractive brunette. Her story doesn't end there. Later, you see her on board a subway train, quite independent and escaping something that looks like the shit demon from Dogma. The message from this edit of the advert conveys "Women: feel free to make your own choices and use your imagination (but only if you buy Oxford Notepads)".

It is repugnant that the full advert is not shown over here. Would young Scottish and British women react differently to this French edition? Do they not have enough imagination to cope with such ideas?

Women: make your choice.

Edinburgh Adventures

2009-09-01T10:33:00.002Z

I was writing an update about my weekend in Edinburgh and thought it might be of some interest to people here.

On Saturday evening we had Alexander McCall Smith at the Book Festival. For years his events have always sold out extra quickly and I only achieved gaining tickets this year by sitting in work and hitting refresh constantly on the screen. Anyhoo, I got them and it was a rather interesting talk. He seems such an ordinary man and then casually drops into the conversation "I was visiting a baboon colony in Botswana" and so on. I wonder if his books are getting intentionally nastier. His new series, Corduroy Mansions sounds rather spiteful and a million worlds away from the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. He did spend some time on 44 Scotland Street which is such a lovely series. Bertie, the poor put upon 6 year old, is obviously a favourite. However, in the Q&A session, I was slightly displeased at someone's attempts to have their girlfriend feature in a future 44 Scotland Street episode as the "mad cat lady who lives across from the Cumberland Bar".

A quick note about the hostel we were staying in. I had never stayed in a hostel before and wasn't sure what to expect. Caledonian Backpackers came slightly recommended by a fellow Bookcrosser, partly for it's proximity to the Book Festival venue and (as I later found out) to the Royal Mile. Unfortunately the sound proofing was awful. We were staying in a large dorm (of 20 beds) and the guests were rather courteous. But staying somewhere near Princess Street with no double glazing was a disaster. I think I only got 4 hours sleep the first night. Luckily, I got moved after the first night into a Female only dorm towards the back of the hostel which was a bit quieter.

On a sidenote, I'd consider staying in a hostel again. And both my companion and I agreed that if we were travelling alone a hostel is a good place to check in and interact with other people.

Anyway, on Sunday morning, we went to see Anthony Sher who, as well as being a fantastic actor from what I've been told, has written a great many books. He's a fascinating man, what with being South African, gay and a secular Jew. Although the interviewer did bring his cocaine addiction out from the left field. Companion went all fanboy over Mr Sher, bless him, and got his books signed by him after the talk. If I didn't already have lots of books in the flat I would consider picking one up.

After the talk it was a wander up to the Royal Mile and the Fringe Box Office for me to purchase tickets. After looking through the program I had decided to spend my vouchers on seeing Adam Hills, Princess Cabaret and Hitler Alone. In the queue we were accosted by Iszi Lawrence who was doing a free comedy show in an hour at a nearby venue.

All in all I was rather chuffed with my Fringe highlights. Adam Hills is hilarious and had a BSL interpretor who really interacted with the show. I know now the BSL sign for clitoris and a sign unique to Australian sign language (for "Fuck you! Fuck the lot of youse!" Am very surprised this is not in Scottish sign language). His show was a wonderful mix of comedy and tragedy. His message about inflating people was truly poignant and the launch of balloons after his act brought a small tear to my eye.

Princess Cabaret was rather interesting. It was a mix of songs and sketches centring on the Disney princesses. I never thought of Jasmine from Aladdin being a Middle East Peace negotiator or Sleeping Beauty waking up to the horror of STDs and 'darkies' wandering the streets. Favourite moment: the song about an enraged Tinkerbell finding Peter Pan in bed with Wendy and trashing his cave. Really enjoyed it.

What a contrast with my final 'paid' show which was Hitler Alone. It was in a small, claustrophobic venue, probably sat around 20 people. It was held at a language institute and was the only performance I was offered a cup of tea or coffee for. Paul Webster, playing the 'villain' himself was very, very good and had done his research. On the flyer for the show, he explained he was born in 1939 and had childhood memories of playing in bombed out buildings. And of a Jewish refugee teacher savagely beating a fellow schoolpupil for drawing a swastika on a jotter. The danger of these performances is that they can make you feel 'sorry' for this broken and defeated man (the play was set in the final hour in the Bunker in which it was reported Hitler disappeared to a room, ranting and raving). The sorrow of which he spoke about his mother and loss of friends was heart breaking. However, all empathy was wiped away when Webster completed his performance by falling to the floor, ranting, raving and spitting about the evil of Jews .

Finally, Iszi Lawrence was a bit of a mixed bag. Not bad for a free performance (her story about causing her flatmate's cat to vomit upon the sight of her naked body was predictable but still hilarious) but it did flag a bit towards the end. She may need to spruce up her routine to last an hour, normally the time for a headliner at the Stand. Plus my enjoyment wasn't helped by having had two pints and desperately needing a wee.

Oh and my last event at the Book Festival. Melvin Burgess was my idol when I was a teenager. He was giving a discussion panel with Anne Fine and Rachel Ward on the topic of 'Compelling Novels, Vulnerable Children'. Considering his books deal with drug addiction, underage sex and extreme violence, I'm not surprised. The discussion was interesting but it was full of bloody social workers simpering about how they interacted with children.

Anyhoo, there was a signing after the discussion group and I raced to buy his new novel to get it signed. The following conversation ensured (warning: major fan girl moments):

Melvin: Hi there, what's your name?
Laura (me): Laura.
Melvin: (begins writing on the front page of the book)
Laura: You know, the only book my mum has ever tried to prevent me reading was The Baby and Fly Pie.
M: (amused) I've never heard that said before! A lot of people do complain about the ending because it's so negative.
Laura: It was the bit when he realises his sister's a prostitute. So I had a massive tantrum until she gave me it back.
M: Well it wasn't promoting it as a career choice! You had a tantrum, eh?
Laura: Yes, I was 12 years old and a rather spoilt only child. I think she was more concerned about me because I wanted to be a writer.
M: Have you got anywhere with that?
L: Hmmm it's been on hold but I'm getting back on track again.
M: Keep writing.
L: (cue gush of crap) I don't expect you to remember this but I sent you one of my short stories years ago and you sent me back a letter saying 'Keep Writing'. And I've always keep that in my head.
M: (looks up, a bit puzzled).
L: Thank you again. I really appreciated it. (grabs book and runs away).

And you know what he had written in my inscription? "Hope your mum doesn't stop you reading this!"

Wot I Thunk About Writing

2009-08-30T16:23:00.003Z

This blog has been rather quiet. I have an extremely bad habit of picking up new things with enthusiasm and then dropping them when other things happen. Mind you, real life has been hitting me with the shitty stick of late with Him Indoors not being very well, two deaths in the family within a week and all round stresses of everyday life.

Excuses, aren't they fab?

So my five week writing class trundled to an end. In the final week I had written a short story that I was rather chuffed with and received extremely positive feedback for. That has been sent off to a writing journal for the editors to consider publishing. Fingers crossed, tis has been a while before I've felt confident enough to send anything away to be published, hell written anything good enough to be sent away.

And, dammit, writing has been rather good fun. Last weekend I spent some time alone, staying in Edinburgh and taking in parts of the Festival. This seems to worry some people, my father especially for some reason, but I rather enjoy spending time on my own. I like being able to have four pieces of toast with chocolate spread for breakfast, I like deciding where to go for dinner, I like being able to sit in a park bench in the sun and write for hours without having to answer anyone or field worried "Where are you?" texts. Asides from the crapness of the hostel I was staying in (which would have been better if they invested in some double glazing) this trip is something I'd consider doing again.

The concept of writing retreats is something I had always poo pooed. "Oh yes, Fanny and Artemis were telling me how they were meditating on the post-modern themes within poetry written on birthday cards. Must go, we have a class at 2.43pm helping us to discover what surrealism is." And these retreats are not cheap, oh no. A quick glance through ones listed in the back of various writing magazines show people are charged a pretty penny for the privilege of sleeping in a tiny room and to shit in a bowl.

Now now, madam, you're being harsh. Surely this isn't always the case? Anyway, a writing trip spent somewhere on my own is something to consider. As long as I don't develop a life damaging condition like George Orwell did.

Back to the point in question and stop rambling. A couple of Mondays ago I attended the launch of Cargo Publishing, a new publishing house based in Glasgow. I remember being asked a couple of years ago if I wanted to perform some of my work at one of their artist nights, when they started years ago. I said no, too afraid I hadn't written anything substantial in years. The teenager that had spent hours living with made up characters had retreated. (On an aside, please do read Cancer Party the first venture from Cargo. More info can be found here. Any book black listed by the Scottish Catholic Alliance sounds like a damn good read to me).

Back to the rant from someone the wrong side of 20 (soon to be 25 *panics*). There has been a little spark of confidence put back into my imagination. Him Indoors has been partly responsible for that. Look at other people's work. Learn from it. And say in a loud clear voice:

"I can do better than that."

Here's hoping the next quarter of my creative life is more productive than previous years.

Scraping the bottom of the celeb barrel..

2009-07-04T14:04:00.002Z

I think some people may appreciate this link in Holy Moly this week:

Alain de Botton yet again attacks bloggers who review his work

Check out the venom at the bottom of the post (thank you HM for highlighting that particular section).

Writing Creatively?

2009-07-01T08:18:00.002Z

I know there are some people who read this that would kick my arse up and down the street for admitting the following.

Last night I went to a Creative Writing class. I know, I know, can you really teach someone Creative Writing? I had always answered no but last night my mind was changed somewhat. This class, I hope, will give me a good boot up the backside and get me writing again. Previously, I had always looked upon writing as a past-time, something I hoped would turn into a career.

I didn't realise you could treat it as a 'proper' job. The tutor handed out some quotes to 'inspire' us and I'm afraid to admit that the following struck a cord with me:

"I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning."
Peter De Vries

The course runs for five weeks. Let's see how I get on.