He’s still bringing the funny.
Warning: contains strong language – and weak business propositions.
Category: Uncategorized Page 17 of 122
Rod was so proud as he showed off his dog’s ability to sit and stay for hours as he held a biscuit towards it, no-one had the heart to tell him that the dog and biscuit were both imaginary.
So, following a bit of um-ing and er-ing about it, yesterday I bought myself one of those electronic reader devices – specifically, the Sony PRS600 Touch which you can see in the picture.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ve probably railed against electronic readers before on the blog, which is just typical of my hypocrisy and inability to maintain an opinion – well, either that, or maybe I’m the apotheosis of my suspicion that time, experience and emotion conspire to make fools and liars of us all.
That aside, the rather mundane truth is that I’ve recently been given some very lengthy PDFs which I need to read and review, and given my tendency to migraine headaches, I don’t want to spend any more time in front of a screen than I absolutely have to, and the non-backlit nature of the reader, plus its portability, seems a pretty good solution.
So far, I’m find it’s very much fit for purpose. I’m not looking to buy loads of eBooks (if any – I already have enough actual paper books waiting to be read), but I’ve loaded the PDfs successfully and they seem to work fine. Oh, and Sony give me 100 classic (yes, that does mean out-of-copyright) books with it, so it’s fairly well stocked pretty much from the start.
The main reason for my posting, though, is to share something I thought was quite amusing, though perhaps only if you have a bit of familiarity with the book in question; there are various sample chapters on the Reader when you buy it (in a variety of languages: Le Rouge Et Le Noir and Les Trois Mousquetaires, to name but deux), and one of those is the opening couple of chapters of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I think Douglas Adams would be amused by this.
But no, the Reader doesn’t have the words ‘DON’T PANIC’ inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. Although a customisation plan does spring to mind…
And before you ask why I didn’t just get the Stanza app for the iPhone, my simple answer would be ‘because I don’t have an iPhone’.
If you’re a fan of the work of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (I’m talking about the more mainstream stuff here, not Derek and Clive…), then you might be interested in this offer via the Chortle website.
For £1.99, you can get a CD of their sketches ‘n’ stuff – and that CD itself is nominally free, that’s the postage charge.
Not a bad deal, I’d say (oh, and there are other CDs on that link at reduced prices too). Worth a look.
Besides, it gives me the opportunity to post this photo of the lovable duo.
So, over the weekend, Mrs S and I went to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.
Built in the 1500s, and with landscape gardening by Capability Brown, it’s – oh, I can’t sustain the factual stuff. Here’s a picture of me in the sculpture gallery, pointing at a statue’s bottom.
(This post is dedicated to my brother – hope this is sufficiently not-about-writing for you.)
Available for a limited time, a boxed set containing a DVD which contains the highlights of two previously-released DVDs, one of which featured the same material as the other but performed in a different venue.
Buy early for Christmas!
Five years old: given his state, I wonder if he thought she was a ghost or something.
Ninety-One Years Old and Nude: is anyone else reminded of the man in the bobble-hat who runs out of the house in the film Sideways? No? Ah well, just me then.
And now, over to Derek for the sports update.
So, slightly tucked away in an odd-ish slot of the BBC schedules (8.30pm on BBC2), is a bit of a gem: the sitcom Miranda, starring and written by Miranda Hart – a name you might not recognise, but you’ll probably know her by sight; look, there she is in the picture on the left there, not enjoying a cup of tea. See, told you that you’d recognise her.
Anyway, as I said to m’Mrs yesterday after watching the second episode, it’s an almost classic sitcom – packed with jokes and silly situations, it’s just the sort of thing I’d hope to see in the 8.00pm slot on BBC1, really, but I guess the slightly rude nature of some of it is what’s pushed it to the channel next door. Bit of a pity, as I think this is the sort of show which deserves wider exposure because (a) it’s very funny and (b) I’d rather see this kind of show as the standard, not the exception.
But enough plugging, you’re probably so completely won over by my praise that you’re wondering how you can go about catching up on the series so far. Well, lucky you, the BBC iPlayer is your friend, and you can read more about the programme, and play catch-up, by clicking here.
And if slapstick’s your thing, be aware that she does some of the best falling-over work I’ve seen in quite a while. What with that and verbal gags, I reckon that makes it pretty much something for everyone.
Like many people who’d like to earn their living from writing, I read a lot of books about the business of writing – whether it be for the page or screen or stage or whatever.
Here’s a picture of my current reading on this theme:
(I couldn’t find a decent-sized picture online, so I took the picture myself – see the trouble I go to for this nonsense?)
The book itself is pretty solid so far, but what I wanted to mention more than anything content-related was the cover; more specifically, the state-of-the-art word processing device pictured at the heart of the cover. Let’s zoom in on it, shall we?
That, my loves, is a Smith Corona PWP 7000 word processor, and its inclusion on the cover of the book suggests that at the time of the book’s publication, this was something pretty standard (or perhaps slightly aspirational) for writers to have and use.
However, just to see if you’re as weirded out by the pace of change as I was when I looked at the copyright details of the book, let me ask you this: what year do you think this book was published? Any ideas?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
The book was published in 1994. Fifteen years ago. And that realisation made me feel very old indeed.
Anyway, I’d better get off the internet now, and clamber back into my bath chair. Nursey gets very angry if I stop the other residents using the home computer.
I was interested to see that MP Keith Vaz criticised the recent video game release Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – specifically one bit of it in which undercover soldiers pose as terrorists and are asked to help shoot civilians. He was, apparently, “absolutely shocked” by the violence.
He must, I suppose, be absolutely horrified every time he turns on the TV news or reads a paper, what with their constant reports on the war in Iraq – a war which he voted in favour of. Funny, you would have thought that he’d be against conflicts in which civilians might die, given he’s so worried about their welfare.
I’m also a little bit unsure how he got to play the game in question ahead of its release date (he was appalled about it prior to its release on 10 November), but then again, since Keith’s expense claims from 2004-2007 include £480 on 22 cushions, £2,614 for a pair of leather armchairs and an accompanying foot stool, £1,000 on a dining table and leather chairs, I suppose it’s not too much of a stretch to conclude he’s also got a time machine and games console as well. Maybe the expense claims for those items are still in the system.
After all, there’s no other way he could have come to an informed conclusion on the issue.