The Elephant in the Room

Me? I'm saying nothing........



















-- Posted from my iPhone

The one where Sharpe sticks rigidly to a winning formula. And, you know, wins. Again.

Sharpe is clearly a Jaggaroth. Or similar. Finally, I've worked out what's going on. But let's hope the centuries that divide him aren't undone for a while yet. It's all being too much fun to come to an end.



According to the coming soon (but not yet!) board in my local Waterstones on Saturday, Bernard Cornwell's The Burning Land was expected to be available for sale on 1 October. Luckily for me, nobody told Amazon so I had already received my copy by then.

Yippee! As I've mentioned in previous blog posts- I'm a bit of a fan of Bernard Cornwell's books (even before I made my Jagaroth recognition breakthrough). Primarily because he sticks to a formula, and it's a formula that, with one caveat, I like. And I love Sharpe. Which is lucky, because he's always there, starring in every book, whatever name he's going under this time. If in fact he's not a jagaroth then there's something very odd going on.

This latest episode in the Alfred The Great themed saga (The Lords of the North series) presses all the right buttons. Two big battles - one at the start, one at the end. A new Big Bad - this time a Danish woman, Skald. A very very bad baddy. We know this because the first time we meet her she has just had someone skinned. Ouch. The Obadiah character, Father Asser, (strangely in the background in this series) does his usual bit of baddy manipulating. Sharpe (Uhtred of Bebbanburg) continues to nurse his feelings of righteous injustice while being a military marvel. Oh if only he had a rifle. But the shield wall will do. And at least swords have names. Rifles don't. Sharpe/Uhtred loses yet another wife. This is sad. To lose one wife/lover is unfortunate. To lose one almost every book.........careless. Or heartless on the part of Cornwell. The thing is - those deaths don't bother me any more. The tactic has been way, way overused. I invest precisely nothing in Sharpe/Uhtred's latest shag since I know she will be around for one book at most. That's the bit of the formula that I think has stopped working.

Other than that though - this latest book is, like all the others before it, what book reviewers call a rattling good read. Fast paced, engrossing, lots of highpoints and punch the air moments, a very good baddy, excellent supporting cast (the version of the chosen men we have in these books is very good - there's even a Harper analogue). My favouite supporting character, Ragnar, seems marked for death in the next book though. Which will be very sad, if my suspicions ate correct.

At the end of the book we have the familiar and reassuring Uhtred will campaign again. A nod to the notes at the end of the real Sharpe books. Or a clue to the true nature of our spaghetti headed hero?

The thing is - if this isn't all a convoluted romp through time and space.........much as I love the Alfred books, I want Sharpe. Proper Sharpe. With, you know, rifles. And green jackets. And Harper. And it very much looks as though that's what Cornwell really wants to be writing. I just wish he would, again.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Oobee doo............

I wanna be like you........



Actually, I don't just want to be like the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet (ALSQ) I actually want to actually be the actual them. Oh yes.

Even though they are all men of a certain age.

Their technique is fearsome. Their artistry is formidable. Their bravery and innovation is groundbreaking. I'm not a recorder player because of the ALSQ - I'm a recorder player because of the fickle (fast) finger of fate (and isn't it wonderful, sometimes, how that works out?). But the ALSQ have given me another reason to want to be a better player, and another reason to be glad of the opportunities I get to play now. And a reason to continue to aspire to be better.



And they do have a seriously cool name, also.

Happiness is a book, jazz, diet coke and free wifi

I love sitting in the @ExeterPictureHouse cafe. Especially when Dizzy Gillespie is playing on the stereo. A beautifully civilised experience - great for working (free wifi!) or enjoying a book. I always feel a little like Carrie Bradshaw when I work here - well, till I look in the mirror, anyway. The children are developing a taste for cafe society too!




-- Posted from my iPhone

Operation Golden Age

Invasion of the dinosaurs

The Greatest Star.........

Have you guessed yet,
Who's the best yet?
If you ain't I'll tell you one more time.
You bet your last dime
In all of the world so far
I'm the greatest, greatest star!

If I could only listen to one singer, singing one song, for the whole rest of my life, it would be Barbra singing 'Happy Days Are Here Again'.

I can't express in words how much Barbra means to me. I love her voice with every fibre of my being. I also think she is pretty amazing as a person and as an actress. But it's her voice that destroys me, transports me, remakes me, delights me, brings light to my darkness and joy to my sorrow........Nobody does it better. Nobody ever will. I fell in love with Barbra's voice when I was a child - maybe 7 or 8 years old. She more than anyone has provided the soundtrack to my life. She's the Greatest Star and I love her.

Love's Easy Tears

My mum used to tell me a story about her mum. And her. I suppose really, it was a story about her, rather than her mum. Although her mum was one of the key players in the story. Her mum and Bette Davis.


My mum told me many times how, the year that The Old Maid came out, her mum (who was a huge Bette Davis fan) took her to the cinema many times to see it. Many times. Matinee performances (my mum was about 8 at the time). And every time, without fail, her mum (my grandmother) would howl. Cry her eyes out. Not quietly, either. And my mum used to hate it, absolutely hate it. The way she told the story, she would beg and plead with her mother to not have to go to see the film yet again, because she knew it would be extremely embarrassing when her mum cried. Actually - I'm not sure if my mum's problem was embarrassment. Maybe it just upset her seeing her mum cry.

My mum's mum, my grandmother, died about 5 or 6 years later - when my mum was just 14. The story would always end in one of two ways - either my mum would look at me and my sister and laugh, and we'd talk about the films we fancied seeing - or she'd end it saying something like 'I'd give anything to go and see that film with my mum now. However much it cost me in tissues'.




The Old Maid was always one of my mum's favourite films throughout my childhood. We'd watch it together every time it was on BBC 2, and we'd both cry. But quietly, not noisily. I would be crying because of the film, and because my mum was sad, she'd be crying, I'm guessing, for her mum. And maybe for her lost youth which never really got started - the death of her mum saw to that.



When I was younger, I would obviously cry at the proper bits in films - you know, 'I have been, and always shall be, your friend' or that bit in The Sound of Music where the children are signing to the Baroness and Captain Von Trapp suddenly joins in, to general stunned silence (I'm tearing up now, thinking about it), or The Railway Ch.....damn. Well.....you know. Unless you have a heart made of bogies, you know.

These days though, I cry at everything. I don't just cry at the appropriate moments in The Sound of Music, I cry all the way through. Non stop. Same with many other films. Same with musicals. It's starting to annoy Beanie. We went to see The Sound of Music at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff last weekend - starring Connie, of How do you solve a Problem Like Maria fame. I started weeping the minute she appeared and I didn't stop for the whole show. At least I was crying silently. Bean was frankly disgusted. Not as disgusted as she was at me howling through the Donna Noble and Doomsday music at the Doctor Who prom last year though. One result of all this is that she is flatly refusing to go and see Les Miserables with me later on this year. Which is a shame. She'd love it. It's a wonderful wonderful musical. But I can't deny the fact that that is another one I howl all the way through. What can I say, I'm a woman of deep emotions. And faulty tear ducts.

Perhaps Bean doesn't understand because she's 11 and hasn't really had much to weep about yet. Thank God. Long may it stay that way.

Me, when I cry now I'm not just crying for Connie, or Maria, or Donna, or the poor dead Titanic people, or for Jenny Agutter, or Bette Davis, or Jean Valjean, or Fantine or Eponine. I'm crying for my mum, and for her mum. And for my dad who never got embarrassed about me weeping through things and who always watched Star Trek and Doctor Who with me (as did my mum of course). And I'm crying because one day, Bean will cry like me. And she'll have reason to. And I won't be there to dry her eyes.

Still, that having said - last night's trip to see The Time Traveler's Wife at our local Vue has given me slight pause. Several women there weren't crying silently as I do - they were howling like wolves! And keening. And sniffling. And making more noise than a teething infant. Which kind of ruined it for me - I found myself laughing through my (silent) tears. Which probably wasn't the effect the cast wanted to create when they were making the film.

So - I'm unlikely to dry my tears, I think that boat sailed when I had children. But I will endeavour to keep them silent and discreet.

Top ten weepy film TV and musical moments:

1. Daddy it's my daddy......
2. I have been, and always shall be, your friend
3. Captain Von Trapp sings 'I go to the Hills when my heart is lonely....'
4. The closing credits music of the latest Star Trek film
5. Donna having her mind wiped in Journey's End
6. The Doomsday music
7. The ending of Les Miserables when all the ghosts of the people who have died come back for one last number
8. The bit where Kate Winslett walks down the stairs in Titantic and finds everyone waiting for her
9. Maria joins in with 'My favourite things' as she returns to the children
10. The Old Maid