Stressed out mellow

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Today has been a somewhat stressed out mellow day. A deliberate contradiction in terms but apt. So I thought I would share some of the pictures I've liked and some of the music. Enjoy.

“Video Games” by Lana Del Rey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE6wxDqdOV0

“Gathering Stories” by Jonsi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyKK55SUqDk

“Sail” by awolnation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaAWdljhD5o&feature=related

“Ghost Town” by First Aid Kit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BKUjnyf8uY&feature=related

“I don’t think of you anymore but I don’t think of you any less” by Hungry Ghosts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS9SUmAyKWM&feature=related

“I go to sleep” by Sia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjIcvDm1iC4&feature=related

“Don’t fear the war” by Electric Litany http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3MzVRpKKAo&feature=related

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“Un poco de tango” by Pianochocolate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_4NxmECa3Q&feature=related

“Something beautiful” by ODi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rtske0JTgY&feature=related

“Colours of life” by Mystic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JgfANyEfAs&feature=related

“Traveling” by Paper Lions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S02bqXuntE0&feature=related

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Captain Cabby

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Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. - Eric Hoffer (attributed)

Imagine, if you will, an evening at the theatre after a long day at work. You arrive at the venue with the headache from earlier in the day threatening to make another appearance. Stupidly, you have forgotten to replace the painkillers that normally reside in your bag.

You take your seat, thankful that some of the more annoying of your colleagues are not in attendance, and give fake courtesy to those that are. The lights dim, the play begins and the headache takes over. Ninety minutes later, interval begins, you make your excuses and head for the tube.

After an uneventful thirty minutes on the train, you reach your station. Exiting the station you see the normal line of cabs sitting in the rank. Walking over, you climb in and give the driver your destination. In response you get a guttural “huh?” You repeat the request and off you go. You are secure in the knowledge that in five minutes you will be home, with painkillers, a cup of tea and only meters from your bed.

Having done this route many times you’re a little surprised when the driver turns left instead of going straight ahead. Your annoyance grows when the driver takes you through the centre of town and then back out and onto the road you wanted to be on.

You say to the driver in a confused voice, “um, why are we going the long way?” to be told “it isn’t the long way, stop complaining. All women. All they do is complain. This not long way, this short way for me.” Wanting to avoid any further argument, you say “whatever” and resign yourself to paying extra for the fair. It’s only money after all.

This, however, is not the end of it from the drivers point of view. He continues to gesture wildly, talking at pace in such heavily accented English, you can only guess that what he is saying is what you are hearing. For the entirety of the five-minute trip, you are berated and told off for being a woman and for complaining. Your blood is beginning to boil, and you start looking for the number of the cab so you can make a complaint.

Normally, you wouldn’t make a complaint straight after an incident, to the line manager of a person. It is not the automatic first response, however, in this instance, it is necessary because of the locked doors of the cab and the aggression being directed at you.

Having imagined all of this, you might be confused as to why this variation in route is an issue. I will put it plainly. Had the driver gone down R*** Road, there would have been three or four sets of lights, an almost straight road and a slightly higher speed limit. The driver, going through town, and down W*** Road incurred seven or eight sets of lights, a wending road and a regular speed limit. Consider £5 verses £7. It isn’t much, I agree, but the level of arrogance and aggression I was subjected to means I probably should have tried to avoid payment altogether. In distances it is 4.02km (2.5miles) verses the normal 2.75km (1.7miles).

I wish I could come up with a moral to the story, but if there is one, it eludes me.

Bastard cabbies!!

A new year is unfolding...

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~ Attributed to Bill Vaughn



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 I recently became an aunty. It’s a strange concept and one that I thought might one day happen, but had no real consciousness of. I guess this is an obvious statement given that the mechanism and the biology of it are removed entirely from me.



Those who know me, know I have no real liking for children. They are strange little irritants that, until they develop to a certain level, and then after that in a lot of cases, you can’t do anything with them. They just are. My niece though, for the little time I’ve known her, doesn’t have that same effect on me. Perhaps it really is ‘all in the blood’.


My Mum, in an attempt to help my Sister out, has gone through her old diaries from the time that my sister was born. It makes for amusing reading as I was three at the time. Reading about yourself in this biographical format is interesting and at times, down right funny. You also learn some of your personality traits were cemented from before you can comprehend them.


I learnt, that in the month after A came home from the hospital, I spent a huge amount of time at my Grandparents house having “holidays”. I also learnt that when I was home I could be naughty. Something not elaborated on but entirely unbelievable. Perhaps the most surprising, yet obvious thing I discovered was where my early love for shopping came from. Every other day I was off, out the door with Dad, an Aunt or one of the three Grandparents. The irony of this, again, for those of you unlucky enough to have been shopping with me recently, is how much I detest it now. The detestation of shopping deserves a post in and of itself.


There isn’t really a point to this post. Not that any of the others always have a point either but I wanted to make the last post of 2011 about something that I’ve been thinking about recently.


2011, for many of us, has been an absolute shit of a year. One that we will look back on without too many fond memories. I know that will be the case for me. I don’t want to go back and rehash all the bad. Let’s just suffice to say that the lowest point of my year was the death of my Grandad. A man who I thought would always be up the road, ready to tell a yarn or build something out in the shed. The highest point has been getting back to Australia for Christmas, surprising everyone because they didn’t know I was coming and meeting my niece who if I have any control over it, will have a brilliant life. But then, with the people in my family, I don’t see how this is anything but the truth.


Happy New Year to you all. Here’s to a brighter day in 2012. See you on the flip side.

"If the apocalypse comes, beep me." -- Buffy

I do not understand the fascination with Twilight. I read the series over one weekend, and wish I could rewind time to get the weekend back, as the series is not worth the paper it has been printed on. If you trust wiki, Stephanie Meyer has had around 116 million copies of the book purchased by someone. 

Having grown up with Buffy, I can say Joss Whedon is god. I don’t think I need to explain that any further.

Now I know a lot who read this blog will adore Twilight and will have pledged their aleigiance to Edward or Jacob but I cannot take this seriously. I know there are arguments for “letting my 13 year old self” out and going along with it, but my 13 year old self was reading Stephen King.  King himself rubbishes the work of Meyer, stating  “Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good”.

Even Anne Rice, another notable in vampire fiction, sinks her teeth in, to pardon the very bad pun. Writing "…my vampires possess gravitas.” 


Essentially, what you end up with, in regards to Meyer, is a series of books based around the idea of Mary Sue’s.  

I can’t really add much to the already overflowing wealth of internet ambivalence so instead, here are some of the funnier demotivational Twilight images I’ve enjoyed.

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Besides, everyone knows real vampires look like this...

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For some reason blogger isn't accepting my html coding today (except on the images) so these are the links I was trying to reference in text.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books - Wiki
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/05/stephenking-fiction - King on Meyer
http://www.themarysue.com/rice-versus-meyer/ - Rice on Meyer
http://anti-twilexicon.livejournal.com/947.html - Definition of a Mary Sue

All about the music II

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“Us” by Regina Spektor http://youtu.be/fczPlmz-Vug

“Shores of California” by The Dresden Dolls http://youtu.be/wTs0EBCdPmk

“Thank you” by Alanis Morrisette http://youtu.be/OOgpT5rEKIU

“Zombie” by the Cranberries http://youtu.be/6Ejga4kJUts

“The only exception” by Paramore http://youtu.be/-J7J_IWUhls

“All the things she said” by t.A.T.u http://youtu.be/8mGBaXPlri8

“Fuckin’ perfect” by Pink http://youtu.be/ocDlOD1Hw9k

“Rumour has it / Someone like you” Glee mash up http://vevo.ly/vFaEYS

“Such great heights” by The Postal Service http://youtu.be/0wrsZog8qXg

Review: The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book, supposedly Harry Potter for adults, is plagarism and idea stealing 101.



The novel is set, in the majority, at a College of magic called “Brakebills” which can only be reached by those who are enrolled in the school and have access to the secret entry points. In the garden is a maze, which changes its pattern every semester. There is a game played called “welters” which has similarities to Wizard’s Chess. Throughout the book, there are three main friends, always two males and a female. The families are similar to those of Harry, Ron and Hermione.


The novel features a magical land called “Fillory” resembling strongly, Narnia and access comes via magical portals; mirrors and clothes cupboards. There are also talking beavers, a faun, a satyr, a talking tree, elves, which resemble Orcs and a final evil, very similar to Sauron.


The novel also features two powerful rams, who act as the gods of Fillory and desire to have humans on the four thrones of the country; two males and two females. The rams refer to the human characters as Sons and Daughters.


What concerns me most, is that the estates of Tolkien and Lewis and the lawyers for Rowling, have not queried or challenged Lev Grossman.


“Lev Grossman’s novel The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.” —Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

“This is my ideal escapist fantasy read, a Harry Potter book for grown-ups … I can’t imagine any lover of well-written classic fantasy, from C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books to the works of Diana Wynne Jones, who won’t absolutely adore it.” —Lisa Tuttle, The London Times


It is even more of a concern when reviewers call it subversive, best of the century, ideal escapist fantasy and compare it directly to the people that have been ripped off intellectually. I find it even more worrying that other authors like and promote this book.


I have rated this book with a 2 out of 5 because it was written with a nice flow but there was not an independent or original idea within this book. If you have read Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, please do not soil your mind with this book. It is not worthy of the praise it has received.

Review: White Teeth by Zadie Smith

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The book, while well written, does not deserve the praise it was given in early reviews. What starts of as interesting, quickly becomes an "us and them" situation. The ethnic minorities dealing with the wealthy middle class who have all the advantages. At this point the book becomes over simplified. I won't say this is a life changing book, nor that it is worth the time spent to read it. If you're interested in anthropology and sociology, this book would provide an interesting perspective, but it is so far removed from what many of us experience, and because it is 'fiction', with all the problems relating to that, there may be limited value.


View all my reviews

Thank You Sara, Thank You Faraday

Imagination decides everything. Blaise Pascal

Sara Douglass 1957 - 2011 - Australian Fantasy Author Image Source

B:        Reflexive memory is a funny thing.  All the strange, half remembered, half-ridiculous little pieces that flutter into your mind and then disappear again, just as quickly. Reflexive memory is also a source of frustration. I seem, never to be able, to remember the littlest, most important part of the memory.

Where has this morose little morsel developed from you might wonder. To answer, I can only give a name. Sara Douglass.

I think I was about 20 or 21 when an uncle introduced me to her first book BattleAxe. I was hooked from the first sentence and by the end of the book I could think of nothing but getting a copy of the second book, which, luckily, he owned.

This was another world full of magical beings that I could identify with, even though they were so very different from me. I wanted nothing more than to be an Icarii. This series of books was also the first in which I strongly wished for the death of one of the main characters. Faraday. How that woman annoyed me. Perfect at everything. No flaws. Irritating beyond measure. It was with relief I read one day, that Sara also hated her. Image.

Shortly after I began reading the series, I met one of my best friends, co-blogger and co-author of this post. http://surelysarah.blogspot.com/>Surely Sarah.  She sat next to me in an anthropology tutorial and I saw she was reading BattleAxe and before I new it, I was asking her if she hated Faraday yet. Like most of the other memories around this, I cannot entirely remember what her answer was. I think she said not yet, and that I said, you will. It was an odd way to start a friendship but over a decade later it seems to have worked.

S:         “Don’t you just HATE Faraday?”

I looked up from my copy of "Battleaxe" – it was a girl addressing me. I probably looked at her in complete incomprehension. I tend to get completely lost in any book I’m reading.  But then I realized she was talking about the main character in the Sara Douglass novel I held in my hand. I was a first year uni student and I was early for my first tutorial for Introduction to Anthropology. I knew no-one at all and had been avoiding talking to people by burying my nose in Douglass’ tome.

The girl promptly sat down next to me and we started to talk about the series. Her name was Brooke, and she had already read all the series and probably the next one. Being only halfway through the first book I had no real fixed opinion about Faraday either way, but Brooke was adamant that she was an insipid half-wit who was possibly the most annoying character in literary history.  As it turned out, she was right – even the author later famously wrote that she would like to drop a spiked pumpkin on Faraday’s head.

The most important point was that I had made a friend, and it was all because of Sara Douglass, her insipid Faraday and the Axis trilogy.  I went on to read the rest of that series and the next. Brooke continued to read everything Sara Douglass ever wrote and we always shared a love of reading.

I was deeply saddened last week to hear of Douglass’ passing as a result of ovarian cancer. Always close with her fans, she will be dearly missed not only for her wonderful writing, but her sense of humour and the encouragement she always offered to those who were budding authors. I recall in the early days of the internet, she was very involved in her website and I found it a wonderful resource not only for interacting with other fans, but for writing tips as well.

The writing world has lost a great author and friend - but her legacy lives on through all of those who share a love of her work.

The book that started it all...

B:        I don’t really know what to say about Sara. I never met her. I never spoke to her. I only knew about her from her website and blog. And I realise I am writing about her in the past tense. Sara Douglass left this life on 26 September 2011. I find that with the number of deaths surrounding me this year I cannot bring myself to write more.


http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/arts/10361292/a-life-cut-short/