Some notes on stuff

1. I object profoundly to the Kleenex advert where a man takes a sofa out on to the streets and gets people to sit down and have a bit of a cry, with feel good emotional music in the background. Nobody needs that.

2. Amazon.co.uk has just told me that after looking at Ruskin's Stones of Venice 80% of customers buy it, but 6% choose Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows instead.

3. Jill Paton Walsh's Imogen Quy detective books are quite good.

4. An intelligent friend of mine pointed out that the demon-man hybrid aspect of the plot of Beowulf the recent film is entirely present in the original poem, when the Grendel-kin are associated with the Nephilim, the children of fallen angels and human women who provoked the flood. Hurray!

5. Borders has sent me an e-mail to offer 50% off "The Handbook for Exceptional People" by Jez Cartwright, assuring me that it is written in an "easy-to-read fashion" with use of pictures and analogies.