tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-365310412024-03-14T09:10:42.149+00:00Fairing's ParishUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger901125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-40672871034364222112023-07-10T09:49:00.001+00:002023-07-10T09:49:15.486+00:00Books I hadn't heard of beforeI read book reviews and I'm often reasonably up on the anticipated and well-promoted books of the season. So when I go to real bookshops my favourite thing is to find books I hadn't heard of before. Here are some I've enjoyed recently.'Fear and His Servant' by Mirjana Novaković, trans. Terence McEnenyI found this on a trip to Bath, in my favourite bookshop, Mr B's Emporium of ReadingUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-31377912584303958692019-02-28T22:03:00.002+00:002019-02-28T22:03:59.005+00:00Parker and HerbertI went to Evensong at Exeter Cathedral yesterday. Wednesday seems to be the childrens' day off, and you just get the adults from the choir, and no organ, so they often sing plainchant and Elizabethan church music. The way they blend their voices into a smooth rich noise is wonderful. Yesterday for the first time ever I heard one of Tallis's tunes for Archbishop Parker's psalter sung for a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-85047155909647322202019-01-01T17:42:00.000+00:002019-01-01T17:42:26.777+00:00Reading in 2018So I did read some books in 2018. I'm pretty sure it's not entirely helpful to keep such close track of what I read, as I end up thinking of my reading in terms of number of books read, which is clearly one of the least important things about what I've read. It puts me off big, difficult reading projects. But now I'm addicted and it would take quite a big effort to stop.
When IUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-18732157073040944922018-01-04T22:19:00.000+00:002018-01-04T22:19:46.957+00:00Reading in 2017In January I read quite a few good things. The anonymous diary of the fall of Berlin published as A Woman In Berlin was far from light reading. It's one of those books where you don't mind how very grim it is because it seems so important to know about these things, and probably everyone should read it. (It was interesting what silenced her in the end.) On the fiction sideUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-40360490069436026152016-12-31T23:37:00.000+00:002016-12-31T23:37:10.789+00:00Reading in 2016TL;DR: read Jarett Kobek's I Hate the Internet! Also, Golden Hill by Francis Spufford; everything Zen Cho has ever written; Nell Zink's Mislaid and The Wallcreeper; Jane Smiley's Hundred Years trilogy; Becky Chambers' Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; Catherynne Valente's Radiance; and The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan.
In January I read two very good humane sci-fi novels: The Best of All Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-10895497022646452882016-06-28T20:50:00.001+00:002016-07-03T19:23:22.484+00:00Return to Istanbul part 4I've just seen the news that 10 people have been killed at Istanbul Atatürk airport. I think there may be extra anger there because this has happened in the holy month. I saw a thing on Al Jazeera news about how Ramadan, particularly the iftar feast at the end of the day, is the best way to counter the image of angry Islam that terrorists are putting about, and that seemed like a good point to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-54786592121377574812016-06-21T21:31:00.000+00:002016-06-21T21:31:44.469+00:00Return to Istanbul part 3
Anastasis, or Harrowing of Hell
The thing I most wanted to see in Istanbul this time was the Chora church, or Kariye Müsezi. Like Hagia Sophia, it was converted into a mosque after the conquest, and then in the twentieth century into a museum. It's a lot smaller than Hagia Sophia, but has many more surviving mosaics and frescos. Unfortunately it's not easy to get to, being right out byUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-43560451679146173262016-06-19T19:06:00.000+00:002016-06-19T19:06:38.366+00:00All the letters in a name
Monogram of Justinian
Monogram of Theodora
How my 4-yr-old niece wrote Rebecca in my birthday card
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-64376091288571214432016-06-18T20:46:00.002+00:002016-06-18T20:46:54.905+00:00Return to Istanbul part 2
Looking east from Galata tower over the Bosphorus to Asia, and south over the Golden Horn to Old Istanbul
Zoe looks good for a 70-yr old; Christ keeps an eye on her
Last time I went to Istanbul I travelled with a friend whose attitude to new places is a bit more interesting than mine: where I just seek out and try to contextualize old things, she looks for varied experiences. So we did a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-89817170952569844112016-06-18T15:50:00.000+00:002016-06-18T15:50:51.968+00:00Return to IstanbulOver the course of the last year I have finally paid off the loans I took out to do my M.Sc., so for my birthday last week I took my first holiday in ages. When I was choosing where to go it was between three places I wanted to go back to: in order of difficulty, North Italy; Istanbul; and Jerusalem. I chose Istanbul as a bit more of stretch than Bologna and Venice, but more feasible than Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-4207272348476250532016-03-05T16:21:00.000+00:002016-03-05T16:21:45.653+00:00The books as physical objectWhen I first got my Kindle, the most notable thing about it for me was how quickly I forgot whether I was reading something on paper or screen. It was surprisingly hard to judge the reading experience, because after a minute or two I would forget I was using a Kindle at all. It turns out that reading is all about the words! And I still have the same thing -- the other day I spent ages Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-14817603775170953652016-01-24T20:13:00.001+00:002016-01-24T20:13:52.108+00:00Some music I like1. I've liked this Miike Snow song, 'Genghis Khan', for a while, and now it has an excellent video.
2. The video for this Zara Larsson song, 'Lush Life', is just her dancing. There's no narrative as such. But on the plus side it doesn't make me feel bad about the Anglican communion.
3. This AlunaGeorge song, 'I'm In Control', doesn't have a video at all yet.
4. This video isn't for musicUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-49994591888511988842016-01-01T01:11:00.000+00:002016-01-01T16:36:58.364+00:00Reading in 2015I reread way less than last year, and a bit less on kindle, but rather more non-fiction. I think I probably read a bit too much again -- a lot of what I read was pretty meaningless filler, but then it's so hard to work out what will be good. Next year I think I will aim for between 150 and 180 books.
Total number of books read: 211
Gender of authors of each book: 94 male, 111 female, 4 not Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-66150544991103563972015-12-05T22:04:00.000+00:002015-12-05T22:04:15.947+00:00This Missy Elliot song is very good.
Also the Pharrell bit is very good in its rhythms, once it's got past the obligatory bit about sperm. (What is it with male rappers and their sperm?) "Hermès Trismegistus" is an excellent lyric. I think it's saying that the fashion industry or consumerism in general is all made-up alchemy. So I have reluctantly decided that Pharrell is quite talented. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-73628167392692750422015-11-10T15:35:00.001+00:002015-11-10T15:35:46.593+00:00Internet, you have pleased meI don't know if this is real, but apparently rumblr is like grindr but for fights. You can taunt each other online first to get into the mood.
These people will put a tweet into cuneiform (Persian from circa 500 BC), bake it onto clay, and post it to you. This is some consolation for the fact that it looks like you can no longer get one of Kanye's tweets hand embroidered to order.
I tried Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-25002960519958104442015-10-31T21:13:00.000+00:002015-10-31T21:13:57.887+00:00Things I have considered calling my catSo I have a cat now. She came from a rescue shelter, where she had been for four of the six years of her life. We had a difficult start, but we seem to be getting on better. It's not her fault that really I wanted a dog, but couldn't afford the daycare. But it is her fault that I have big red scars on my legs. So, swings and roundabouts. I have no idea what's going on in her head, not even Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-61026862102429839192015-10-22T11:13:00.000+00:002015-10-25T21:12:26.259+00:00Ow my mindOur new super computer will have a quarter of a million cores.
A quarter of a million cores!
This just blew my mind so much that I had to post it, even though I'm at work and shouldn't really be writing a blog post.
EDIT: turns out that's just the next phase. When it's finished it will have 480 000 cores!!! !1!!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-75386573111125842132015-07-09T20:08:00.000+00:002015-07-09T20:08:22.496+00:00Videos on the internet1. How creepy is this? Know your place, women!
2. On the other hand, this evasive dog is very excellent.
3. Hurray for John Oliver! Unfortunately his thing about online harassment is not available in the UK, but this one is quite good:
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-129928869116319462015-05-07T18:11:00.000+00:002015-05-07T18:11:25.623+00:00PoliticsMy local polling station is at the church up the road. I went on my way home from work. There was a long line of people outside, but it turned out they weren't waiting to vote, but queueing for the Thursday evening soup kitchen. That's politics for you.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-68403589672436463382015-05-04T11:23:00.000+00:002015-05-04T11:23:27.765+00:00Books1. Soon after writing my blog entry on Exclusion and 'In the Light of What We Know' I read Joyce Carol Oates' 'The Accursed'. Stephen King said of it that it "may be the world's first postmodern Gothic novel", overlooking that Oates herself has already written several postmodern Gothic novels, but you can't really blame him for not being familiar with her oeuvre because she is scarily prolific,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-41106550927140549592015-04-17T17:40:00.001+00:002015-04-17T17:40:28.996+00:00Deja vuuu-uuuWho can sing like Sia? Very few people. Is there a 74-year-old more groovy than Giorgio Moroder? I sincerely doubt it! (Though my mum has 11 years to catch up.)
This is available on YouTube but in a slightly less 'up' version, so I'm going to have a go at embedding a gadget I stole off of popjustice:
I heart pop, I really do. This on repeat is going to be the soundtrack to a long weekend Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-1101651372048861792015-03-01T20:18:00.000+00:002015-03-01T20:18:00.876+00:00ExclusionI recently finished one of the most disappointing books I've ever read, and I can't quite put it out of my mind. The book is In the Light of What We Know, by Zia Haider Rahman, and I'm about to give spoilers for it, so consider this an alert.
The first spoiler is that it is very well-written and compelling. It is readable, and provocative of thought. Obviously, it wouldn't have disappointed Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-19266470830188497882015-02-08T21:56:00.000+00:002015-02-08T21:56:06.805+00:00Giorgio Moroder is 74I've been feeling a bit on the old side recently, but according to Giorgio Moroder's analogy in this very excellent song I'm hardly even born yet:
74 is the new 24
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-29491087521632442742015-01-01T22:20:00.000+00:002015-01-01T22:20:59.384+00:00Reading in 2014I read too many books in 2014. I think next year I will try replacing every fourth book with a hearty walk or something. Here is a breakdown:
Total number of books read: 217
Gender of authors of each book: 107 male, 108 female, 2 not sure
Number of non-fiction: 22 (10.1%)
Number of re-reads: 66 (30.4%)
Number read on Kindle: 89 (41%)
As usual, many of the best books I'veUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36531041.post-65673695353248652772014-10-31T19:24:00.001+00:002014-10-31T19:24:35.011+00:00Good thingsI love Dragonette:
Going home on the bus in the dark reminds me of when I started work as a developer two years ago, and the strange feeling of being old and young at the same time.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0