Book meme
I stole this meme from Billy via Maria.
1. What book would I like to be?
It must be Tolkien's Lord of the Rings because it made me feel so good when I was reading it and I was upset when I finished it, because, like the best holidays, I wanted it to go on and on.
2. Have I ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I used to have a crush on Rogue from the X-men comic series, back when I read them religiously. I also decided that this girl that I fancied would play Rogue to my Wolverine, even though there was no such romantic link between those two characters in the comic.
3. What is the last book I bought?
I think it might have been The Unifying Force by James Luceno, one of the New Jedi Order Star Wars books, unless you count the Tom Holt books I bought from Amazon as late, late birthday presents for my two aunts, even if there's no chance that I will read them for ages and ages.
4. What is the last book I read?
It was Reunion: Force Heretic 3 by Sean Williams and Shane Dix in the Star Wars New Jedi Order series, which I finished this morning. I have hardly managed to read anything at all this year, so it is nice to get a good run going. My ideal mode of reading used to be to aim to read the book all the way through in as close to one sitting as possible after I really got into The Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor a few years ago and just couldn't put it down during the holidays. I ended up staying up all night and reading it all the way through. However it is now even less practical to do this and reading at all during term time is quite difficult, so now I just really go for it in the holidays.
5. What book am I currently reading?
I have now started the next New Jedi Order book, the Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes. I find it very hard to read more then one book at once - I suppose that's part of the reason I find it hard to read during term time.
6. What five books would I take with me if I was stranded on a desert island?
Probably a Greek version of Homer's Odyssey, a Latin version of the Aeneid, Lord of the Rings, probably Raven's book on meter and I'd try to cheat and sneak in Lewis and Short and Liddell and Scott, possibly by hiding the Raven inside one of the dictionaries. Why such bizarre books? Because I'd like to have a go at writing a bit of Latin and Greek poetry. I would have said something by a Greek tragedian or Aristophanes but I wouldn't have got my money's worth compared to Homer and Virgil. Maybe I could have a go at translating Tolkien into Latin and Greek. This is of course assuming that I was stranded alone with no chance of escape. Who would read my efforts is another question entirely....
7. What three poor idiots am I tagging with this FUN FUN FUN?
I choose Witho, Colin/Ray/Ron and Polly. Consider yourselves tagged - apologies if you've done it before but you might have different answers now.
The Phantom Menace
Right, part one of the mission has been completed. Having seen The Phantom Menace again last night, a few things struck me. What was all the fuss about? There’s nothing wrong with that film except for Jar-Jar Binks and a bit of an annoying tendency to include what Lucas thinks we want to see when perhaps he would benefit from being a bit truer to his own principles. Even this can be justified if you look at it from a certain point of view, namely that of the Jedi and the need for them to fight to protect even the most irritating and oafish citizens, like him. The thing I do like is the way you can really see Anakin's character developing in this trilogy, in a way you didn't see Luke's develop in the original
Science Fiction
I love all space-based science fiction but Star Wars was my first love, ever since that day in 1977 when my Dad took me to see the Star Wars IV: A New Hope. It was one of the first times I had ever been in a cinema and I loved it. I loved it so much that I was instantly hooked, like millions of others. I can still remember the smell of the bubblegum which Star Wars cards came with when I used to swap them with my friends in the playground of Flixton Infants School and can still fondly remember the number of games based on Star Wars figures that I used to play when I was growing up. I read the books too and waited desperately for the next film to come out. Time passed, I changed school and friends, Empire Strikes Back came and went, as did Return of the Jedi. Then a wait of fifteen years or so until the next one. I was never quite sure but I have believed for a long time that it was always the plan for George Lucas to make at least six films if not nine, though I can no longer remember why I believed that.
The Phantom Menace came out and everything felt so different. There wasn't the same sense of wonder - Star Wars had become a victim of its own success and the millions of copyists afterwards. Suddenly it seemed like the press were out to get Lucas - I wondered whether it was just that it wasn't new and there was that old British envy of success coming to the fore. Anyway, my friends and I went to see it, ironically in Taunton, where I now live, and everybody else seemed so cynical about it. Granted it wasn't as good as the first three, but I always argued that this would be far better paced as a trilogy than the first because they were sure that the second and third films would be made, which was not the case when the first film was made. Why am I saying this? Well, I have seen the trailers for the third one and I am hoping for a really good film. In fact I am going to make Witho watch Episodes I and II immediately....
The Holidays
Yes, it is finally here. No, not my post! Freedom! After a long two terms I have made it to Easter. Witho and I went to Widemouth in Cornwall for a week, our first official holiday in a while which didn't involve visiting relatives. We were actually hoping to move house this Easter but it looks like we will not be able to get into the new place for a while. We want to get a few things done to it, so we will probably be renting for the first month that we own the new place because we both think that we need to get things done to it before we move into it so there's no room for apathy and laziness to set in. The trouble is that we have got to get the stuff done. Why is it that builders are allowed to get away with such arrogance and incompetence? We have both called a few to arrange for the ceilings to be skimmed and to get the carpets taken up and the floorboards sorted out but all we have got so far is a mix of blank refusals and no-replies. Why are they so disorganised?
Well, this post was going to be about the holiday but the builders overran it. I've not done this for a while, so I must have forgotten how to do it...
