http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/01/home-again-with-additional-dog-pictures.html

I'm home.

This is the weather the dog likes: crisp, cold, weather that puts him in mind of wolfish ancestors hunting on the steppes.

Me, I put on long underwear and dozens of layers over that, and top it off with the sheepskin Uigur hat I haggled for in Xinjiang, and trudge in the snow behind him. It's frozen on top, so you crunch and rock and hunt for ruts that already exist as you walk, or you teeter-totter across the surface, half-falling at every second step. While Cabal is happy in a world filled with sharp smells and frozen rivers, and he bounces over the ice and snow with joy.





Many years ago I discovered (via the currently hiatus-bound Fabulist) Jason Webley. I posted this a link to this song, Eleven Saints, a song Jason Webley wrote and performed with Jay Thompson...



Jason was pleased, and wrote to me to say thanks, and then, a couple of years ago, introduced me in email to his friend Amanda Palmer, with whom he was working on a project, as they worked to bring the music of two conjoined twin sisters they had discovered on the internet to the world. There were two songs out on the internet by the mysterious pair for a long time, but a new song, " A Campaign of Shock and Awe", crept out today: you can hear it at http://www.myspace.com/evelynevelyn. Highly recommended, and not just because of the, y'know, family connections.

...

Right. I do not want to be disturbed tonight. Maddy and I will be beginning our New Year's catch-up by watching the first part of Doctor Who 'The End of Time'.

The sun set in Wrexham.

Tags: sunset, wrexham
Current Location: Wrexham, Wales

...I would totally be following the @physicallaws.

but I am getting over a fortnight of being ill and I am still somewhat brane ded.

Have some belated new year wishes from a pair of cats playing a mandolin and a banjo, which I picked up at last month's Ephemera Society Bazaar, instead.

 

Tags: art, design, pop culture

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/01/argh.html

I'm at a counter at logan airport trying to go to Minneapolis. The computer believes that British Airways gave me a paper ticket when I went from London to Boston last week. Just missed my flight home, and I may have to buy a new ticket. And I am blogging this because there is nothing else I can do, while a helpful lady works hard to try to get me home in the face of a ticket that now exists only in theory. It's my nightmare of paperless ticketing finally come true. Ah well. The ladies are funny and helpful and have Boston accents, and the worst that will happen is I buy a new ticket, get home too late to watch Dr Who with Maddy, and spend the rest of my life convinced that FlyBe and British Airways should not be allowed to run anything as difficult as an actual airline with tickets and people and planes.

Hey everyone! I'm back at work! I'm doing testing! It's really cold in the office and my ability to do the things I have become used to doing and enjoying in the last two weeks is really restricted!

Business cards by MOO.COM

I read a total of 36 books this year - 32 new, 4 re-reads - which is slightly disappointing. For those of you who think that this is not a bad total, here is a graph to illustrate why I am slightly disappointed. New books are pink, re-reads are blue.



This year, I re-read The Great Gatsby, Lolita, and Wonder Boys, which are the books I would describe as my three favourite books ever. And The Complete Yes Minister, not in my top fifty but always fun.

Last year started with one young adult book - Twilight, a plague and a pox on society and all it touches - and ended with another - Holes, which is essentially My First Prayer For Owen Meany and which I enjoyed a great deal. (Technically, the last book I read in 2009 was Freakonomics, so imagine that I am talking, here, about the last book with content that I read last year)

2009 was the first year since 2005 that I have read three Iris Murdoch books in a single year. This is a lot of Iris Murdoch books. The last one I read, The Unicorn, felt sort of monged off, which might be an unfair judgement based on the fact that I was pretty in tune, by that stage, with how the plot was likely to unfold. This means that I have now read exactly half of the novels she has written, so let's take a look at the Iris Murdoch runrate to see when I am likely to have finished reading the complete works.



You will note that doing this before I am 30 will involve reading five of her books this year, working up to six next year, and then one before my birthday in 2012. There is no way I am going to do this. It would be a fairly miserable exercise. 2016/17, based on current averages, seems reasonable.

I finally read Metamorphoses, and do not know why I delayed that so long - it is terrific fun, way easier than I thought it would be, and made me want to read more Ovid. On the other end of the spectrum, I did not expect to like The Devil Wears Prada as much as I did, although that was me literally judging a book by its cover - I love books that are set in offices and moderately well written, and this is both of those.

By contrast, I expected to love Possession, and it ended up being a bit of a slog - I think the turning point was when it is noted that the "bad" character's numberplate was [something] 666 (why not just give him horns as well, AS Byatt) and it ended very, very abruptly given the 475 pages of what was, basically, just buildup.

Also worth noting is Nabokov's Laugher In The Dark, which works superbly as a precursor to Lolita - if you have not read the latter, read it and then read Laugher In The Dark, if you have, re-read it and then read Laugher In The Dark (I can lend either or both, obviously). It's a lot like reading the story of a minor character in Lolita, specifically the prostitute with whom Humbert sleeps at the start of the book - Margot's story in Laugher In The Dark could easily have been Monique's backstory in Lolita. It's good in its own right (Nabokov didn't think so, but ignore him), although more interesting as part of the canon that also includes Pale Fire and Pnin.

To read this year -
i) 2666 - I enjoyed The Savage Detectives a great deal! I am told this is better!
ii) Moby Dick - because I haven't read it before. awesomewells and slightlyfoxed - both of whom have read it - screwed up their faces like socks when I stated my intention to read this, but I own it now and should not wuss out.
iii) More Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square was great.
iv) More Lee Child, I've let that slip recently and could, actually, read all the Jack Reacher books before I'm 30 if I want to.
v) Also, sort of want to reread Anna Karenina, it is lovely and it's ages since I last read it.

Tags: vrb

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: startship troopers 3: the suckening

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/01/what-i-said-at-3-minutes-after-midnight.html

In the end, at about 3 minutes after midnight in Symphony Hall, I did a sort of a mash-up of the two New Year's Wishes:



Yes, I am indeed wearing a tuxedo.