Book #46 [or #47]* of 2004
I gave this fabulous book to Pete for his birthday, and when he had read it, he passed it to me. I’m a couple of chapters in, and enjoying the anecdotes but perhaps experiencing a few too many flashbacks to my own socially disastrous school life, and vivid memories of some very bad home-made clothes that my mum forced me to wear in the seventies.
The author is another one of the almost-famous people that Pete knows from university. The only almost-famous person at my university was Vaughan, and I didn’t actually know him at the time. I suppose if I ever read the Alumni magazine, which doesn’t seem to get delivered to me anymore, I might find that lots of my fellow psychology graduates are now stars of Big Brother or champion pool players. It seems so unlikely.
*So, I haven’t finished it yet, and also I’m reading Coastliners by Joanne Harris, concurrently.

Tickets for Reading 2005 are now on sale, at the bargain price of £105 for the full weekend. Add to that £15 per night for a taxi home, and £2.30 each per day for the train fare over, and whatever we spend on warm beer [in paper cups, not plastic] and noodles, that comes to about [whirr whirr whirr] still not really too much, if they have good bands on.

And maybe next year won’t be so muddy, but who am I to assume that August Bank Holiday weekend will be dry? Alternatively, I shall just have to invest in some of those pink or floral wellies that the goths were wearing this year.

Ah, goth teenagers. With their cute matching facial piercings and their off-the-peg black t-shirts with slogans that proclaim them to be non-conformists. Just like the next one. I’ve never had a very good understanding of fashion, but I do understand that it is just as important for goth teenagers to wear the right brand of whatever, as for your standard pink burberried chav.

Anyway, it’s too late for me to learn now. And it all looks the same when it’s covered in mud.

Alfred was thrilled about The Terminal, though he would never get a chance to see it. He was looking forward to the Oscars. I didn’t want to shatter his daydreams by telling him what a load of puerile crap Spielberg’s movie was. I doubt he would have believed me anyway.

When I first read about The Terminal, I thought the premise seemed amusing but far-fetched, so I was interested to read about the man who has lived at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport for the last 16 years.
I’m curious to see the film, which Philip French describes as intermittently funny, but very long, but can certainly wait for the DVD.
Meanwhile, why doesn’t our local Blockbuster have a copy of The Princess Bride, which I have just finished reading?

Songwriters are essentially born. I think there’s a combination of knowledge and ignorance that no human planning could devise. On the other hand, I could be wrong.