Archive for December, 2008
Thinking about eating
December 30th, 2008 Uncategorized
Cakes
Well, it’s Chinese New Year and I’m better off spending it on edibles than flowers. Since my last butter cake baked under fairly laxed supervision, I’ve been thinking about baking orange cakes. I don’t particularly enjoy cooking: it gives me an excuse to pretend to critique my food, while endlessly stuffing my face.
Spiced Peaches
I’m dying to eat this with some ham that is very well priced at this moment (Apple Baked ham at $19.99) for a brunch. Also thinking of: Passion Fruit Jam on yogurt; tomatoes grilled with sugar, rice porridge with preserved mustard and braised peanuts. And something (or anything) with prawns and crab meat.
Harold Pinter passes away, aged 78
December 26th, 2008 Obituaries
Never seen his plays. Why doesn’t the SRT put them up, I wonder.
This is from the BBC obit:
Michael Billington, Pinter’s friend and biographer, said he was “devastated and saddened” by the news.
…
“He was a generous and loyal man and very attached to the people whom he sincerely liked.”
Eh? Who isn’t attached to people whom they like?
Booking Through Thursday: Wintery Books
December 25th, 2008 books
What I want to know today is …what are the most “wintery” books you can think of? The ones that almost embody Winter?
Grapes of Wrath because it had drought, poverty, depression, hunger and charity – everything associated with winter. Winter almost never means ‘chestnuts roasting upon and open fire’ to me. That’s the Christmas of Hollywood.
Booking Through Thursday
December 22nd, 2008 books
Time is of the Essence
1. Do you get to read as much as you WANT to read?
Yes, when I can’t find good stuff to read.
No, when I have too many unread things.
2. If you had (magically) more time to read, what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?
I want to read more of what I love and finally, when there is nothing, something educational.
Treat
What is the best book you ever bought for yourself?
One of the dummies book on Unix when I had a unix student account.
And, why? What made it the best? What made it so special?
Nostalgia: it reminded me of the time I was ten, reading the apple computer manual and doing stuff on the apple II.
Do you give books as gifts?
Well, just once: It was a book called The…The… crap I can’t recall. The chap wrote only this book and it was published because his mom badgered the publisher after his suicide.
To everyone? Or only to select people?
That was to a friend, L. She never did read the book.
How do you feel about receiving books as gifts?
Apprehensive, unless I’ve told that person to buy it. I am very conservative in my reading habits – I prefer to stick to whom I like. It troubles me when I dislike a particular book.
Sibling Rivalry
December 14th, 2008 Uncategorized
Younger, I would carefully register each inequality like a slight but now, I’ve started to notice it’s comedic potential – not a gold mine yet, but a hint of vein after which one could chase. Disclaimer: I bear no ill-feeling toward the younger of my parents brood per se – he’s an alright sort – but I gather he does not think it’s funny. Nor do my friends, who perhaps feel this acutely in their own household.
I’m wondering if basing a little play on sibling rivalry is quite possible. No mining operation exist just to chase the gold vein, and it seemed a waste when all the tools are there to mine other less precious metals like copper, so maybe it can only exist as a sideline operation.
5 for Favorites (Booking through thursday)
December 8th, 2008 books
1. Do you have a favorite author?
2. Have you read everything he or she has written?
3. Did you LIKE everything?
4. How about a least favorite author?
5. An author you wanted to like, but didn’t?
1. My list of favourite authors is here. My favourite is Graham Greene.
2. YUP.
3. Naipaul and Theroux ties for this position.
4. Naipaul because I spent a lot of money buying all his books.
Recession: When the money goes, so does the toxic wife
December 8th, 2008 elsewhere
An article on toxic wives on The Telegraph (http://tinyurl.com/5sdbjf) makes me want to grumble. Okay, financial hardship does trouble a relationship usually because of different ideas about what to do when the money evaporates and which party caused it to disappear. I also accept that there are lots of women who wouldn’t mind not working for the rest of our lives and can still keep a lifestyle based on one income. I’m a woman. I would love to have money and spend all day doing what I want to do. I’m sure there are men who would like to do that it.
I do not believe that the men were utterly clueless who they married, or that they actually made some effort in the relationship (because if they actually did something to connect with their wife, these women who are hard-nosed businesswomen would have some affection for their men). The fact is, these same women are fully aware that these men would, in a second, get a newer model of the same anyway, so they have to maintain themselves and when the ship’s sinking, leave for a stabler ship.
Strangely Ironic Book Meme
December 3rd, 2008 books
From Of Books & Writing
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST
From The Quiet American by Graham Greene:
I was still not fully awake. ‘Where did you get that helmet?’ I asked.
‘Oh, somebody lent it to me,’ he said vaguely. He dragged in after him a military kitbag and began to pull out a wool-lined sleeping-bag.
‘You are very well equipped,’ I said, trying to recollect why either of us should be here.
‘This is the standard travelling kit,’ he said, ‘of our medical aid teams. They lent me one in Hanoi.’
