Posts by Tom Beard
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"I'm 100 pages in and nothing has happened!"
That could be said of many of my favourite books, but then I don't read because I want things to happen, but because I love good writing. In A Rebours ("Against Nature") nothing happens what. so. ever. The "hero" Des Esseintes doesn't even leave the room for whole chapters (except to have a turtle encrusted in jewels). Mind you, Huysmans was no Anne Rice.
I've never even bothered with the Da Vinci code, partly because Eco has covered some of the same ground and Eco can write. He has apparently been quoted as saying that the wrote the first 100 pages of The Name of the Rose as a kind of penance for the reader: if you make it past that, then you've shown enough dedication to be the sort of reader Eco wants. Mind you, I loved all the (supposedly) mind-numbing turgidity of it, because of the way it celebrates the sheer multiplicity and teeming detail of the world.
Not so much a classic, but one highly-regarded book that I found very disappointing, was Norwegian Wood. Limpidly written, of course, but it just didn't engage me. Luckily I persisted with Murakami, otherwise I'd never have experienced the sheer joy of Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World.
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Sanity in Alaska. Who would have thought!
Well, I never held any prejudices about the sanity of Alaskans. At least, not until I heard about Palin.
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Reporters who say "Look!" when crossed-to live
Or for that matter, crossing live to reporters at all, except when there's something actually visibly going on in the background. What is the point of crossing live to a reporter standing in front of a building, telling us what might or might not be going on inside that building, when exactly the same information could have been conveyed from the studio?
Oh and no offence Dave, since I doubt you use the term in quite the same way, but columnists who use the word "curmudgeon" to describe themselves as if that were some kind of __good__thing are also on my list.
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Lines give the mean estimated by a Loess smoother
And here was me thinking that a Loess smoother was a type of earthmoving equipment specialised for wind-blown soils.
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The Weather Ambassador
MetService did have a penchant (properly pronounced pon-shon) for odd job titles at one stage. Our librarian/webmaster was called the "Information Enthusiast" (unlike in his other life, where he was called "Natalie") and I was apparently an "Imagineer". That title was nicked from Disney, of course, but I guess it was easier to say than "web developer/graphic designer/project manager/tech writer/sales support/animator".
That was the 90s, of course, when the tech world was full of "Evangelists" and the like, so I guess "Ambassador" didn't seem so out of place coming from that milieu (__mee-yeur__).
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remove a dead octopus from the ice (how the fans got that in, I have no idea).
I imagine it would be substantially easier to smuggle than a live octopus.
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Matthew P - "Seriously, National aren't known for doing anything that's not sought-after by the recording industry"
Um, you mean like last time they were in power, when they froze funding levels for the arts. National have never done squat for the music industry when they were in govt.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that Matthew was equating "recording industry" with "music industry"
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I often find it difficult to read emotions, tease out the complexities of social situations or pick up subtle signals. But that doesn't make me autistic: just male.
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his pictures, far more than mine, are the ones that capture that ineffable essence of place that makes my memory tingle; shots that I wouldn't have bothered to frame because their individual parts are unremarkable if not downright ugly, but that taken together make up postcards of the Milan that I know
You're raising a great little flaneur there!
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I sometimes think I'm the only person ever to love the KOC in this country.
And I'm afraid to admit I only know of them because of Erland Oye (please excuse lack of Nordic slashes and diacriticals), and I only know him because of his two tracks with Royksopp (ditto).