Pictures and Projects Edinburgh: May 2018

Tuesday 29 May 2018

As previously mentioned, I like to go back and reread childhood books sometimes. Well, a lot of the time actually. Lately I've been working my way through the Roald Dahls. This is definitely the best so far! It's gloriously creative and silly with a big victorious finale. I love the super imaginative descriptions of the weird Giant Country and catching, mixing and blowing dreams. And the frobscottle with the bubbles going down, of course. It's got genuinely detestable villains and loveable heroes. The best bit is the words though. Apparently it was inspired by Roald Dahl's wife, who had had several strokes and was struggling to speak. Often her words came out a bit jumbled up and he used this as inspiration for the BFG's style of talking. Even though he uses a lot of made up words you always know exactly what he means and it makes the book much more fun and colourful. And if it seems a bit cruel to write a book that seems to be making fun of her, Roald Dahl did also more-ore-less single handedly teach her how to speak properly again.

Monday 21 May 2018

Songs: Dracula From Houston

I like this song. It's a bit different.

Book Reviews: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stane

As previously mentioned, I'm a masive fan of Harry Potter. This is the Scots translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I really enjoyed reading this! It went a little slowly at first as I was getting used to the new language patterns, but I soon sped up. I read the entire thing in a Scottish accent in my head. It was really interesting reading something so familiar in a different style, and really interesting seeing a style of speaking in print that I'd only heard spoken before. In my head it sounded just liked several ex colleagues! And my Scots came on leaps and bounds! I learned lots of new Scots word. A cat is a bawdrins, a toad is a puddock and an owl is a hoolet. I thought the translators did a really good job with it, being true to the original, while making something new at the same time.

Tuesday 15 May 2018

Songs: Piece of Me

Fierce tune for your Tuesday:

Book Reviews: A Web of Air

Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines quartet is one of my favorite series of all time. It's about a post-apocalyptic world where cities are mobile and travel across the world eating each other. A Web of Air is the second book of the prequel series. The first book, Fever Crumb, told the story of how London became the first city to become mobile. At the end of the book, the main character, Fever Crumb, runs away with two orphaned children. When the second book opens Fever and children have joined a travelling theatre and Fever is their lighting technician. They reach a city which seems to be in our Portugal. It's been built in an ancient bomb crater and the buildings are on rails and slide up and down the walls. Along with people the city is home to a race of super-intelligent seagulls called angels who have learned to speak human language. Fever meets a reclusive boy called Arlo who is experimenting with flying machines. Fever decides to help him. The two make great progress. but enemies don't want the project to succeed. Arlo and Fever move to a more remote island to work and incorporate some ancient technology into their machine. They succeed (and fall in love) but their enemies ultimately catch up with them and their flying machine is destroyed. Arlo feels betrayed by Fever and disappears. At this point Fever's parents catch up with her and take her back to London. So not what you'd call a happy ending.

This book's strength lies not in the story, or in the characters, but in Philip Reeve's imaginary landscapes. Though brilliant, Fever is not a particularly likeable main character. This is because of her engineer's upbringing. She has been taught to be cold and logical. Despite knowing this about her I still find it hard to empathise and warm up to her. However, I loved the idea of the city in the bomb crater, the moving buildings and the talking seagulls. Very original and creative. A good read, but still not as good as Mortal Engines, or Larklight, Philip Reeve's steampunk series.