Books

Once again it's time to tell you about some of the books I've been reading!   to start off, The Qi Book of General Ignorance.   It's the first book published by the makers of the TV show Qi (which I love, by the way!)  It takes well-known bits of general knowledge and tells you that everything you know is wrong.   It's a non-fiction book, written in the style of questions and answers.   I loved this book!   Really loved it.   So interesting!   It made me feel very clever and very stupid simultaneously.   Clever because I was learning cool new facts, and stupid because so much of what I thought I knew is apparently wrong.   There's a foreword by Stephen Fry, and Four Words by Alan Davies.   They read as follows:  Will this do, Stephen?   I'd like also to share with you a more interesting extract:

Q: What's the loudest thing in the ocean?
A: Shrimps.   Though the blue whale produces the loudest noise of any individual animal in the sea or on land, the loudest natural nosie of all is made by shrimps.   The sound of the "shrimp layer" is the only natural noise than can "white out" a submarine's sonar, deafening the operators through their headphones.   Below the layer they can hear nothing above it and vice versa.   Hearing from below can only be accomplished by raising a mast up through it.   The nosie of the collected shrimps amounts to an ear-splitting 246 decibels, which even adjusting for the fact that sound travels five times faster in water, equates to about 160 decibels in air; considerably louder than a jet taking off (140 dB) or the human threshold of pain.   Some observers have compared to everyone in the world frying bacon at the same time.   The nosie is caused by trillions of shrimps snapping their single oversized claw all at once.   Snapping shrimps, members of the various Alpheus and Synalpheus species, are found in shallow tropical and subtrpoical waters.   But it's even more interesting than it sounds.   Video shot at 40,000 frames per second shows clearly that the noise occurs 700 microseconds after the claw has snapped shut.   The noise comes from burst bubbles - not the shutting of the claw itself - an effect known as "cavitation".   It works like this.   A small bump on one side of the claw fits neatly into a groove on the other side.   The claw is shut so rapidly that a jet of water travelling at 100 kilometres (62 miles) per hour squirts out, fast enough to create expanding bubbles of water vapour.   When the water slows down and normal pressure is restored the bubbles collapse creating intense heat (as high as 20,000 degrees C), a loud pop and light - this last being a very rare phenomenon called sonoluminescence, where sound generates light.   Shrimps use this nosie to stun prey, communicate and find mates.   As well as ruining sonar, the sharp, hot intense noise makes dents in ships' propellors.

Isn't that just so cool?   Science rules!   I might share some more extracts in the future, cos it really is brilliant.  

And now, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.   Yes, I know, I know, how can I not have read this before?   I think I must be just about the only person in the world who didn't do this book at school, but nevermind.   It's read now.   And it was very good.   Cynical, but sweet, wordy and wistful.   It was somehow very joyful and very sad at the same time.   It vividly conjured up a world that's gone and the twist at the end was a big surprise.   A very well written book.   

And finally, All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy.   Another great book.   It's about two boys who saddle their horses and ride South into Mexico and have lots of misadventures.   I found it a bit of a contradiction, because it's seemingly very rough and ready, and yet also very sophisticated.   The simplicity and sparsity of the dialogue contrasts highly with the wordiness and fluidity of the narration.   It's earthy and polished at the same time.   I loved it, but I will admit it took me a while to get through it.   It's not a light read.   There is quite a bit of violence in it.   It's also largely not in English.   A fair amount of it is in Spanish, so a working knowledge of the language is beneficial to the reader!

   

Spanish Bombs

My song of the week.

Top 10 Sugary Girly Drinks

I'm not a girly girl.   But I am an incredibly girly girl when it comes to my drinks!   I like fruity, tasty, sugary things a lot!  Here are some of my favourites:


Pecheresse

A sweet, fruity Belgian beer.   I'm a huge fan of all things peach, and this really does it for me.  Not the easiest thing to find in the UK, but the hunt is worth it!  Also not the cheapest, but again, worth it!  I know, I know, peach and beer sounds like a very peculiar combination, but it really does work!  At 30% peach juice it hardly tastes of beer at all.  Just sweet, fruity goodness.   Summer in a bottle!

Lindisfarne Mead

Yum yum yum!  Very sweet, very dangerous.   Syrupy, warming, alcoholly goodness.   This comes from the island of Lindisfarne, and is not a mead in the strictest sense, because it contains grape juice as well as honey.  Either way it's delicious, if again, a bit hard to get hold of.

Sloe Gin

Sweet fruitiness set off perfectly by the bitterness of gin and the sloe.   And a lovely colour too.   Lovely over ice, and I think it goes very well in lots of cocktails and high balls too.

Ginger Wine

Sweet, warm, fiery.   Tastes like Christmas!  I love ginger, and whoever decided to combine it with alcohol was a genius.   Strangely enough out of all the brands I've tried I really do like the bog standard Sainbury's own brand the best.   It's just a bit more raw and spicey than the others, in my opinion.

Moscato D'Asti

Again, another one that's very hard to get hold of in the UK.   I tend to just buy it in Italy and bring it back.   Light, fizzy, sweet.   A really yummy dessert wine.   Serve cold.   Goes very well with meringue cake.       

Pantelleria Moscato Liquoroso

Another Italian one.   A little like the Moscato d'Asti, only stronger and not fizzy.  A bit like sherry perhaps, only with a lighter flavour.   Sweet and very drunkening.

Plum Wine

Sweet, fruity and a touch of the exotic.   Available in Chinese supermarkets.   Great over ice.

Gallo Family White Zinfandel

Fresh, light and fruity.  This stuff is great!   A really nice rose wine that hardly feels like drinking.  It doesn't keep very well though, so once the bottle is open you have to drink it all.   What a shame!

Thistly Cross


A really yummy cider, that is very skilled at bringing on drunkeness very fast.   The one I like is the Strong and Scottish one that's 7.2%.   Very fruity and very drinkable.   Perfect!

Eye Surgery

Ok, so every photographer has taken pictures of eyes, including me, so I wanted to capture something a bit more original.   So when a friend had eye surgery I asked to photograph the stitches afterwards.   He kindly agreed to model for me and this was my favorite shot:

 I used my macro lens and the camera's built-in flash.   Obviously the eye was still quite sensitive after surgery so I couldn't take too many shots.   If I'd been able to take more I could probably have come up with something better, but I still think this is an interesting take on a classic photo. 

Fringe Shows

Today I thought I'd share with you my thoughts on some of the Fringe shows I went to see this summer.   To start with, the Makropulos Case.   It's a Czech opera, and was part of the International Festival.   The story was a bit odd.   There's an ongoing legal battle about an inheritence, and a woman turns up, who knew a strangely large amount about the case.   She offers to tell people where the will is in exchange for a document kept with it.  It's all very mysterious, but in the end it comes out that the document is the formula for the elixir of life.   She needs it to make herself some more because the dose she took many years ago is wearing off.   But in the end she doesn't, and grows old and dies onstage.   Now odd stories are fine if they're done right, but what really bothered me about this opera was the translation.   It was so clumsy!   It distracted me all the way through.  Very jarring.  Would have much rather seen it in Czech!   It also struck me as odd that there were no arias at all.   It was all cantanta.   Having said all that the music was gorgeous.   I think I would have really enjoyed it if it wasn't for the awful translation.  

Next, Gilbert and Sullivan in Brief(s).   This was a brief introduction to all 14 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.   There were four people on stage, playing the parts of the four main characters that Gilbert and Sullivan operettas always have.   Amid much clowning about on stage, they delivered a summary of the story and history of each operetta and performed a song or two from them.   It was educational, the singing was excellent, and it was a very entertaining show.   For me though, it was too brief!   It missed out lots of my favorite songs.   Could have done with being a bit longer I thought.   But I did enjoy it.  

And finally, Irish Shorts 2.   This was one of two shows put on by the same theatre company.   It was two different short Irish plays by Sean O'Casey: Bedtime Story and A Pound on Demand.   The first starred one of my friends as an Irish boy the morning after a one night stand, full of remorse and fear, trying to persuade the girl to leave quickly and quietly.   It was very atmospheric and funny, and the cast were great.   The second was also very funny.   It was about two drunk and uneducated Irishmen trying to withdraw a pound from one of them's post office account for more alcohol.   This proved to be easier said than done.   The cast of this one were also fantastic.   A very entertaining show.   I can't find a picture specific to the show, but this is the logo of Theatre Alba, the company who put it on.

The Amazing World of Youtube

Isn't youtube amazing?  So many amazing videos created by people with too much time on their hands.   I'm going to share some of the gems I've found over the years.   This one is an old one that I'm sure a lot of people have ever seen.   It's called Shoes and it's silly and funny.

Films

A couple more film reviews for you.   The first is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.   I really enjoyed this.   It's set in India but has a quintessentially British feel to it.   It's about a group of British pensioners who, for various reasons, all decide to go and live in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in India.   Each character has their own story, but all the stories are interwoven.   Some of them feel right at home in India and others can't cope.   It stars all the people you would expect it to, like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Bill Nighy.   It's the performances, rather than the story that make the film for me.   Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Celia Imrie were all great, but Dev Patel as Sonny, the eternally optimistic manager of the hotel was especially brilliantly funny.   A funny film that leaves you with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

 



And now, Brave, the latest offering from Pixar.   All of Scotland is going mad for it, because it's set in Scotland, and I must confess I'm no exception.   It makes Scotland look so pretty!   It's about a feisty young princess called Merida who doesn't want to get married, so she turns her mother into a bear.   As you do.   She then spends the rest of the film mending the damage.   Again, there aren't really any surprises in the casting.   Kelly McDonald, Billy Connolly, Robbie Coltrane etc.   It's a great film.   Cute and moving and very funny.   It's also really easy to watch.  I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but it felt like the film doesn't expect too much of the audience.   It makes you feel like you to watch it you don't have to be clever or "normal".   Like being you is fine.   It's a very accepting film.   Yes, I am a weirdo...

And finally, Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate).   It's a very odd, but very good Mexican film.   It's about a young girl called Tita who is forbidden to marry the man she loves.   She starts expressing herself through her cooking, and this has very strange consequences on all those who eat it.   Plenty of magic, plenty of mystery, plenty of Old Mexico and some really excellent performances.   A really unique film!