Lionel Shriver’s Double Fault: An tennis match of emotions from the master of dialogue

Considering the nature of this book I could easily write a review full of puns and not so subtle metaphors. I could regurgitate the  issue of the terms game set, and match; joke about the love point, and make bad asides regarding Henman, Wimbledon and the courts of life.

But despite the intro I’m not going to;  as though the action may revolve about a couples tennis career, the actual message of the book is a lot more personal, and the game becomes merely a framing device for something deeper and more frightening.

Enter Willy an emotional recluse who’s unable to curb her competitive nature, even in marriage and Eric, a hopeless overachiever who manages to excel without ever trying at anything. There we have the basis for a relationship, where two strong willed people team up in the game of life and love, yet mange to infuriate and upset eachother with their constant need for reaffirmation, both publicly and privately.

The dialogue between Willy and Eric verges form abysmally coquettish to insanely visceral as they move from sex on the court to unfettered hatred, all revolving around their rankings in the game.  Willy’s emotional violence is scary to read, as her unstable emotions seem acutely depicted, and it feels uncomfortably close to home when you see how she can’t relish her partners success unless she is doing well. Read more…

Tags: Lionel Shriver

A tea towel designed for me

Perfect for me wouldn’t you say? This tea towel manages to exemplify everything I stand for.. now if only they had one for a microwave!

As my friends have said many a time, ‘If you weren’t vegetarian, you’d have probably poisoned yourself by now.’

Sadly, they might be right.

Coccyx around the problem

I fell down some stairs in December. No, I wasn’t pushed, didn’t encounter any horrible sort of attack, I’m just clumsy. And I fell badly and bruised my coccyx. For those unfamiliar with that term, it’s the tip of the tailbone, where we *may* have once had a tail. And I bumped ungracefully onto it, And it hurt. And it STILL hurts.

It has kind of got beyond a joke. As much as people snigger if you say your arse hurts ‘what have you been doing!’, it’s no joke. It’s permanently sore to sit up/stand down/ crouch and I hate this feeling of being incapacitated. I’ve started to take my body into consideration when doing activities/events/ bending and I’m really not happy with that. My body, whilst perhaps never the most streamlined or athletic tool in the box was pretty much pain free (barring four days a month). Read more…

Guilty pleasures: Paris Hilton’s British Best Friend TV show

There’ s something about trailer trash TV that makes it incredibly appealing . No matter how much you argue abut the social consciousness portrayed in shows like Big Brother, caters to the lowest common denominator, essentially your highly laudable  existential debates just relate to pandering your own ego and placing your voyeurism in a socially acceptable  context. Forget your high ideals and pretend aspirations on social commentary, essentially you’re just getting cheap thrills  at celebrities revealing lumps and bumps,  vacuous backstabbing and hair extension chaos. I’m sure at some point you’ve expressed that you only watch shows of this nature  to understand the celebrity culture that we live in, but do you really believe that?

Of course not! You get home at the end of the day and want to switch off and there’s nothing better than some mind numbing vacuous show that lets you feel morally superior whilst wondering how on earth a programme like this got commissioned.  Paris Hilton’s BBF is the worst kind of TV as it’s not particularly entertaining, will have no real winner, and any kind of unity within the group is ruined by the fact that every week they have to say why each other should leave. Read more…

Tags: Paris Hilton

Further along Resolution Road: Recruiting friends makes resolutions more likely

The first post in this blog was in regards to my New Years resolutions, those things we make every year and often fail. Well, I’m determined to fulfill at least half of the items on my list, and have been making firm progress . I’ve enrolled in Mandarin lessons (which were postponed due to low numbers), am visiting Portugal this week (tick number 5 off my list) and have booked flights to Australia for March.

Another of my resolutions was to complete all 40 Booker winning novels by the end of 2009, and January proved fruitful, as due to a multitude of airport visits and cross country trips I suscessfully ploughed my way through The English Patient (UK-Vegas), The Famished Road (California to UK), The God of Small Things (which I realized I’d already read half way through)  and also discovered that I’d read more than I though I had, as I can also tick Disgrace by Joseph Coetzee off my list.

That still leaves a fair amount though, and recently bemoaning how much left I had left to got through, my friends and I embarked on a heated debate regarding the literary merits of many of the books on the list. It was a great evening in, as there was fresh lasagne, plentiful cava, and we even had fresh apple crumble with custard for dessert. OK, My contribution was of the cerebral kind, as I can’t a/cook, and b/ I really can’t cook, but with wine a-flowing and people chatting I had the un-original idea of starting a book club. As my friends are all English/Politics graduates who find their degree skills somewhat unwanted in their high flying city careers they agreed instantly, and the next day saw a flurry of work unrelated emails heading back and forth as we tried to decide on a book from the list to start with. Read more…

Tags: booker prize, books, friends, list, literature, review

Do you need a Peter Pan complex for a career in technology?

When I was younger my mother scolded me for playing with my Sega MasterSystem as she decried it a ‘waste of time’ that would never lead to anything productive.

Ten years on, and my little brother is impressed that I get to review console games for a living. But does this mean my mother was wrong, or did I just manage to find a career that let me avoid the semi-inevitable ‘grown up adult’ attitude?

Perhaps, but then you could argue that a large number pf people have all opted for ‘creative’ careers that let them act like small children. Yes my job DOES include playing computer games, but I also have features to write and spreadsheets to fill in, so the toy-like part of my job is in fact a small section of what I actually do. Has the idea of playing with toys evolved, or did I just never realize the subtext when I was younger? After all, for every LEGO castle I built, I had to follow the design, carefully assemble it and then eventually destroy and package it up for future use. We’re talking methodical planning, constructing and organization skills, all which are placed on my CV of today and yesteryear.

But other people clearly feel the same draw to their youth as I do, which explains the popularity of Hello Kitty gadgets and the strange game/fashion mashups that are so prevalent in stores nowadays. Pictured you can see Lanvin’s 2008 LEGO fashion extravaganza, and recently we’ve seen childhood icons overspill into other areas as well. Read more…