All these things that I have done

My assignment for my first OU tutorial is to write a review of a book, play, film or exhibition to read out to my tutorial partners and have dissected. We're then going on to talk about academic essay writing, apparently, but I'm sure some of the reviews will be interesting :) Anyway, I thought I'd post mine here, about The Declaration, a book I pinched from coalescent when we were over there watching The West Wing. When I'd finished it, I bought and read the other two in the series on Kindle over the next week, so you can infer that I enjoyed it; I'd also definitely recommend it as an enjoyable read.

( The Declaration by Gemma Malley )

Thanks to everyone who made it to the party on Saturday - I had an absolutely fabulous time! Although having Guitar Hero on meant I didn't circulate as much as perhaps I should it also made for the sort of thing where I feel comfortable and relaxed. I've never been good at circulating - I'm not that good at conversations in noisy places for a start and I tend to be quite quiet at parties. I'd noticed at coalescent and snowkings parties that having the console on was something that worked really well for me. I hope I didn't end up annoying anyone though - I know that I didn't end up chatting to some of you much.

I seem to have been on a reading binge for no apparent reason in the past few weeks. I've managed to read through ( 5 new books ).

Actually, I dare swear I'm missing something here (probably a re-read) but that must be the biggest crop of new (to me) books I've read in a long time. What with that and becoming addicted to Stadium Arcadium now I've listened to it through I'm actually feeling quite... I don't know the word, but like I'm actually engaging with things again rather than just staying my comfort zone

Went out to see Stardust last night - first film I've seen in ages. I actually rather enjoyed it, although it was marred by the end of the final confrontation making no sense as far as I could see. Other than that and the usual amount of o.O at the behaviour of the female characters, it was good - nice amount of sass, very pretty and so on. The only thing was, it wouldn't have taken much to make it really good. Still, not a bad way to break the duck.

Have managed to put together all my flat-packs from the weekend so now I need to figure out what's going on freecycle and what's going in a corner somewhere for the new extension of the future. Annoyingly, they still haven't restocked my TV table according to the website so I don't know if I'll be able to collect it at the weekend. On the other hand, we may not have the new TV by then anyway.

Looking at the BBC list of franchise films for this summer certainly provided me with a surprise or two. Oceans 13 I don't know about - I loved the first one but the second was rather rubbish. Still, could be good. The Bourne franchise was the same - started well and tailed off, although not so dramatically as Oceans. Still the idea of a Bourne thriller written by Tom Stoppard is so intriguing that I may well have to check it out! I suspect that I will end up seeing PotC3 and Spiderman 3 as part of groups of people but I wouldn't get around to them on my own - on the other hand, PotC3 may at least generate some good Kermode rants :)

Back from my birthday weekend away (I have an official birthday now). Cats very pleased to see me, as usual, and, again, the postman las left my post outside, although this time at least it was behind the back door. My OU stuff again - this time, the fossils stuff, and I have to say, it does look very cool. I even have practical kit, although I'm saving exploring that for the appropriate point in the course.

I also got my second TMA back just before heading out for the weekend, which was very cheering. My tutor seemed extremely chuffed with it - apparently, I've cracked referencing (by putting in references for every single idea I've used rather than assuming one reference per paragraph will cover all ideas from the same source for that para) and she was very impressed that I actually went and looked up my own evidence for some of the stuff (league tables from the BBC website mostly).

I read My Sisters Keeper over the weekend too, which I got as a birthday gift. I really enjoyed it, although I felt slightly cheated by the ending. It seemed like a cheaters dramatic way out of the terrible hard situation. A way of taking the decision away when the whole point of the novel was to give the decision to Anna. Very emotional. It also has a section of book club notes at the back, something I've started to notice in a certain type of literary fiction which I find very annoying because I can't stop myself reading them. Right after finishing a book is too soon to think about thematic elements, I say.

I quite like the new update page now that they've changed the font again - that was the one thing bugging me about the first version. It feels less cluttered to me. I guess it's one of those things where as you add more and more new options there's going to be a regular need to have another look and see if you can present them better. In other happy technology news, I went to the listen live Radio 4 site to discover that finally, at long last, you can listen live to Radio 4 using Media Player! This means that I can uninstall the copy of RealAlternative I'm not really supposed to have on my PC and listen without fear of the IT department. Most satifying. Although I wish that Media Player 11 wasn't so very black!

We went to see Pans Labyrinth last night. I quite enjoyed it (despite having to hide my eyes several times) but wasn't anywhere near as enraptured as the Kermode, who waxed very lyrical about it recently. Some parts didn't quite seem to make sense but overall, it was pretty good and I'm glad I saw it. The Prestige remains my film of the year by quite a way though. Pan's Labryinth also ended up influencing some very odd dreams, although (fortunatly for you) I can't remember the details now.

Unfortunatly, while I did get a bit of Christmas shopping done beforehand, I didn't get very far for some reason. I'm finding Mum very difficult this year for some reason - I just lack inspiration. An extra present for Dad just fell into my arms via work today so he's more than sorted but Mum's pile is looking a bit sparse so far. (Hi, Mum :) ). We're getting Alex's coat from Camden in the New Year so I just have to sort out his stocking which is also going slowly. It is kind of putting me off the stocking concept actually as I keep seeing thing that I think "oh, that will be fun" but I know that it will be fun for Christmas day and then become clutter that rarely if ever gets seen. I have managed to find a good few things though that were either too much fun to resist or have actual uses so it'll get there in the end.

We were going to eat at the Radcliffe Arms between shopping and cinema but their Christmas CD was so unbearable that I had to leave which is quite impressive as my tolerance is much higher than Alex's. Still, tinkly piano Christmas was just awful so we went to the Hardcourt Arms instead - not many food choices but at least we could read Private Eye while we were eating, although that got me all worked up on how unfair it is that newspapers just make stuff up after reading about the Sun claiming that Romania and Bulgaria have the highest HIV rate in Europe and they're all going to come here and spread Aids when they join the EU. In fact, according to the UN they have the lowest rates in Europe but this doesn't seem to matter to the institutionally xenophobic and presumably as no specific person has motivation to sue they'll just get away with it. Maybe the Bulgarian embassy can complain or something.

Tonight we're out again at the 2nd gig of the Space Heros of the People. Can they top their fab first, we wonder? Come to the Exeter and check it out! I'm looking forward to being able to say I liked them before they were popular :) Then next week I've three nights out before we head over to the folks on Saturday - I shall really need a Christmas break by then!

Wow, I obviously shouldn't have left the internet alone for the weekend as you lot seem to have been mad busy! Doing a quick catch up on Sunday evening after being prompted by the visit of archie was a very up and down experience - congratulations and comiserations where appropriate.

Anyway, as you may have implied from the above, I spent the weekend in a fairly relaxing fashion. Saturday was devoted to tidying up the downstairs, which was fairly sucessful, followed by gigging with white_hart and coalescent. I haven't been to a gig for ages, I realised afterwards, so perhaps it was appropriate that last week contained this year's John Peel day. It's hard to believe it's been 2 years. The gig (Seth Lakeman) was really rather good. Nice if unremarkable support followed by a very impressive performance from man and band. I'm always surprised when someone who is just advertised as themselves comes on with a band. In this case, not as unreasonable as it might at first appear as he did do one or two solo numbers as well as all the singing and the virtuoso fiddle playing but it would still be nice to have an "and x" after his name like Eliza Carthy and the Ratcatchers. The set itself was excellent - I'm not very familiar with his stuff, having only listened to a couple of tracks. My main reason for going was that I had missed him at Truck and wanted to make up for it. It was kind of a cross between folk and rock in some ways - mostly folk tunes(?) but given a less traditional, more rock'n'roll treatment. That's not actually quite right but I can't think of a better word to use than rock - I am lame at describing genre.

Sunday started off with the intention of being a lazy day. I roasted the mallard for Sunday lunch, which was rather nice. I haven't managed to make stock out of the carcass yet but I might. After that, there was lounging around discussing things and stuff and then Alex went out to be manly and remove the 2 wooden posts attached to the roof of the conservatory in the hope that we could find the source of the leaky roof underneath them. We did find a couple of screws standing proud which have now been screwed back in and covered firmly with mastik so fingers very firmly crossed we may even have managed it. Of course now that I want an experimental rainstorm, the skies are clear and blue - typical! Although according to MetCheck we do have some coming, including 13.8ml on Friday morning, which should test things a bit.

This week is our 9 year anniversary. Yes, we'll have been going out for a third of my life. I find that idea nice and kind of comforting, although Alex thinks it's disturbing - reminds him of getting older, I guess. Still, I like the thought. We're going to head out for dinner to celebrate.

Now this looks like my kind of film. Definitely going to see that when it comes out.

We saw Lady in the Water this week, by the way, which was AWFUL! Slow, incredibly didactic and with a batshit crazy plot. It played like it was trying to be a sort of creepy horror film, but if you persist in poking at the 4th wall in that kind of thing it just doesn't work. It has to be imersive and this so wasn't. Also, if M. Night is going to make up his own fairy tales he should get a lot better at naming his mythical creatures.

Went to see V for Vendetta last week and really really like it. I must go back and read some of the reviews, which I've heard were pretty bad to see what they objected to - I thought it was a really strong film. Highly recommended. Was discussing it in the pub, with Alex and Archie I think and someone asked whether it would fall under the heading of glorifying terrorism. What do you think?

Also, next week, tapas, Weds, in the tapas place in the new bit by the castle. What time do we want to meet up? And where - are we going to rendezvous somewhere beforehand?

Edit Plan is to meet up at Bar Ha Ha as close to 5 as possible and then head on to the tapas place between 5:30 & 6pm. OK?

The Libertine Johnny Depp, as always, good value but I found that it was a bit too relentlessly depressing - it was all the downhill slide and none of the fun. If they'd shown some of the fun then perhaps the prologue ("You will not like me") would have rung more true.

Underworld:Evolution I went to see this on the grounds that it had Derek Jackobi in in (I mean, eh?!) plus Kate Beckinsale in PVC. It delivers on both these counts but that's about all you can say. It never occurred to me that I should find out what the plot of the previous one was before watching this...