Things To Do

Things to Do This Week - respectfully borrowing this idea from hathy_col, but I do need a to-do list.

Phone Sony. Try and get mp3 player fixed. If this is not possible, cry.

Buy birthday present for shipperkitten.

Read Reaper Man.

Attempt to go home again; in other words, go back to Birkenhead. Most likely will take place on Tuesday. Try not to get very very lost in the process.

Crash KGV with hathy_col. Be present when she meets cucharita. Wednesday.

Do English essay - "Compare two poems of your choice and discuss how the poet brings out his/her attitudes and values."

Read Soul Music.

Try to see Clare's Death costume.

Before the above, try to buy skeleton earrings.

Read Equal Rites.

Do English essay - "Opinions of Brave New World."

Take paracetamol tablets. Preferably in the next few minutes.

Do Politics essay - "The Prime Minister's formal powers are considerable. Discuss."

Re-read Night Watch.

Finish Fic From Hell #2.

Decide what to do on Diwali. Try not to mind that it will be decided for me.

Attempt not to eat all the chocolate in the fridge.

Cry.

The Big Read

Was just watching the BBC's Big Read on BBC2. If you remember, the British public voted for their hundred favourite novels back in the spring, and predictable, an LJ meme arose because of it. Tonight, they showed the books in order down from a hundred to twenty-one, and from thereonin in alphabetical order. The idea is for people to vote for their favourite from the top twenty-one. I watched the entire programme, and had various things to say about, first of which is very simple:

Jacqueline Wilson. Aaargh. Why? Why do people like these books? She had how many in the list? Three, four? Why? They're hopelessly contrived and in five years will be hopelessly dated. I'm as much of a non-fan as it is possible to be.

In other news, I was pleased to discover Terry Pratchett was the most nominated author, with five nominations - The Colour of Magic, Guards! Guards!, Mort, Night Watch and Good Omens - but not so pleased to discover none of those made it into the top twenty-one. However, one delicious piece of trivia came to light. A market town in Somerset, Wincanton, has been twinned with... wait for it... Ankh-Morpork. There is even an official deed of twinning, signed by the mayor of the town and Lord Vetinari. I am greatly amused.

Out of interest, why are towns twinned? And why are they usually twinned with obcscure towns no-one has ever heard of? I mean, how do they decide? Do they stab a map with a pin? Although, to be fair, I have heard of Liverpool's twin. I would even say it's probably the most logical choice to twin Liverpool with. Little place called New York City. You may have heard of it.

Moving on, then - I was disappointed that neither Watership Down or Goodnight Mr Tom made it into the top twenty-one, and I was really annoyed with most of the panel they had to discuss the books. Intellectual snobs, the lot of them. Any book I wanted them to discuss in detail, they wouldn't, and vice versa.

The top twenty-one were far from predictable. Only one book per author was allowed, and so it's perhaps not surprising that numbers twenty-two, twenty-three and twenty-four were Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Philosopher's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban. The one that actually got in was Goblet of Fire. Other children's books that did the same were Little Women and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I have never liked Little Women - can I say, saccharine in the extreme? - and as for the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - just, no. It's not a bad book, but you can't get around the fact it's Christian mythology in sheep's clothing. And the irritating panel compared the character of Edmund Pevensie to Harry Potter, saying, "Harry will never be tempted by darkness."

Excuse me? I'm moved to dig out my copy of Order of the Phoenix and quote from it at length, but I'll probably wake up the whole house if I do that, so I'll be content with saying that I disagree. I'm sure Harry will be tempted by the darkness. Sure of it. Hasn't he been, already? And for god's sake - Edmund wasn't tempted by the darkness! He was tempted by a truckload of addictive Turkish Delight! I think that was blown up out of proportion, as were other things - later on in the Chronicles, Susan got interested in make-up, and was banished from Narnia for eternity.

And so... I'm now in the delicious position of choosing what to vote for. Out of the twenty-one, I'm torn between His Dark Materials and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not Harry Potter, despite what I was saying a minute ago. I do like HP. I'm rather heavily involved in the fandom. But I will not say JK Rowling is a particularly good writer. She is, however, a very, very good storyteller. Harry's adventures are gripping, compulsive reading, and they have been ever since this poor Raven picked up a first edition Philisopher's Stone seven years ago. But still... no. I have to admit I might have been tempted if the book chosen had been Prisoner of Azkaban, and I'm not just saying that because of Remus Lupin.

Oh, all right, maybe I am. He's my favourite character, because he has so much depth to him, so much backstory, but at the same time he has so many delicious, tell-tale blank spaces in his history. He's a walking paradox. A basically good human being but with flaws. There's reality, if you like. There's a real person. Perfectly imagined and brought to life.

But I'm not voting for Goblet of Fire. His Dark Materials, on the other hand - I loved it when I read it first, and I've read the whole thousand-page-epic a few times since then and I still love it. Lyra is another real person (was never so fond of Will, I don't know why) with such an interesting duality - Pantalaimon - to her. All the daemons fascinated me - particularly in the rare case of the boy with a male daemon, as I wondered if that was a subtle indication as to his orientation - because of the way they reflected their owners' personalities. So did the other worlds, the strange links between Lyra's world and ours - Lyra's Oxford is so tantalisingly the-same-but-different - and the landscapes, the scope and glory of them.

And the canon slash. Oh, yes. Balthamos and Baruch... mmm. A true atheist's view, slashy angels who go on to kill God.

But then, there's the Hitch Hiker's Guide to be taken into account. Just pure genius. So good I can still quote large sections of it verbatim. Arthur Dent, so hopelessly British, and Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox and everything else. The hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who built Deep Thought. My god. "The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, is.... is.... forty-two."

It's utterly unforgettable. "Life? Don't talk to me about life."

I'm just letting it speak for itself, really. I can't add anything to it.

I think I've talked enough.