Santa's Gifts
Dec. 28th, 2004 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gervase_fen*A spaghetti jar
*A desk lamp
*"Spaced" Special Edition DVD
*A refurbished Compaq Deskpro PC, running Windows 98, with monitor and keyboard.
All I need now is an external modem, some advice on broadband service providers, and I may be fully online in the New Year. Not that this is an essential requirement at the moment - I'm just thrilled that I can type away merrily into Wordpad at 12.45 am in my front room.
The PC came courtesy of my Uncle's workplace, a firm that specialises in manufacturing currency counting machines. Total cost to him - £20. Total cost of my presents to him (Bob Dylan's "Chronicles", "The One and Only - Every One Hit Wonder You've Never Heard Of") - £25, approx, after staff discount.
No books by request for me this Christmas, as I have more than enough to be getting on with. Following Old Fen's Rule of Trilogies - Never Read Book One Until Book Two Is Out in Hardback - meant that I've finally got round to reading Eleanor Updale's "Montmorency" and Jonathan Stroud's "The Amulet of Samarkand". The latter is particularly recommended for anyone suffering from Norrellite or Strangeite withdrawal symptoms - an all action thriller set in modern day London ruled by an elite of magicians, told in alternating chapters by a young apprentice magician and his djinn (who supplies extensive footnotes). I especially liked the casual, almost incidental put-down of a certain other popular author in this genre, as the djinn observes what a stupid idea it would be to cart bus loads of apprentice magicians off to magician school.
The original reviews in the front of the book also point out a satirical take on New Labour, which is certainly present and correct (and brilliantly done) and also even more timely, given the press release that David Blunkett's officials prepared for him a couple of weeks ago (announcing his impending move to become Minister of Magic).
("Montmorency", a tale of low-life espionage in Victorian London, was fine as far as it went, but seems pretty pallid compared with "The Shadow in the North" or "The Tiger in the Well". )
And talking of trilogies... my youngest brother received the Star Wars DVD Set for Christmas, and so I made a point of watching the Episode III featurette, all about the Return of Darth Vader. My anticipation of the next film is running as keenly as Simon Pegg's (as he said on Film 2004 : "Twice bitten, twice shy".)
Everything that is wrong with the Star Wars franchise is encapsulated in a comment made by the man designing Darth Vader's helmet. "We measured up the old one, " he says, "And found that it wasn't symmetrical."
*A desk lamp
*"Spaced" Special Edition DVD
*A refurbished Compaq Deskpro PC, running Windows 98, with monitor and keyboard.
All I need now is an external modem, some advice on broadband service providers, and I may be fully online in the New Year. Not that this is an essential requirement at the moment - I'm just thrilled that I can type away merrily into Wordpad at 12.45 am in my front room.
The PC came courtesy of my Uncle's workplace, a firm that specialises in manufacturing currency counting machines. Total cost to him - £20. Total cost of my presents to him (Bob Dylan's "Chronicles", "The One and Only - Every One Hit Wonder You've Never Heard Of") - £25, approx, after staff discount.
No books by request for me this Christmas, as I have more than enough to be getting on with. Following Old Fen's Rule of Trilogies - Never Read Book One Until Book Two Is Out in Hardback - meant that I've finally got round to reading Eleanor Updale's "Montmorency" and Jonathan Stroud's "The Amulet of Samarkand". The latter is particularly recommended for anyone suffering from Norrellite or Strangeite withdrawal symptoms - an all action thriller set in modern day London ruled by an elite of magicians, told in alternating chapters by a young apprentice magician and his djinn (who supplies extensive footnotes). I especially liked the casual, almost incidental put-down of a certain other popular author in this genre, as the djinn observes what a stupid idea it would be to cart bus loads of apprentice magicians off to magician school.
The original reviews in the front of the book also point out a satirical take on New Labour, which is certainly present and correct (and brilliantly done) and also even more timely, given the press release that David Blunkett's officials prepared for him a couple of weeks ago (announcing his impending move to become Minister of Magic).
("Montmorency", a tale of low-life espionage in Victorian London, was fine as far as it went, but seems pretty pallid compared with "The Shadow in the North" or "The Tiger in the Well". )
And talking of trilogies... my youngest brother received the Star Wars DVD Set for Christmas, and so I made a point of watching the Episode III featurette, all about the Return of Darth Vader. My anticipation of the next film is running as keenly as Simon Pegg's (as he said on Film 2004 : "Twice bitten, twice shy".)
Everything that is wrong with the Star Wars franchise is encapsulated in a comment made by the man designing Darth Vader's helmet. "We measured up the old one, " he says, "And found that it wasn't symmetrical."
