I feel completely zonked. Every time I try to do something (update this blog with anything of substance, for example) I end up sitting and staring into space and / or my screen, and vibrating gently from side to side. It's a good thing we're about to go on holiday for four days, really.
Well, it would be if I could summon the energy to pack.
I have now -- finally, eventually and at both length and last -- reached the end of Blue Mars, and thus Kim Stanley Robinson's United Colours of Mars trilogy, which I've been reading on and off for nearly nine months since I starting it at Greenbelt last year.
It's... long. God, it's long. Hopefully I'll have the mental capacity to supplement that with some qualitative discussion sometime soon.
This isn't the sole reason for my mental incapacity, of course -- that seems to be primarily down to tiredness and overwork. Never mind, I'm sure everything will calm down once the baby arrives...
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
15 April 2009
09 November 2007
Wye, O Wye
Since my last update here I've had a birthday (my 36th, although I prefer to think of it as two eighteenth birthdays rolled into one) and a weekend away wallowing in second-hand bookshops at Hay-on-Wye. I've also read any number of books, reviews of which should be arriving shortly in a mammoth update of more or less everything I've read since August.
The birthday was happy, as these things are traditionally supposed to be, with presents of DVDs from parents and spouse and an Amnesty International T-shirt from my in-laws (which is more welcome than you might imagine, especially since they're holding on to my real present until Christmas). The DVDs from B. included Edge of Darkness, which I've heard a lot about but never seen, so I'm looking forward to a great deal.
Mum and Dad gave me the 40th anniversary Prisoner DVD boxed set, a welcome upgrade to the rather dog-eared 25th anniversary VHS boxed set which I've been watching on and off for the past one-and-a-half decades. The picture quality is gorgeously crisp, there's an hour and a half documentary full of interviews (Peter Wyngarde seems to be the only surviving Number 2 who hasn't turned fat, having opted instead to look astonishingly like Ben Kingsley), PDFs of the scripts, commentaries and all kinds of goodies including the original edit of Arrival. I'm thrilled with the whole thing.
The weekend in Hay was really lovely: relaxing insofar as we were staying in a lovely B&B and had nothing more strenuous to do than wander aimlessly round bookshops and cafés; tiring in that there were -- as you may have gathered -- rather a lot of bookshops to be wandered aimlessly around in our two days there. I believe we visited 20, and came back with some 42 books, not counting presents:
(The top row's mine, the bottom row B.'s. The ones in between we agreed to buy between us.)
Some of these are titles I'd been looking for for a while; some I'd vaguely heard of and looked interesting; some just caught my eye serendipitously in the shops. Some will be useful for reference purposes; some will tell me profound things about the human condition; some will be fun.
Of the bookshops, by far the most impressive is the colossal Hay Cinema Bookshop, filling four enormous warehouse-like rooms (well, former cinema screens, but it amounts to the same thing) on two floors with all the literature, history, cultural studies, theology and the like you could possibly dream of seeing assembled in one place (though they're admittedly a bit thin on the sciences). S.F. alone (or rather S.F. and Fantasy, because in reality you're never allowed to browse S.F. alone) takes up half a dozen sets of floor-to-ceiling shelves. Equally huge is the stock of the older and more rambling (but also rather smellier and less well-organised) Richard Booth's Bookshop.
The ones where I bought the most stock were probably (if I'm identifying them correctly from the map) The Sensible Bookshop, which had S.F. and mainstream fiction trailing up and down its staircase like a comet's tail, and the optimistically-named The Bookshop, a Bookends subsidiary which combines decent-quality secondhand stuff with remaindered copies of books you actually want to buy, at very reasonable prices. (Admittedly, the staff there have never heard of feminism. Quite literally, as B. discovered when asking after a Germaine Greer she was wanting.) The most pleasant bookshop to be in -- just in case you're wanting further recommendations -- was probably Addyman's Annexe.
Browsing in secondhand bookshops is, I think, one of the closest approaches one can make to Heaven in this life. Or perhaps I just need to get out more. Either way, it was a gloriously relaxing way to spend a weekend.
I've already read the tenth book from the left in my row above (and will be blogging about it shortly -- it's Ken MacLeod's The Human Front, which is one of the ones I'd been looking for for ages), and got stuck well in to the fourth and eleventh, Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate and Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon. Both are set in San Francisco, oddly enough, but in rather different time periods. They're otherwise staggeringly different. I'll tell you more about them later.
(Bizarrely, Hay-on-Wye is now twinned with Timbuktu. I wish I could tell you more about this, but I can't. I approve on general principles, though.)
The birthday was happy, as these things are traditionally supposed to be, with presents of DVDs from parents and spouse and an Amnesty International T-shirt from my in-laws (which is more welcome than you might imagine, especially since they're holding on to my real present until Christmas). The DVDs from B. included Edge of Darkness, which I've heard a lot about but never seen, so I'm looking forward to a great deal.
Mum and Dad gave me the 40th anniversary Prisoner DVD boxed set, a welcome upgrade to the rather dog-eared 25th anniversary VHS boxed set which I've been watching on and off for the past one-and-a-half decades. The picture quality is gorgeously crisp, there's an hour and a half documentary full of interviews (Peter Wyngarde seems to be the only surviving Number 2 who hasn't turned fat, having opted instead to look astonishingly like Ben Kingsley), PDFs of the scripts, commentaries and all kinds of goodies including the original edit of Arrival. I'm thrilled with the whole thing.
The weekend in Hay was really lovely: relaxing insofar as we were staying in a lovely B&B and had nothing more strenuous to do than wander aimlessly round bookshops and cafés; tiring in that there were -- as you may have gathered -- rather a lot of bookshops to be wandered aimlessly around in our two days there. I believe we visited 20, and came back with some 42 books, not counting presents:
(The top row's mine, the bottom row B.'s. The ones in between we agreed to buy between us.)
Some of these are titles I'd been looking for for a while; some I'd vaguely heard of and looked interesting; some just caught my eye serendipitously in the shops. Some will be useful for reference purposes; some will tell me profound things about the human condition; some will be fun.
Of the bookshops, by far the most impressive is the colossal Hay Cinema Bookshop, filling four enormous warehouse-like rooms (well, former cinema screens, but it amounts to the same thing) on two floors with all the literature, history, cultural studies, theology and the like you could possibly dream of seeing assembled in one place (though they're admittedly a bit thin on the sciences). S.F. alone (or rather S.F. and Fantasy, because in reality you're never allowed to browse S.F. alone) takes up half a dozen sets of floor-to-ceiling shelves. Equally huge is the stock of the older and more rambling (but also rather smellier and less well-organised) Richard Booth's Bookshop.
The ones where I bought the most stock were probably (if I'm identifying them correctly from the map) The Sensible Bookshop, which had S.F. and mainstream fiction trailing up and down its staircase like a comet's tail, and the optimistically-named The Bookshop, a Bookends subsidiary which combines decent-quality secondhand stuff with remaindered copies of books you actually want to buy, at very reasonable prices. (Admittedly, the staff there have never heard of feminism. Quite literally, as B. discovered when asking after a Germaine Greer she was wanting.) The most pleasant bookshop to be in -- just in case you're wanting further recommendations -- was probably Addyman's Annexe.
Browsing in secondhand bookshops is, I think, one of the closest approaches one can make to Heaven in this life. Or perhaps I just need to get out more. Either way, it was a gloriously relaxing way to spend a weekend.
I've already read the tenth book from the left in my row above (and will be blogging about it shortly -- it's Ken MacLeod's The Human Front, which is one of the ones I'd been looking for for ages), and got stuck well in to the fourth and eleventh, Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate and Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon. Both are set in San Francisco, oddly enough, but in rather different time periods. They're otherwise staggeringly different. I'll tell you more about them later.
(Bizarrely, Hay-on-Wye is now twinned with Timbuktu. I wish I could tell you more about this, but I can't. I approve on general principles, though.)
10 July 2006
Winning Gaol
Last weekend was rather more interesting than the one just gone. Saturday involved a trip to Oxford, to coincide with the brief return from their Californian exile of the Sybil and Dr Cosmos. Sadly we couldn't manage to see their Cosmic-Sybilline offspring, young C., who was with some grandparents somewhere while her parents visited Brightybot and Hatmandu, but it was still very lovely to see the two of them. It happens all too rarely these days.
We met them (and a stray Fr Maniple) at The Jericho Café, which I remember happily as the site of many fine breakfasts when I lived a short distance up the road. The afternoon was spent happily pottering around secondhand bookshops together, dropping in at Borders and fortifying ourselves at George and Danver before investigating the new development on the site of what was once H.M. Prison Oxford, and before that Oxford Castle.
The castle visitors' centre didn't seem quite as ready for visitors as it presumably will be, but it was fascinating to walk around the intact prison buildings and courtyards. Most of the space is being used for one-size-fits-all eatery chains and an open-air theatre, but there is a rather marvellous hotel which we managed to sneak into.
As some of the images here suggest, it's a bizarre environment -- brutalist metal-and-concrete architecture overlaid with plush upholstery and deep-pile carpets. We didn't get to see inside a guest-cell, but the main staircase area looked as if some mad billionaire had made a home inside the sets of Porridge -- which was, predictably, playing on continuous loop in the lobby.
The publicity material plays up the prison angle for all it's worth ("daring escape destination", indeed), but the leaflets mention one aspect which the website doesn't go into. Apparently there's a "House of Correction", rather more expensive than the standard rooms, which is said to be reserved "for the very very naughty". One can only speculate... but I suppose, if you're going to convert a prison into a hotel, you may as well cater to a specialist clientele while you're at it.
Climbing the castle mound gave an unusual perspective on the city -- except for Nuffield College library there are very few tall buildings southwest of the centre, where the castle / prison / hotel is, so there was a sense of sneaking up on the dreaming spires from behind.
Our train journey back to Bristol was lovely and quiet, apparently because everybody was at home watching some game of soccer or other.
Sunday B. and I mostly spent lounging around in The Coronation, it being too bloody hot to do anything else. Oh, and we also finished our epic rewatch of Buffy, which deserves a post of its own at some point soon. But not today.
We've started on Ultraviolet now.
We met them (and a stray Fr Maniple) at The Jericho Café, which I remember happily as the site of many fine breakfasts when I lived a short distance up the road. The afternoon was spent happily pottering around secondhand bookshops together, dropping in at Borders and fortifying ourselves at George and Danver before investigating the new development on the site of what was once H.M. Prison Oxford, and before that Oxford Castle.
The castle visitors' centre didn't seem quite as ready for visitors as it presumably will be, but it was fascinating to walk around the intact prison buildings and courtyards. Most of the space is being used for one-size-fits-all eatery chains and an open-air theatre, but there is a rather marvellous hotel which we managed to sneak into.
As some of the images here suggest, it's a bizarre environment -- brutalist metal-and-concrete architecture overlaid with plush upholstery and deep-pile carpets. We didn't get to see inside a guest-cell, but the main staircase area looked as if some mad billionaire had made a home inside the sets of Porridge -- which was, predictably, playing on continuous loop in the lobby.
The publicity material plays up the prison angle for all it's worth ("daring escape destination", indeed), but the leaflets mention one aspect which the website doesn't go into. Apparently there's a "House of Correction", rather more expensive than the standard rooms, which is said to be reserved "for the very very naughty". One can only speculate... but I suppose, if you're going to convert a prison into a hotel, you may as well cater to a specialist clientele while you're at it.
Climbing the castle mound gave an unusual perspective on the city -- except for Nuffield College library there are very few tall buildings southwest of the centre, where the castle / prison / hotel is, so there was a sense of sneaking up on the dreaming spires from behind.
Our train journey back to Bristol was lovely and quiet, apparently because everybody was at home watching some game of soccer or other.
Sunday B. and I mostly spent lounging around in The Coronation, it being too bloody hot to do anything else. Oh, and we also finished our epic rewatch of Buffy, which deserves a post of its own at some point soon. But not today.
We've started on Ultraviolet now.
12 June 2006
Manchester
So at the end of half term B. and I went to Manchester for a three-day weekend, having settled on it as a city we hadn't visited before (or for about fifteen years, in my case) which looked as if it would bear exploration.
This turned out to be an excellent choice. The sunshine helped of course, but the city is gorgeous -- lots of old (mostly Victorian, but some older) architecture mixed in with really interesting modern stuff:
The vast glass pylon at the top there is apparently the tallest residential block in the U.K. Or possibly Europe. I forget.
OK, so there are presumably grotty bits of Manchester as well, but fortunately as tourists we weren't required to visit those. It's just a shame our (cheap) camera is quite so rubbish at colours when there's bright sunlight. Also that I can't take a straightforward photo without sticking my idiotic finger in the way.
But the city was great in so many ways -- frequent free buses, a tram service (no photos of the trams, but I think my friend Patsy may have been involved in designing them, unless I'm thinking of Sheffield), lots of open green areas and trees and exciting bits of waterway just lying about the place. Also a gigantic BBC-sponsored TV screen opposite the major shopping centre.
Our hotel was located close to Castlefield, a district which counts as an urban heritage park in its own right, and more excitingly featured in several episodes of Queer as Folk. It also contains the Industrial Museum, where we learned the fantastic fact that Manchester used to have a network of pipes which delivered high-pressure steam around the city for purposes of hydraulic power. Apparently they're now used for fibre-optic cable networking. We also got accidentally locked inside the Power Hall at closing time on the Friday, which was less diverting.
Most of Friday we spent exploring the city, scouting out interesting locations and sampling therather disappointing Samuel Smith's beer at Sinclair's Oyster Bar. Oh, and briefly meeting up with B.'s aunt, who was inexplicably in town at the time.
For a great deal of Saturday we were at the city Art Gallery, famous for its Pre-Raphaelites but also playing host to an exhibition of artwork from the Miffy books. Then some more wandering around before going out to a stunningly posh restaurant where we were served with gorgeous food (the sweet potato chips were particularly to die for) and some startlingly expensive wine. Which was wonderful, even though I had to curtail my sampling of the cheeseboard to head off to...
...a very peculiar piece of open-air "industrial theatre" called Insect, which involved gigantic animated sculptures of insects, men dressed as ants, crickets and what may have been dung-beetles, copious fireworks and a great big crane. This review gives rather more detail of the story than was apparent to those of us in the audience at the time -- and these photos show rather more of the action than B. and I could actually see. But it was thoroughly spectacular nevertheless.
Sunday was unusually packed, involving a visit to the cathedral (which was rather surprisingly hosting a display of morris men and owls) and to Urbis, the museum of city living which we found entirely fascinating. (B. in particular remained fascinated by the exhibition of design and advertising long after I wasn't, but fortunately there was lots to do elsewhere.) The building showcases modern urban architecture with its exciting funicular elevator and is full of almost indefinitely interactive displays and exhibits. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the subject.
Having discharged our intellectual duties, we placated our inner hedonists with a pub crawl, visiting a handful of the pubs recommended in the 2006 Good Beer Guide:
1. The Marble Arch, which we wanted to visit mainly because of its in-house vegan microbrewery. Its products we found very good, especially the Lagonda I.P.A., but rather too similar to one another to sustain our interest. Although they weren't doing the chocolate one, and we didn't dare risk the ginger.
2. The Salisbury -- not recommended by the Guide, but standing in for The Font, which at 7 in the evening we found to be: a) playing louder music than we could comfortably coexist with, and b) nevertheless closed. The Salisbury was a Goth pub (I've no idea why I seem to be gravitating to those recently), but made up for it with Deuchars I.P.A.
3. Peveril of the Peak, a pub which apparently inherited its peculiar name from an old coaching-run.
Apart from the quality, this photo doesn't do justice to the weirdness of finding the Peveril's authentically garish tile facade marooned in its tiny island of antiquity surrounded by office blocks. The interior was equally tiled and enjoyably twee; the atmosphere was friendly, if quiet; the beer was OK, but would have been more exciting if we hadn't already visited the Marble Arch, who had provided the guest ales.
4. The Knott Bar, our favourite of the ones we visited. Architecturally exciting, being located in a reclaimed railway arch, with delicious food, splendid beer and a very convivial atmosphere (except for a half hour when for some reason a bunch of wankers arrived, shouted obnoxiously then buggered off). I have to confess I'm not entirely sure what we drank here, but it was nice. I have a vague memory of the sunset over Stonehenge, but I think that was probably just the tap badge.
5. The Briton's Protection, which because of the extreme niceness of the Knott we only reached when we were already quite tired. The series of small bars were pleasantly cosy, but we found the barman offputting and unhelpful, and the beer so-so. After our first, we went home to bed instead.
Monday morning we came back to Bristol. It's particularly important, when staying at a hotel, to fill up on the breakfast for which you'll be paying anyway -- if necessary to the extent that you don't feel the need for lunch. Vegetarians in particular need to ensure that they get a fair share of the eggs, mushrooms, hash browns, waffles, pastries, toast, marmalade, honey, youghurt and juice as well as the cereal, so as not to end up subsidising the bacon, sausage, black pudding and kipper consumption of the other guests.
For this reason -- and the brace of pizzas on Friday, and the expensive meal out on Saturday night, and the beer complemented with regular helpings of chips on Sunday -- I did appear when I returned from Manchester to have put on half a stone. But God, it was worth it.
This turned out to be an excellent choice. The sunshine helped of course, but the city is gorgeous -- lots of old (mostly Victorian, but some older) architecture mixed in with really interesting modern stuff:
The vast glass pylon at the top there is apparently the tallest residential block in the U.K. Or possibly Europe. I forget.
OK, so there are presumably grotty bits of Manchester as well, but fortunately as tourists we weren't required to visit those. It's just a shame our (cheap) camera is quite so rubbish at colours when there's bright sunlight. Also that I can't take a straightforward photo without sticking my idiotic finger in the way.
But the city was great in so many ways -- frequent free buses, a tram service (no photos of the trams, but I think my friend Patsy may have been involved in designing them, unless I'm thinking of Sheffield), lots of open green areas and trees and exciting bits of waterway just lying about the place. Also a gigantic BBC-sponsored TV screen opposite the major shopping centre.
Our hotel was located close to Castlefield, a district which counts as an urban heritage park in its own right, and more excitingly featured in several episodes of Queer as Folk. It also contains the Industrial Museum, where we learned the fantastic fact that Manchester used to have a network of pipes which delivered high-pressure steam around the city for purposes of hydraulic power. Apparently they're now used for fibre-optic cable networking. We also got accidentally locked inside the Power Hall at closing time on the Friday, which was less diverting.
Most of Friday we spent exploring the city, scouting out interesting locations and sampling therather disappointing Samuel Smith's beer at Sinclair's Oyster Bar. Oh, and briefly meeting up with B.'s aunt, who was inexplicably in town at the time.
For a great deal of Saturday we were at the city Art Gallery, famous for its Pre-Raphaelites but also playing host to an exhibition of artwork from the Miffy books. Then some more wandering around before going out to a stunningly posh restaurant where we were served with gorgeous food (the sweet potato chips were particularly to die for) and some startlingly expensive wine. Which was wonderful, even though I had to curtail my sampling of the cheeseboard to head off to...
...a very peculiar piece of open-air "industrial theatre" called Insect, which involved gigantic animated sculptures of insects, men dressed as ants, crickets and what may have been dung-beetles, copious fireworks and a great big crane. This review gives rather more detail of the story than was apparent to those of us in the audience at the time -- and these photos show rather more of the action than B. and I could actually see. But it was thoroughly spectacular nevertheless.
Sunday was unusually packed, involving a visit to the cathedral (which was rather surprisingly hosting a display of morris men and owls) and to Urbis, the museum of city living which we found entirely fascinating. (B. in particular remained fascinated by the exhibition of design and advertising long after I wasn't, but fortunately there was lots to do elsewhere.) The building showcases modern urban architecture with its exciting funicular elevator and is full of almost indefinitely interactive displays and exhibits. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the subject.
Having discharged our intellectual duties, we placated our inner hedonists with a pub crawl, visiting a handful of the pubs recommended in the 2006 Good Beer Guide:
1. The Marble Arch, which we wanted to visit mainly because of its in-house vegan microbrewery. Its products we found very good, especially the Lagonda I.P.A., but rather too similar to one another to sustain our interest. Although they weren't doing the chocolate one, and we didn't dare risk the ginger.
2. The Salisbury -- not recommended by the Guide, but standing in for The Font, which at 7 in the evening we found to be: a) playing louder music than we could comfortably coexist with, and b) nevertheless closed. The Salisbury was a Goth pub (I've no idea why I seem to be gravitating to those recently), but made up for it with Deuchars I.P.A.
3. Peveril of the Peak, a pub which apparently inherited its peculiar name from an old coaching-run.
Apart from the quality, this photo doesn't do justice to the weirdness of finding the Peveril's authentically garish tile facade marooned in its tiny island of antiquity surrounded by office blocks. The interior was equally tiled and enjoyably twee; the atmosphere was friendly, if quiet; the beer was OK, but would have been more exciting if we hadn't already visited the Marble Arch, who had provided the guest ales.
4. The Knott Bar, our favourite of the ones we visited. Architecturally exciting, being located in a reclaimed railway arch, with delicious food, splendid beer and a very convivial atmosphere (except for a half hour when for some reason a bunch of wankers arrived, shouted obnoxiously then buggered off). I have to confess I'm not entirely sure what we drank here, but it was nice. I have a vague memory of the sunset over Stonehenge, but I think that was probably just the tap badge.
5. The Briton's Protection, which because of the extreme niceness of the Knott we only reached when we were already quite tired. The series of small bars were pleasantly cosy, but we found the barman offputting and unhelpful, and the beer so-so. After our first, we went home to bed instead.
Monday morning we came back to Bristol. It's particularly important, when staying at a hotel, to fill up on the breakfast for which you'll be paying anyway -- if necessary to the extent that you don't feel the need for lunch. Vegetarians in particular need to ensure that they get a fair share of the eggs, mushrooms, hash browns, waffles, pastries, toast, marmalade, honey, youghurt and juice as well as the cereal, so as not to end up subsidising the bacon, sausage, black pudding and kipper consumption of the other guests.
For this reason -- and the brace of pizzas on Friday, and the expensive meal out on Saturday night, and the beer complemented with regular helpings of chips on Sunday -- I did appear when I returned from Manchester to have put on half a stone. But God, it was worth it.
02 June 2006
Imbalance of Power
Yesterday I composed a post about my recent reading, viewing and partygoing, with a few words about the weaknesses in season six of Buffy, and an explanation of my theory concerning alternative world history in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Then my beloved wife started looking for what turned out to be a nonexistent electrical fault, and accidentally cut power to the whole house, including my PC. So, er, that's gone now.
I'll stick with the observation that makes me look the most intellectual, which is that I'm 40 pages into Jared Diamond's astonishingly ambitious macrohistory, Guns, Germs and Steel: a Short History of Everybody for the last 13,000 Years, which attempts to explain in terms of environmental, geographical, zoological and botanical factors why Europeans ended up throwing their weight around enslaving people and similar all over the rest of the world, rather than, say, Papuans.
It's a fascinating topic, and one I really want to know more about. Unfortunately the book is... well, pretty damn thick, and thus rather intimidating. I very much want to have read it, but going through the the actual reading process is a daunting prospect. It'd be a good candidate for making available via direct cerebral download or RNA memory-extension. I think I may be reading it for quite some time.
Now B. and I are off to Manchester, to stay in a hotel and go to pubs and eat nice food and do such touristy things as we can find to do. I'm overdue a decent city-break, and I'm looking forward to it.
More bloggery next week, with any luck.
Then my beloved wife started looking for what turned out to be a nonexistent electrical fault, and accidentally cut power to the whole house, including my PC. So, er, that's gone now.
I'll stick with the observation that makes me look the most intellectual, which is that I'm 40 pages into Jared Diamond's astonishingly ambitious macrohistory, Guns, Germs and Steel: a Short History of Everybody for the last 13,000 Years, which attempts to explain in terms of environmental, geographical, zoological and botanical factors why Europeans ended up throwing their weight around enslaving people and similar all over the rest of the world, rather than, say, Papuans.
It's a fascinating topic, and one I really want to know more about. Unfortunately the book is... well, pretty damn thick, and thus rather intimidating. I very much want to have read it, but going through the the actual reading process is a daunting prospect. It'd be a good candidate for making available via direct cerebral download or RNA memory-extension. I think I may be reading it for quite some time.
Now B. and I are off to Manchester, to stay in a hotel and go to pubs and eat nice food and do such touristy things as we can find to do. I'm overdue a decent city-break, and I'm looking forward to it.
More bloggery next week, with any luck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)