Books Bought

Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope
The Warden - Anthony Trollope
Still wading my way through The Way We Live Now, but always good to be prepared...
Hardy (selected poems by Thomas Hardy)
I guess you can just about imagine how excited I am about the new BBC dramatisation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles...?

Saw the trailer for the new Bond film Quantum of Solace yesterday. It looks absolutely fantastic and I'm sure will be as big a hit as Casino Royale. Hoorah for Daniel Craig!

Jack The Ripper

Went to see the Jack the Ripper exhibition at the Museum in Docklands yesterday. The museum is wonderful, housed in one of the old quayside buildings down in Docklands. The exhibtion was great, although as someone who has read a lot of Ripper books over the years I didn't really learn anything new! What I loved was seeing all the official documents from the time, as well as the infamous 'Dear Boss' letter. If anything, there was too much to take in on one visit. I may well have to invest in the Jack the Ripper and the East End book with intro by Peter Ackroyd. The other other exhibit we spent ages looking at were the Charles Booth poverty maps which re-awakened my love of all things cartographical!

The Duchess

Went to see The Duchess during the week, taking my Mum (couldn't help remembering that Jimmy Saville used to refer to his mother as the Duchess...)  Anyway, I thought it was fantastic and has got me itching to learn more.  I sometimes despair of ever learning about all the things I want to know about!  Keira Knightley was not as irritating as I usually find her (Atonement was quite hard-going thanks to her) and was totally convincing as the young duchess.

Have read quite conflicting reviews of the book on which the film is based, so think I might just borrow it from the library.  Annoyingly I have quite a backlog of books at the moment.  Trollope is great, but so LONG - I'm on page 530 of nearly 800 so imagine it will be another week before I'm done.  Then there's A Dance to the Music of Time which I desperately want to get started on.  Obviously I need to take a book reading holiday! 

Giles Coren

Damn you, Giles Coren. I've been fighting this crush with all my might, then you let BBC iplayer show episodes from Supersizers Go... and I have to see you dressed as a Regency dandy, looking HOT, leading me to search YouTube for MORE clips of you, culminating in finding out that you are left-handed which for some reason I find insanely attractive.

So thanks. The crush is now fully developed. Great. Now get yourself a website so I can stalk you officially.

Cryptic Crosswords

After some initial success with The Times Saturday Jumbo crossword this week, it all descended into nothingness. I think its time to start analysing answers rather than actually trying to solve the clues!

Books Bought

Books bought - second hand from the Marie Curie shop in town:
North & South - Elizabeth Gaskell
In a sudden attempt to diversify from Dickens, this seemed too good an opportunity to miss!
The Crow Road - Iain Banks
The Business - Iain Banks
(I listened to a podcast featuring Iain Banks the other today and he came across as such an interesting and likeable person. I read The Wasp Factory a few years ago and found it fascinatingly different to anything I'd ever read, but then never read any others. I've decided its time to change that!)
The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
(I read The Blind Assassin on my honeymoon and really enjoyed it. Whenever I think of the story it immediately reminds me of the holiday and the beautiful place we stayed by Lake Michigan, so this will be one of my holiday reads this year)

Fresh Start

Well, here it is. The new blog. Wow. So, now I need to think of all those things that I wanted to blog about. I suppose I should also think about what type of blog this is going to be. I don't want it to be a navel-gazing solipsistic exercise, but more a sharing of all the things in life that I find fascinating and exciting.
Yes. A sharing of dreams and delights. Hence the title. Y'know, sometimes I even surprise myself.

So, welcome. I hope we'll become good blog-mates!

Current Read: The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope & Bright Young Things - DJ Taylor