A Novelist Speaks: April 2009

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Why I love "The Big Bang Theory"

"The Big Bang Theory" is a sitcom, so I don't have to think while watching it.
"The Big Bang Theory" is about very intelligent people, which means that I identify with them and in turn feel very intelligent when watching it (while not thinking at the same time, which is a win-win).
"The Big Bang Theory" is about people I like in the real world. Go on, laugh, but I find intellectuals and computer geeks sexy.
... hang on while I watch a few more episodes... I'll get back to you... maybe....

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Red Dwarf - The Book

I've just finished reading "Red Dwarf - Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers" and am into the sequel "Better than Life".

Not as many laughs as the TV series, but, in a way, the books are better, because they are more structured. You also get a good look at Lister before he enlisted, you find out who the heck McIntyre was and, best of all, in the book universe Lister enjoys a few blissful weeks with Kochanski before the Big Blowup.

The scene describing how Dave The Dumped felt are the most minimalist and poetic tribute to love lost that I've ever read.

It's so good, in fact, that I'll quote it here, in the hope you go out and buy the book:

He’d been not going out with Kochanski now for three weeks.

The whole affair, the glorious ‘forever’ he’d imagined, had lasted just over a month. Then one evening in her sleeping quarters, as Lister arrived to take her to a movie, she’d told him she wanted to break it off. He’d laughed. He thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t.

She’d been seeing ‘Tom’ (or was it ‘Tim’?), a Flight Navigation Officer, for almost two years. Tom or Tim (it may have been Tony) had left her for a fling with some brunette in Catering. And Lister had been a rebound thing. She hadn’t realised it at first, but when Tom, Tim, Tony or Terry, or whatever the smeg he was called, had turned up at her door, having dumped the brunette in Catering, she’d gone scurrying back.

There were tears, there were apologies, and pathetic clichéd platitudes: they could still be friends; if he met Trevor, he’d really like him she wished she were two people so she could love both of them ad nauseum.

She’d returned the blue jumper he’d left. She’d returned his DAT tapes, and offered to give back the necklace he’d bought her, which, of course, he’d declined.

And that was that.

Except it wasn’t. Because now she was everywhere. Everything he did, he did without her. Everywhere he went, he went without her. When he went shopping, he didn’t go shopping, he went shopping without Kochanski. When he went to the bar, he went to the bar without Kochanski. She’d infected every part of his life. His mental map of the ship now judged all distances in relation to her sleeping quarters, or the Drive Room, where she worked. He wasn’t walking on such-and-such a corridor, he was walking on such-and-such a corridor which was n floors above or n floors below where she was at that precise moment.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Red Dwarf - Back to Earth

I'm certainly Back To Earth with a thud. There I was, believing it was Red Dwarf Season 10 I was watching (having inexplicably missed Season 9, claimed in one of the new episodes to be the best of the series), when...

... it ended.

3 episodes was all we got.

And a quick ruffle through the Net assured me there was no Season 9.

And a quick ruffle through my dusty video cupboard assured me all the tapes of Red Dwarf Seasons 1 through to 8 were AWOL. So much for videos never being lost!

And so, it's back to the book. It's even better than the TV series anyway.

And if I want to watch something, there is always "It's a wonderful life" and the Flintstones cartoons, LOL.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Confession 1: I am NOT a shopaholic. The idea of spending more than 10 minutes buying something (including groceries, shoes and Prada outfits, but excluding books) is enough to make me break out in dollar-shaped hives.

Confession 2: I loved the book - I'm talking about Sophie Kinsella's "Confessions of a Shopaholic", of course. When I read it, I felt slightly guilty about enjoying it so much, a bit like a health fanatic gulping down Coke and French fries. And I was immensely relieved to find out the author's true identity (ok, so this may be fluff, but the woman can write good books too, LOL).

Confession 3: Having hated the last 10 or so movies I started to watch, like Club Tropicana and Burn After Reading (which should have been titled "Burn Before Watching"), I'm wondering whether what I need is a chick flick. OK, so "Sex and the City" wasn't great, but I enjoyed re-seeing St Elmo's Fire....

Question: Did any of the readers see the movie, and would it be suitable for my 6-year old girl who loved Mamma Mia but wasn't allowed to watch Grease because of its sensuality?