Arts For Old Pharts

NOOOOOOOOO, we haven't even seen the original one!!!!!!AArrgghhhhhhh, can I come over and watch it at your place??? biggrin]
I loved TLB, but haven't seen her latest

PS I'll bring some Jaffas.....

Mary did you watch 'Compass' last night on Channel 2. They interviewed Alexander McCall Smith on there and had snippets of the 'The Ladies Detective Agency' TV series.

Arrgghhhhhh

You are more than welcome Mary, with or without Jaffas...dark chocolate, however, is obligatory x

I heard an interview on the radio with him the other week Rolanda, he sounded a nice man, very well grounded.

Thanx André, I never go ANYWHERE without the dark chocolate.
I saw AMS in Perth, in Feb I think... a lovely man. He gave a talk at the Concert Hall, very funny, very self-deprecating. He cut a dapper figure in a white linen suit.

make that off-white.....

Just read The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie...not as cloying as its name suggests. There is already a Flavia de Luce fan club, not bad for a fictional 11 year old girl with an obsession for chemistry.

Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey, a brilliant coming of age novel. Wonderful.

Just finished reading The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold, a lovely book right until the last two pages. It seemed as though she couldn't be bothered to follow through with the beautiful/tragic imagery she had written on the previous pages. A bit dissapointing after The Lovely Bones.

Okay a new book about to be launched into the world forum called...wait for it...drum roll..."Global Warming and Other Bollocks" (not my title so I am writing as it is). It is written by two professors and expels some of the myths surrounding global warming, fat in our diets, organic food...and other matters that are being constantly being thrust down our throats, leaving us in a perpetual state of confusion...I'm going to eat some chocolate...

Wait for me....

...being constantly being...lurdy lurdy luk at me gramma...

Mary I've got some stashed for you x

We are still awaiting No.1 Ladies etc, but I DID manage to catch the third series of Torchwood through the agencies of a friend with Foxtel (a friend with Foxtel is a friend indeed). I am a sucker for T and loved the story. Apart from the regulars who are in a class of their own , the actors were terrific...some good old-fashioned British Bureaucratic Villians...they do them sooooo well. The age-old question....what would you do for your children... taken on a futuristic ride. Excellent!

Tonight I watched Freefall on the BBC. Wonderful programme reflecting the current situation on the recession and the wrongful selling of mortgages to those who could not afford. Very sobering indeed. Not sure if it will be available to overseas but if you can watch it. Mary your chocolate is waiting...

oh oh oh...I'm there....

Went to the 'Comedy Junction' last night and watched two comedians/comediennes doing their practise gigs for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival...Jo Caulfield and Geoff Norcott...so much humour, t'was quite wonderful. The wine was nice too...

Good humour, wine...all that was missing was the choccie....

Hi! Just popped in to catch up on the news - have to say we loved the latest Torchwood series! But will Captain Jack (like Aunty Jack)be back? - hate to go out on a sad note. Thought this season was terrific. :)

hey Judy, the future does look grim for Torchwood...let's keep our fingers crossed. There's a scream as he plummets a.....way

Wow, Mary, you are QUICK! I haven't even finished reading ...
I guess Jack could still turn up as a guest on Dr Who? No need to panic yet?

oooohhh, now THAT'S a thought, Judy....mmmmmmmmmm

Well I read 'On Chesil Beach', took me all of a couple of hours to get through it. I liked it but I was expecting something different for some reason. I'm now ploughing my way through Victoria Hislops 'The Return'. A meaty substance about the Spanish Civil War. I think it requires at least two chocolate bars to get through it. Gripping stuff though...

Hey André, have heard very mixed reviews about OCB. People seem to either love it or hate it.
The family size or the small ones? dark or milk? details, please!

Dark Mary..Fry's Chocolate Orange Cream. Split into pieces and tasted slowly...h'mmm

Just looking for another book to start reading - Mary Shelley's The Last Man, if I can find a copy somewhere. My reading head is back on...

probably bolted on like Frankenstein...

mmmmm Frys....It's not sold in the usual shops here, you have to go to the English Lolly Shops to purchase your fix. 'Coz my Mum was a Pom, we were introduced to it's delights early.....the mint is particularly nice....
Why the Shelley book?

It's funny you mentioned OCB bertie cos i loved it AND it's on my set text list for this semester... did you think that Florence was a victim?

Reading Milan Kundera's "Slowness" (The Unbearable Lightness of Being author)- at first I thought I may require the whole 1kg of Lindt balls (only 80 of them), but surprisingly i didn't.

80 Lindt balls!!!!!! Billy...I'm on my way!!!!!!!

Hello feet in the air lady xx I did like the book a great deal but I was expecting more ummphh!! (not like oompa loompas!!). Was Florence a victim? I think they both were, each holding a belief of how something should be... probably through being told and/or having read some 'I know best' guide to marital relationships written by some failing author who has never had a good relationship in their life...instead of a gentle exploration of each others likes and dislikes. They were unable to communicate to each other their innermost thoughts/feelings. I think that still holds true for a lot of relationships these days...perhaps if more people were open with each other their relationships would hold the test of time...Can I have lindt balls please...orange...and how is the new lady of Strange world? Are you feeling better sweetheart? xxx xcuse me terribel gramma xxx

I hate that 'More' button...

If you could mark me out of ten billy buttons...probably I would make a 2/10-good effort but lacks insight... but you must realise the effort I had to put in to write it all down in less than two minutes...with blemished glasses that need a good polish xxx

Mary...Shelley...my daughter's reading list for university. I try and plough my way through some of her 'must do' stuff and try to get an inkling of what she is talking about. Bearing in mind she is a straight A student and her mother is lacking in the basic skills she was taught at school. She smiles at me a lot, not sure if it is 'oh bless her she tries' or 'there is no hope for this one'. Love her to bits x

Never ever toast a lindt ball.

Or should that have been filed under "recipes"?

Before toasting or after Glinda?

hmmmmm, good one Glinda, whose proclivity to toasting everything in sight was bordering on the ever-so-slightly obsessive compulsive side. Is it a warning? is it because of past experience that you warn us so definitively? or do you think it is a wicked wicked act of toasting chocolate when it has already reached a state of perfection?

bertie - Florence/her father? abuse?

yes underlying tones billy...I wasn't sure if that could have been a little more explicit, not in detail but it was sort of hanging there?, as was Edwards controlled violence...also it was the beginning of the sixties - end of sexual repression but still not spoken of in certain terms, beautifully told...

Phillip Larkin's 'Annus Mirabilis'

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

and now I've bought William Dalrymple's 'White Mughals'...anyone read it? I have heard great things of it, and I am going to have plenty of time to read over the next week or so.

But have you enough Lindt balls????