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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, The Necropolis Railway – Andrew Martin (pages 8704-8934)

The Necropolis Railway was a book I bought in a second hand bookshop on a whim a few weeks ago. It’s a murder mystery set on the turn of the 20th century steam railways. Specifically it concerns the Necropolis Railway of the title. This was a real thing which was set up during the mid-19th century as a way of dealing with the overcrowding in central London cemeteries by moving funerals and burials to a large graveyard outside London. The transport to do this was the Necropolis Railway.

This book is set in the winter of 1903 when Jim Stringer, a humble porter from Yorkshire moves to London having accepted the offer of a job as an engine cleaner working for the London Necropolis Company. This he hopes is the start of a career path leading to becoming a driver being the pinnacle of achievement in his view. However almost from the start he comes up against hostility from the other men working on the railway. He also discovers that there have been a number of mysterious apparently accidental deaths. Further intrigue, and deaths follow and he finds himself investigating what he’s now sure is a series of murders.

The thing I should say straight away is that I’m not particularly a steam train fan. Martin clearly is and that’s OK. One of the delights of reading is to put yourself in the head of someone who thinks differently to you, likes things you don’t etc. However I had thought that I’d learn something as I went along but Martin pretty much assumes you know an awful lot of the technology, as well as some of the period details. My policy these days with books is to plough on and assume it will all become clear. This is a book where I might have benefited from pausing to check Wikipedia every now and then. Or perhaps not, I got the gist.

I can’t comment on the accuracy of the period feel but I can say that it was recognisably different from the modern day. So that awful thing of 21st century people projected back into historical contexts that you sometimes see wasn’t a problem here.

The plot trundles along quite well. I found it a little slow to start but it picks up about a third of the way in. The romantic interest when it turned up was well done I thought. Again, different to modern eyes but not a cliche either. The murder mystery plot was pretty good though I guessed most of the reason behind the killings. There did seem to be a lot of explanation in the last couple of pages which left it feeling like the next book (there’s a series of these) might continue the story, but from what I gather despite having the same hero it’s its own story.

7/10 – not enough of a steam buff to really love this but had fun anyway.

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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 Pages 2011, 11.22.63 – Stephen King (pages 7637 – 8489)

After I read Under the Dome earlier in the year I said to myself that I probably wouldn’t read another Stephen King novel. However I heard about this on Newsnight Review and was seduced by the concept and by the generally favourable comments on the writing. Also buoyed by my latest burst of enthusiasm for reading I didn’t feel intimidated by the length so I thought why not?

11.22.63 is a novel that centres around the assassination of John F. Kennedy on that date. However it’s a work of fiction and science fiction at that. A man who owns a diner in 2011 discovers in his store-room a kind of portal, what he calls a ‘rabbit-hole’ referring to Alice in Wonderland, that you can step through and be back in 1958. He convinces a friend of his, a school-teacher to go through the rabbit-hole, live in the past and then attempt to prevent the shooting of JFK.

I said that this was a science fiction book but as with Under the Dome King has a story he wants to tell and a way of setting it up which he cursorily describes – the time-travel is largely the later. It’s noteworthy that he chose not a time machine which could be targeted at a particular time but a naturally occurring (though presumably rare) phenomenon which a fixed exit point in time – September 9th 1958. This is worth pointing out because King makes it impossible for his hero to do anything other than spend 5 years in the past in order to achieve his goal. So really there are a few things this book could be/is about:

  • time-travel and its consequences, inherent paradoxes etc
  • what everyday life was like in late ’50s/early ’60s America
  • the events leading up to the assassination, and in particular the movements of one Lee Harvey Oswald
  • an alternate history story of what the world would have been like if the assassination attempt had failed.

And 11.22.63 covers all of these to a greater or lesser extent. However I think it’s fair to say if you’re more interested in the time-travel specifics or the alternate history than say Oswald and the 60s then you may not enjoy this book.

As it was I enjoyed it more than Under the Dome but still felt it was a little long. The book is split into sections and in the first there is a fair bit about the rabbit-hole, how it works and whether it’s possible to change the past at all (it is but “the past is obdurate” we discover). Then there’s the central section which involves the main trip back to 1958 and the following 5 years. This itself is split between a story of our protagonist actually living in the past – where he lives, the job he does, friends he makes, the woman he loves – and his attempts to track Oswald and gather the information he needs to stop him. The former I enjoyed, the later was over-developed in my opinion. I realise King has done lots of research and read lots of books but I really don’t need most of that information.

Of course these two stories inevitably come together and climax at the date in question.

I feel like there’s a really good 500-page novel in here. I’d cut a lot of the Oswald background details. I’d also trim down the story of how they prove that the past is changeable – which is almost a novel in itself. At 853 pages it tested my patience but I still came out enjoying it overall.

A couple of stray points. It’s noteworthy that whilst the hero is 35 in 2011 a sense of nostalgia pervades some of the descriptions of the past (like how wonderful the root beer tastes) and I think that’s because King was 11 in 1958. Also there are some references to other King novels – this is something he does apparently, I remember M. telling me that there are references in Under the Dome to characters in The Stand. Here the descriptions of the town of Derry, as if the place itself had some sort of supernatural malevolence, confused me slightly. Apparently if I’d read other works by King I’d’ve got the reference.

Finally worth pointing out, because it’s easy to forget and I did, that although there’s not much violence in the book when it does appear it’s pretty graphic. I was reading it wondering if it was strictly necessary then remembered I was reading an author best known for horror fiction.

Anyway – long book, long review, time to stop.

7/10 – a bit of a slog but worth it.

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reviews

A Tale of Two Board Games

As you know I just spent a few days with M. as a sort of holiday. We went out for a day to the seaside, we went to a play, went out for meals and also played some games.

What happened was one night when we were in M. wanted to play Risk, which we did (I won – yay!), but to be honest my enthusiasm for Risk used to be huge when I was a student but these days I am daunted by it being a potentially hours-long game because of the open-ended nature (you play until someone wins). Also it can be less satisfying for just two people. As it happens the game we played didn’t fall into either of these pitfalls that night but when we discussed repeating the experience we ended up deciding to look into buying a new game or games.

Which is how we ended up visiting a games shop in Greenwich Market and purchasing two games – one chosen by me, one by M. We played both over the next couple of days, here’s my verdict:
Carcassonne (M.’s choice) – Carcassonne is a tile-laying game. It’s named after a town in France and the idea is that you pick a tile from a pile, which are face down, and place it where it connects to the existing tiles. As the tiles have roads, junctions, fields, cities and cloisters on them, it’s a question of making sure that your tile’s edges matches the one(s) you’re placing it against. Whilst there is a rule about what to do if there’s no legal move, in the games we played (4 or 5) that never happened.

Once you’ve place your tile you can optionally place one of your “men” on it to occupy it according to its type – as a farmer, thief (for the road), knight (city) or monk. You earn points for these men when the various map objects are completed – e.g. when a city becomes complete.

I really enjoyed Carcassonne. The things I liked about it were that it’s easy to pick up the rules but that doesn’t preclude some serious play. It works well for just two players. Finally, as the game ends when all tiles are placed, there’s an inbuilt time limit which for us was about 45-60mins.

There are apparently several variations and expansions and I look forward to playing them sometime.

9/10

A Friend Helping Us Play Fresco

Fresco (my choice) – a game based around the idea of being a renaissance artist restoring a cathedral fresco. You are a Master Painter with a number of apprentices. Each day you assign your apprentices a number of tasks – buying paint, mixing paint, painting portraits to earn money, restoring the cathedral, visiting the theatre (to keep their mood up). You first get to decide what time you want them to get up in the morning, which affects their mood, how much you’ll pay for paint but also its availability and so on.

The rules are not too hard to pick up though not as quick as Carcassonne. If you like having lots of different pieces, cards and a complicated board to play with — it’s what made me choose it — then that is something in its favour. It was quite complex strategically because you had to think about how best to use your limited resources and time – whether for instance to achieve points this time by restoring part of the fresco or spend time and money on mixing paint to be used next round. M. liked that aspect of it.

It also has an inbuilt time limit in that there are a fixed number of pieces of the fresco to restore. However in the one game we completed it took maybe a couple of hours and I voted to abandon the second game (in favour of Carcassonne) because of the time element.

I also found that I didn’t like that some “individual” actions required fiddling with several pieces. For example buying paint would involve taking a card from the paint store “booth”, removing your apprentice piece from your action card, paying your money pieces to the common supply, retrieving the paint pieces (usually two or three) and finally removing any remaining cards from the same booth (for some reason buying from one booth “closed” it down to any other player). I’d often go to take all the cards from a booth (2 or 3) to do that in one go but then I’d have to remember which card was the one I wanted to buy the colours for when I went to pick the paint pieces. It all felt a bit fiddly for what was one discreet game action. But maybe that’s just me.

I did however enjoy it and I think it would be better with 3 or 4 players.

7/10

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6000 pages reading

6000 Pages

Something a little more positive.

Up until a couple of days ago I was all set to launch “20 books”. This was to reflect a change in priorities of my reading goals. As I said in the wrap-up of 25 books, last year I wanted to read more widely – hence different genres, authors and so on. This year I mainly want to concentrate on reading a little more, and spreading it out a little more. My idea was to have a target of 20 books but with points for longer books so that overall I read more.

Whilst I was considering writing this up, I realised that a better way to do this is to set the goal for the number of pages. Last year I read just under 5000 pages, so let’s aim for 6000. The reason this is better is also partly to do with my spreadsheet. My 25 books spreadsheet (as well as the 20 books one I had begun) is based on the one I created a couple of years ago for my Harry Potter marathon. I had in effect merely expanded the number of books and the time period. But that was for a specific goal – to read all books by a particular date. It was therefore a good thing to be able to see what page of what book I should be on and how close to that I was.

But applying that to a whole year didn’t work as well. It meant that at any one time I could only really have one book on the go. I had no way of counting reading time for a book I set aside and then later finished. Also once I was reasonably far behind (as I soon was) the ‘target’ figures became meaningless in terms of motivation. Knowing I should be 4 books ahead of where I was it didn’t make much odds which page I was on!(1)

But by making it about pages – and designing a new spreadsheet accordingly – I can count all my reading. I can have more than one book on the go at once(2). I can monitor my targets in terms of pages read, pages/day, days read etc. It’s also much simpler.

The New Rules

So here’s the new scoring rules. They are designed to give me a stretch, to hopefully allow a similar score to last year for a similar amount of effort (so I can aim to ‘beat’ my score, even if the basis is entirely different) and they are aimed at the underlying goals of reading more and more often.

1. Page count – my goal is 6000 pages but my benchmark is 5000, just above last year’s. For every 100 pages above or below 5000 add or deduct 1 point.

2. Days read – last year I managed 71 days. Adding a fortnight to that makes a nice round 85. For every day above or below 85 add or deduct 1 point – upto a maximum of +15 or minimum of -10.

3. Book length – last year my average book was 274pages. I always felt like I was looking for short books that I could finish quickly. That felt a little like cheating. So this year I can gain points for reading longer books. Round up the average page count to the nearest 5 and:

  • 0-250pages – -1 point
  • 251-300pages – 0 points
  • 301-325pages – 1 point
  • 326-375pages – 2points
  • 375-500pages – 5points
  • 500+pages – 10points

Knowing how a few low scores bring an average down(3) I suspect I’ll find it hard to get more than 2 points – but that’s ok.

4. Only one unfinished book counts. I expect this to be the last one. It means I don’t have to race to finish whatever I happen to be in the middle of on 31-dec (unless I want to)

Not really a scoring rule, but a goal is to not get more than 1 book behind on writing them up in the blog. So before starting book 5 for example I really ought to have written up book 3. I use the example of 5 and 3 because I am on book 3 and haven’t written up book 1 yet – but hopefully I’ll put that right tomorrow.

(1) Actually this was a little bit of a problem with the Harry Potter books too. If you remember I wanted to finish book 5 before the movie came out and that meant I needed to be well ahead of where the targets otherwise said I should be

(2) I don’t generally like to do this anyway but it’s surprising how many times I would have liked the flexibility.

(3) Whenever I make the 275mile trip back to my parents, I usually entertain myself by keeping track of my average speed. The journey is 10 miles of town traffic with the rest on the motorways. I’m always amazed by how long you have to go at 80 to raise the average speed to something decent when it’s been affected by the initial stretch (averaging 10-15)

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, Book 10 – Starting Over – Tony Parsons

Starting Over is another very readable, ‘funny’ book where I don’t quite get the humour but don’t mind. It’s by Tony Parsons who I’ve read before but can remember almost nothing about the last book of his I read. I bought Starting Over on the way back from a visit to M.’s to read on the train and partly out of frustration with my then current book (The Book Thief, now officially a Set Aside I guess).

Starting Over is the story of a forty-something man whose life is pretty good apart from his congenital heart problem. He has a good job, a lovely/loving wife and good relationships with his kids. Then he has a heart attack, a heart transplant and has to rebuild his life. He almost doesn’t manage it.

And the reason he has to rebuild his life is not because he has to re-gain his health, it’s because, having been given a new lease of life and health he almost wrecks what he has.

This book is all about what it means to be young, to be old and to ‘grow up’. Whether to ‘settle down’ means abandoning your dreams or whether ‘following your dream’ can actually be immaturity and lack of responsibility. It raises these questions and gives the answers that you probably think that it does – which is to say it doesn’t try to answer them to explicitly but as far as it does comes down somewhere in the middle.

I enjoyed this book, though it pushed some of my buttons given that I’m slightly younger than the main character and slightly older than his wife – but unlike him I’m pretty much on my own.

Anyway that aside, I think it’s a good book. It’s not terribly profound but it’s readable and occasionally funny. It feels like it has rather too many ‘meaningful’ scenes towards the end and the very end is a little predictable (or do I mean comforting?)

7/10 – good but not amazing.

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, book 2: I am Legend

I had a dilemma as whether to include this book or not in my 25 Books list. You see I didn’t actually read this, I listened to an audio book version of it. An abridged version as broadcast on Radio 7. However since I’m lagging seriously on my books (I should be onto book 5 or 6 by now) I’m allowing it. After all it is a book and I spent the time to “read” (i.e. listen to it). But I’m adding a rule that I can have a couple of audio books.

By the way on that whole “I’m way behind” thing look for an upcoming blog post, hopefully later today.

Anyway to this book.

I first became aware of “I am Legend” in the credits to the 1971 movie “The Omega Man”. The movie, based fairly loosely on the book, is about a man living alone in a world devastated by a world-wide plague that killed 95% of the population and left the remaining few as pale-skinned… well what they are is an interesting point but let’s just say they can only come out at night and they’re no longer quite human, and definitely not friendly.

Anyhow I enjoyed the film – though it was a bit dated – and always intended one day to go back to the book. I intended this even more after the recent Will Smith remake of the film – which I’ve not yet seen. And now I finally have read/listened to the book.

I enjoyed it but it wasn’t the big step up from the movie that I thought it might be. It was better in some ways but less satisfying in others.

This kind of story – last man left alive – has always appealed to me, both as a reader and a writer. In fact I did, during Eurofiction, write a story that was compared by the judges to I am Legend. It was one of my two highest scoring stories but not one I was particularly proud of. I think the appeal – which is obviously not unique to me – is that one can easily imagine oneself as alone in the world. Being alone aside from hostile not-quite-human creatures can easily become a metaphor for “No-one really gets me, I feel as if I’m all alone”.

The book was written in 1954 and it betrays its era in a couple of ways, notably its handling of sex. It’s actually quite coy on details to a modern eye/ear whilst maintaining a tone that suggests it knows it’s being shocking – which I guess it would have been. At times it felt like what I imagine an old-fashioned bodice-ripper would be like – lots of “heat rising in his loins” and so on. There’s a discussion of Neville’s frustrated desires, but absolutely no mention, nor even implication, of masturbation as a release.

One thing it does, which I imagine was fairly new in 1954 but has become almost a cliche since, is to give us a “scientific” explanation of a classic mythical monster. And this is where it diverges from the movie (ok, more properly the movie diverges from the book) because it explicitly calls the plague victims “vampires” whereas in the movie they’re not – at least I don’t recall any fangs or bloodsucking. I actually quite enjoy this trope and Matheson does it well, though it has been done better since.

The story is fairly slow-moving. There are some fast paced moments of fleeing from or fighting his vampire foes, but there are also long passages, discussions of how he survives, of his scientific theorising, in which not a lot happens. I actually didn’t mind but I can imagine some readers being impatient.

The ending is another area where the book differs from the 1971 movie (and the 2007 one is different again I believe). I actually think the movie ending is the better one – but I won’t spoil either.

6/10 – enjoyable but a bit dated and not quite a classic.

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25 books book reading reviews

25 Books, Book 1: The Servants by M.M. Smith

The Servants by M.M. Smith
The Servants by M.M. Smith

This is the first of my “25 Books” proper which I started to read on the 7th Jan 2009. I finished it on the 10th which was actually quite a long time since it’s fairly short. But that shouldn’t mislead you, I enjoyed it a lot, it’s just I was away that weekend.

Firstly I should say that “M.M. Smith” is yet another pseudonym for Michael Marshall Smith who writes fantasy/sci-fi under that name and crime fiction as Michael Marshall. I haven’t read any of the later because it’s pretty violent and I’m a little squeamish, but M. tells me it’s very good. I did enjoy his first book Only Forward which has a very particular (and funny) voice and is very inventive.

It was interesting to read this immediately after Slam because it’s also a book in which the main character is a boy, in this case he’s 11. Again it raises the question of whether it’s aimed at readers of that age. Again I think it’s written in a way they could follow but it’s also perfectly accessible to older readers too.

The Servants follows the story of Mark, his mum and stepdad, David. They’ve moved from London to Brighton. They’re living in a big house owned by David. In the basement there’s a tiny flat in which an old lady lives. Mark befriends her and she shows him something very interesting and special.

I really liked this book. I liked it because the writing, the setting and the story are very simple. I tend to like things that are simple, classic and unfussy and this has that feel. There are really only 4 characters, most of the action takes place inside the house and it’s all very simply written.

I also liked it because it does something that I admire. It lets us see through the eyes of a character things that that character himself does not see. To me that’s clever writing. It means that we see David as a bit more sympathetic than Mark does, which makes Mark in danger of seeming a little brattish. However he mellows and without giving anything away, he eventually sees it too.

I read something somewhere about it being a kind of ghost story but I don’t think it’s quite that. However it does have the atmosphere of a ghost story and there is a fantastical element to it.

The key to living anywhere is to know how to live there – just ask any snail.

9/10 – simply written but moving story.

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reviews

Merlin (or “Camelot the Early Years”)

Ok so that’s not original but clearly, the BBC’s new flashy drama Merlin is a Smallville for medieval times. You’ve got the younger versions of the main characters, not necessarily settled in their hero/villain roles (Arthur’s a jerk, Morgana seems ok), nor in their eventual romantic configurations yet (Arthur fancies Morgana, as does our young wizard, though there’s some Guenivere-Merlin banter that must be going somewhere). The formula works (for Smallville, time will tell for Merlin) because you get to play with people’s expectations whilst having a sense of familiarity. Plus you can do all those oh-so-funny wink at the audience jokes such as Guenivere’s “Who on earth would want to marry a king?” line.

I enjoyed it but it felt padded. They really overdid the setting up the fact that a) Merlin and Arthur not getting along and b) Merlin can move things with his mind. Maybe the budget was overstretched by the CGI dragon (not that great to be honest) but some of the later seemed rather minor and once the point had been made (e.g. by saving the falling Gauis) I’d’ve cut the others.

I also can’t quite understand why you’d cast Richard Wilson as the mentor when you’ve got frikkin’ Giles on the payroll! Failing that (and allowing for the fact that possibly Tony Head wanted to do something different) you’ve got John Hurt, although he may have just signed up for the voice work knowing that it would be a lesser commitment.

Having said that I did enjoy enough of it to watch again. Eve Myles did a great job in making the witch creepy and threatening – enough for a saturday teatime audience anyhow – and I enjoyed the ‘spell-singing’ at the end.

Overall – a bit of nonsense with enough about it to keep me watching, for now – 6/10

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Flubbage

Sorry about the title. It’s not a reference to Flubber honest. It’s sort of inspired by “phlebotinum” mixed with a desperate desire not to entitle this “Random Musings #23916753″[1]

It’s also an attempt to not let a week go by without posting. A week would be tomorrow, but well there’s a rare event – Paul leaves the house for other than work or shopping – happening tomorrow and so I probably won’t be blogging then.

Actually I almost blogged at the weekend, until I realised that I was about to unload a load of personal angst on you all. Which is fine and everything (it IS my blog) but I sort of decided I was going to keep the ratio of personal to interesting low didn’t I? Then I thought I’d review something, but the only ‘something’ I could really review would have been Doctor Who and that was exactly the wrong kind of terrible to write about (bad but not enough to inspire me to be rude or funny). Still, recalling Dr Kermode’s wise words (3rd para) maybe I should make the effort anyway. Here goes:

It was crap. Brain in hand, looked a little too much like other small pink moist organ in hand. It was vaguely sexual in a not very pleasant way. Plot had enough holes to upset even me. Moral dilemma really forced. Nice music. Nice scenery (snowy bits). Nice, though pointless, chase scene.

That’s all I can force myself to say, Kermode or no Kermode.

Anyhow. The remaining 23% of this flubbage is that I have at least re-visited my neglected LoveFilm DVD rental queue and added a few new releases and upcoming movies. Also added The Nines as suggested by friend of the blog lethebashar. Hopefully there’s something in that little lot that I can get my reviewing teeth into.

Oh and I got a package in the post today. I haven’t opened it yet, but it’s from my sister and is probably related to going-out-event (see above). It looks suspiciously like a book/books, which makes me think

a) I really ought to finish at least one of the three books she gave me for Christmas.[2]

b) Maybe the occasional book review wouldn’t hurt.

Anywhat, [3] I haven’t done any actual writing since last week’s moment of clarity, but then I have been working on something else. A rather ambitious project to do with resisting the passage of time. Seems not to be working, the final proof will come in a few hours I suspect.

Sorry if this seems a bit fillery but flubbage can be like that. Flubb, flubb, flubb.

See you next time.

[1]Even though, now that I look at it, that sort of looks like a better title. Oh well.

[2]At my suggestion, I asked for books because this crazy idea that I was going to write and reading’s important and…

[3]Makes a change from ‘anyhow’ don’t you think?

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flubbage

Yeah, I had a blog once…

So last night, I came home from work inspired (sort of) to write in my blog. I was going to talk about how long it’s been since I’ve written[1] and probably I still will, but what happened was that I started reading my blog. I went back to last summer’s Harry Potter read-a-thon and read all the posts through to present from there. And you know what? it’s really inspired me.

To blog.

What I was going to (and still am intending to) blog about was how much I enjoyed writing writing. But what I realised is I really like blogging. I just like giving my opinion on stuff and you know what, on a good day, with a fair wind, I think I’m halfway decent at making it entertaining.

So if nothing else I want to re-re-re-re-RE-launch this blog. Which is to say I want to do a bunch of simple stuff to promote it (like actually having it in my sig for online stuff) and I want to try to update it more often.

Random thoughts so far on the new new new NEW Cheese Never Sleeps[2] –

* actually put it in my sig for the two places I post most online – AFO and SoF.

* post on other blogs – not in a blatant, pseudo-spam, hey-please-please-read-my-blog kind of way but I already read certain blogs on topics I’m interested in. Since I’m interested in reading about them I may well blog about them. So it’s not horribly impossible that these other bloggers might want to discuss the same types of stuff on my blog too.

* post mainly about non-personal stuff. Ruminating on my inner feelings about the lint I found in my sock this morning isn’t, it appears that fascinating to others. I’ve had over 5 years (5 YEARS!) of blogging behind me to build up a loyal following of, er, one regular reader. There is a fighting chance that people will read about stuff they’re already into – films, TV programs, books – see previous point. Maybe, once I’ve snared them, they may just become interested in what makes me tick. But until I do, I think it’s safe to say I’m just talking to M.

*so I’ll write reviews. I’ve discovered that whilst I hate some things about it, I actually do love to write. And of course I love fiction and I think/hope/dream that I’ve got some readable fiction in me. But what I really really love is writing reviews for stuff. I mean going on and on about my opinions – what’s not to love?[3]

* what’ll I review? Well anything I feel like. Probably not the Buffy re-watch thing. Not right now anyway. It’s just too huge a commitment and it’s still too close to the time that I discussed every single episode from every angle imaginable. There are always movies, books (if I ever finish any! lately that’s an issue) and other TV shows. Joss Whedon’s new one, Dollhouse, will arrive in the autumn and I’m sure I’ll want to comment. Last year, when I was pondering the last re-re-re-launch of the blog, I considered a gimmick: review everything I watch/read/view for a week or a month. I may do that for a laugh some time.

So anyway, that’s all on that for now. This is probably ridiculously long given that it basically just says the blog is back. And I’ve probably got another couple of posts in me tonight.

Now where’s the post button again…

[1]written written not written in my blog written.

[2]I think I’m keeping the name. Can’t think of a better one right now.

[3]OK, for me nothing, for the reader, lots, but I promise I’ll try to rein it in a little