Following on from discussions earlier in the week, I’ve set up a discussion list as a sort of online book club. It’s called All About The Words, and if you’re interested, the details are below.
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Thanks to Jane for pointing this out to me. I think it demonstrates nicely that no matter how many books you read, there are always lots more waiting to be read.
Books I’ve read are in bold, books I’ve given up on are struck through, and ones that I will go back to and finish off at some stage are in italics.
* Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
* Anna Karenina
* Crime and Punishment
* Catch-22
* One Hundred Years of Solitude
* Wuthering Heights
* The Silmarillion
* Life of Pi : a novel
* The Name of the Rose
* Don Quixote
* Moby Dick
* Ulysses
* Madame Bovary
* The Odyssey
* Pride and Prejudice
* Jane Eyre
* The Tale of Two Cities
* The Brothers Karamazov
* Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
* War and Peace
* Vanity Fair
* The Time Traveler’s Wife
* The Iliad
* Emma
* The Blind Assassin
* The Kite Runner
* Mrs. Dalloway
* Great Expectations
* American Gods
* A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
* Atlas Shrugged
* Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
* Memoirs of a Geisha
* Middlesex
* Quicksilver
* Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
* The Canterbury tales
* The Historian : a novel
* A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
* Love in the Time of Cholera
* Brave New world
* The Fountainhead
* Foucault’s Pendulum
* Middlemarch
* Frankenstein
* The Count of Monte Cristo
* Dracula
* A Clockwork Orange
* Anansi Boys
* The Once and Future King
* The Grapes of Wrath
* The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
* 1984
* Angels & Demons
* The Inferno
* The Satanic Verses
* Sense and Sensibility
* The Picture of Dorian Gray
* Mansfield Park
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
* To the Lighthouse
* Tess of the D’Urbervilles
* Oliver Twist
* Gulliver’s Travels
* Les Misérables
* The Corrections
* The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
* Dune
* The Prince
* The Sound and the Fury
* Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
* The God of Small Things
* A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
* Cryptonomicon
* Neverwhere
* A Confederacy of Dunces
* A Short History of Nearly Everything
* Dubliners
* The Unbearable Lightness of Being
* Beloved
* Slaughterhouse-five
* The Scarlet Letter
* Eats, Shoots & Leaves
* The Mists of Avalon
* Oryx and Crake : a novel
* Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
* Cloud Atlas
* The Confusion
* Lolita
* Persuasion
* Northanger Abbey
* The Catcher in the Rye
* On the Road
* The Hunchback of Notre Dame
* Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
* Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
* The Aeneid
* Watership Down
* Gravity’s Rainbow
* The Hobbit
* In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
* White Teeth
* Treasure Island
* David Copperfield
* The Three Musketeers
Anyone fancy an online bloggers book club? Does one already exist that I’ve managed to overlook?
Any suggestions of books to read?
The typical image of a city worker, he was sat at a table in the coffee shop window: filo fax pen, monogrammed pen in hand, glasses, talking loudly on his mobile phone. Just one thing deviates him from the stereotype: the blue and white bike leathers with day-glow knee patches.
The father and daughter sit together at the table by the window, keeping an eye on the bikes they have left propped up outside. He drinks his coffee from a paper cup, she sips through a straw at a double chocolate frappé (a milk shake by any other name). They don’t talk, they don’t smile. They drink up and leave, pushing their bikes around the corner.
In the corner of the room a young man, somewhere in his late twenties, sits on the brown leather sofa and reads. The book has a single word title: ORCS. All capitals. His sunglasses rest on the table before him, his beanie hat pulled so low as to almost obscure his eyes. an occasional smile plays across his lips as he reads something funny. I look away as he looks up, trying to disguise the smile on my face that results from him being really rather cute, in a rugged sort of way.
Another group of men, in dark suits and ties, walk past. There are a lot of the around today, and their demeanour suggests a funeral. They walk slowly, but with purpose, not distracted by the colour and noise around them.
Outside the shop, a young boy on a bike sets of the alarm on a motorbike parked outside. A look of panic can be seen on his face as his mouth forms the word “DAD!”. The motorbike’s owner looks resigned as he walks outside to stop the alarm.
Mr City Motorcyclist finally hangs up the phone and gathers his belongings together. He’s been in the shop for half an hour, and still hasn’t bought anything. He starts to scramble among his things, looking on the floor and under chair cushions…his wallet has gone missing. After a frantic few minutes, it turns up…in his bum bag.
I was at a radio recording last night, with S and D, for the Unbelievable Truth. After the recording finished we went around the back in the hope of spotting the producer of the show, and also the producer of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, Jon Naismith, to ask him if he had any news as to how Humph was getting on following his admission to hospital. And Jon broke the news to us that Humph had died earlier in the evening, surrounded by family and friends.
Humph was a legend, for his jazz and for his comedy. I was fortunate enough to see him play live with his band a few times, and many times as I followed the I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue recordings and shows around the country.
His shows with the band were marvellous. Not only was the music fantastic (and of my all time favourite albums is one of Humph’s, the one that this site takes it’s name from) but Humph was a born showman, his stories, jokes and anecdotes making the evening into something extra special. A particular favourite moment of mine was his demonstration on how he livened up his performance by introducing some ‘moves’, I will never be able to listen to “I like to go back in the evening” without picturing him in my head and smiling.
With I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, Humph was the spark that made the show majestic. His weary resignation as to what was going on around him, his glorious one-liners, his asides to the audience when something went a bit pear shaped, his ‘loathing’ of Colin Sell’s musical ability and his relationship with the lovely Samantha all worked together to create, what Jon Naismith always introduced him as: The jazz musician’s jazz musicians’s jazz musician’s panel game chairman.
Humph was always happy to talk to fans at the stage door, or sign a book or have his photo taken. He was an extremely friendly man, full of great enthusiasm, passion and fun. He will be sorely missed.
—
Previous meetings with Humph: This is an Encore and Yeah, Yeah,Yeah! Ha,Ha! Yukahtya Fren Dafu!
My thoughts and love go out to all of Humph’s family, friends, band, colleagues and fans.
Word has come from Jon Naismith (the producer of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, and other other top class radio shows) that the jazz musician’s jazz muscian’s jazz musician’s panel game chairman, Humphrey Lyttelton, is currently in hospital for an operation to repair an aortic aneurysm. We’re told that he’s in good spirits, but we’re sending get well soon messages his way. Get better soon Humph!
One of the best things about moving out of the middle of nowhere and closer to “The City” is the improved ease of going to an event just because you fell like it, without needing to plan things in advance or worry about getting home again afterwards. Therefore, when I was wandering around Leicester square the other evening and happened to walk past the comedy store, I decided to pop in and see what things were like. The evening’s event was a “Beat the Gong” event, something that I had never been to before, and wasn’t sure what to expect from it.
For others who have never experienced a Gong show before, it’s a fairly simple concept. The wannabe comedians have to survive on stage for 5 minutes without being gonged off. They can be gonged off by the MC for time wasting, or a number of other petty misdemeanours, but the main power to gong someone off lies in the hands of the audience. Three random people were selected from the crowd and issued with red cards, if all three red cards go up in the air, the wannabe is gonged.
Surviving the full time on stage is a difficult thing to do: five minutes is a long time in comedy and the audience is a fickle mistress. On this particular night only five of the 20+ to take the stage managed to avoid the gong, and that was despite a couple of comedians who, at the request of the audience, were given second (and in one case third) chances. Of those that made it through, the audience then selected it’s ultimate favourite who will go on to other things.
A good MC for the night is crucial to keep everything working and keep the audience laughing. This particular night, the MC was Ben Norris and he did a fantastic job. When I spoke to a few people in the crowd, people seemed to be of the opinion that they would quite happily have paid the £5 entrance just for his bits…all the other would be comedians were a bonus.
As a note to anyone who likes the idea of taking part in a gong event: it’s a great place to try and find out if you have the makings of a comedian, and build up some stage confidence. But, don’t insult the audience, don’t make references to the inner workings of the body (male or female) and don’t be too vulgar (crude and rude is fine, but careful with the vulgarity). But the most important thing: there are three judges in the audience at any time, don’t be put off because one doesn’t like you. too many of the acts had one red card against them, reacted defensively to this and floundered a bit…and that caused the other two cards to go up. Ignore the cards, focus on general audience opinion instead.
All in all, a gong show is a good night out, but don’t expect the kind of quality of humour you’d get from a more traditional show.
This post has also appeared at The Laughter Track. Take a look.
You know I said I wanted a knitting pattern for an Adipose? Well, I got impatient and tried to work out my own. I’m going to try to refine the pattern and make a better one. I’ll let you know how it gets on. If anyone’s interested, let me know and I’ll try to replicated my written notes on the pattern into knit speak.
…well it didn’t look like that when I went to bed last night.
Well, what did everyone think?
And bonus points for the first person to get me a knitting pattern to make a baby Adipose :)
