not really dedicate the time to this i should have with being very busy this week with evening class drawing to a close and with my self not really keeping to top all the work i should have been doing thought out.
I did bash this out because all work an no play etc…
not really drafted this is the first idea visualized, was looking worn up in my thesaurus, then got worn out then got to shattered, and then this idea seem like a proficient metaphor to me.
I want to start writing reviews of books and other such stuff i find useful, the first must be Pocked Roget’s thesauruses…. more reason why this is so special soon
Harry Hill Fansite is celebrating its 2nd birthday today! Doesn’t time fly by! Over the last 2 years, there has been plenty of Harry news, which has been spread out to you, the Harry fans. With over 200 articles, over 60,000 views on the site and hits running into millions, it has grown and grown.
Harry has had a bumper year, with 25 episodes of TV Burp, high accolades for Harry, new books, Harry’s Nuts, standup galore and the launch of the much wanted TV Burp Gold DVD. On a more personal note, Harry has supported a number of charities and good causes, helping to raise the profile of many area.
For the site, it has been a great year. With the blossoming News Alert service offering the latest news to many and news coming from all directions, the website has had record numbers visiting each month. Back in February, HHF started its Twitter journey, with fans flocking to follow . With nearly 2,000, followers, it was very hard to imagine the service would be so popular, but the follower numbers have beat all expectations. If you are on Twitter, why not add us?
As well as this, the site itself has got involved in a variety of events over the year, supporting with Twitter and website theming, as well as , and many more! A personal favourite of the year has been finding , the makers of the now famous Knitted Character, who have helped to provide many adults and children alike with a much loved cuddly toy of their own.
Looking into the future, it looks like another great year for Harry, with more TV Burp already lined up, You’ve Been Framed back, Tim returning and much more. In addition to all this, Harry is returning to the past with his TV Burp Book, due out in October, that is going back to the days of the Harry Hill Funbook of the Channel 4 era.
Big things are planned for the future of Harry Hill Fansite. Currently, HHF is collaborating with British Comedy Guide in creating episode guides for the episodes of TV Burp, bringing you the highlights of episodes, recurring elements and background tips on the joking from the show. More news is always on the way, with more videos, picture specials, art and polls, with the maybe even a new forum!
Finally, a big thank you to all of the Harry fans that have helped make the site what it is. With your views, contributions and just visiting and joining, you have helped to create the number 1 Harry Hill fan website on the web, with the latest news and views. This is your site, so keep visiting, commenting and getting in contact.
Now we’ve actually jumped quite a few years forward here, because Nikolai and Marya now have two kids. Who are named, bizarrely enough, Natasha and Andrei. (Though the translation refers to little Andrei as Andryusha, which is a bit like a Russian nickname for Andrei, so you may not have realised straight away what his proper name was.)
This is on top of Andrei’s surviving son, who was also called Nikolai. Maybe it’s just Tolstoy’s way of showing how history repeats itself?
I don’t know.
I tell you what I do know, and that is that Nikolai is quite a sook, and I really was feeling sorry for Marya in this chapter.
But then again – hasn’t he always been? Do we expect him to change? Not really . . .
I tend to read several books “together”–fifty pages of this, thirty pages of that…Over the past couple of nights what have I been reading? BTW, I never read in the bathroom.
“Are Men Necessary?” by Maureen Dowd
“An Underground Education” by Richard Zacks
“The Best Alternate History Stories” Ed by HarryTurtledove
What have I finished this past month?
“Mozart” by Peter Gay
“The Portable Enlightenment Reader” (well three-quarters anyway)
Recent archeological works by Kathleen Kenyon discovered a wall surrounding the city of Jerusalem dating from the 18th century BC; water was diverted through underground canals from the fresh source of Guihon to Siloe cisterns inside the walls.
The sea people called Philistines had devastated the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, destroyed the nascent Greek fleet and settled in Gaza and the southern coastline of Palestine around the 12th century. The entire eastern coastline from north Syria to Sinai was dominated by the Canaanites. Thus, in southern Palestine the Canaanites had to flee northward and retreat inside toward Jerusalem, one of their 25 City-States. Jerusalem was then inhabited by over ten thousand urban dwellers, a huge number for the period.
Around 11th century BC Moses arrived with his nomadic tribes and his successors endeavored to settle in part of Palestine and battled with the Philistines. The Canaanites aristocracy aided David to enter Jerusalem and was his administrative supporters. David thus had two high priests (Ebyatar and Sadoq), two military leaders (Joab and Benayahou), and two heirs apparent (Adoniyyahou and Salomon). David had also two formal sanctuaries for the Jews and the Canaanites. David adopted the God of the Land El and the demy-Gods of the Sun (Shahar) and the Moon (Shalem) were worshipped. The Jewish Yahweh (God of thunders) was relegated to the background and played a support function in times of urgent need.
The Jews had no such concept of “throne” and the Canaanite aristocracy provided a throne to David and his solar God was Justice personified and a divinity of the order “sadeq”; thus, Milki Sadeq was the King of Jerusalem when Abraham came to Canaan and paid the tenth (one tenth) to Melki Sadeq.
Salomon supporters of the Canaanites assassinated Adoniyyahou and Joab and Ebyatar was pursuit. Salomon relied on the King of Tyr to building his Temple for the Sun God facing east. The dedication read: “The divinity of the Sun has announced: Yahweh has decided to live in the shadow. A house has been renovated for his dwelling”. The God Sun sent two messengers of Right and Justice to destroy Sodom. In this event as in others, Yahweh shares the responsibility as a subordinate to the Sun God. Slowly but surely, Yahweh acquired a convincing divinity by the period that preceded the exile to Babylon.
In 587 BC the Babylonian King Nabukhodonor destroys part of the Temple. The Persian King Cyrus repatriates the Jews in 538 and restores the temple. Alexander enters Jerusalem in 332 and Judea falls under the Ptolemy dynasty. The Seleucid dynasty dominates Jerusalem from 200 to 142. Judas Maccabe revolted in 164 and enters Jerusalem which falls to the Hasmonide dynasty until the Roman Pompeii takes Jerusalem in 63 BC. The zealot Jews take over Jerusalem for two years in 66 AC. The Roman General Titus enters Jerusalem in the year 70 and burns the Temple. Jerusalem is named Aelia Capitolina. Bar Kokheba recaptures Jerusalem in 131. Emperor Hadrian enters Jerusalem and the Jews are definitely dispersed and forbidden to enter Jerusalem.
Emperor Constantine consecrates the Anastasis (The Saint Sepulcher). The Persian King Chosroe destroys Jerusalem in 614. Emperor Heracles re-takes the city in 628. The Caliph of Islam Omar enters Jerusalem in 638. The Dome of the Rock is built in 691. The mosque Al Aqsa is built in 705. The crusaders enter the city in 1099. The Sultan Sallah el Din enters the city in 1187 and chased out the crusaders. The Turkish Sultan Selim 2 enters the city in 1244 and gives Jerusalem a religious function and dots it with many religious schools (madrassa). The Ottoman Empire captures the city in 1516. The Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilds the walls and enlarges the city with newer walls. In 1967 the Zionist State of Israel enters Jerusalem. Begin declares that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel in 1980.
The State of Israel is flaunting all UN resolutions to stop destroying Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem that is proposed to be the Capital of the Palestinian State.
Well, Andrew Taylor and Doug McClean of the Forest Bookshop and I put the world to rights last night at the Coleford Festival of words! Doug gave us a talk about his life in the booktrade, reminding us of scary moments like the end of the Net Book Agreement. He seemed quite upbeat and positive about the future of the book and the independent bookshop.
The adult audience were universally in favour of the printed book and could not understand why anyone would choose an electronic book over a printed book. This is common with adults. They have been brought up with printed books and are comfortable with the technology. It’s simple, cheap and doesn’t require batteries.
The Kindle and the Sony Reader are but the beginning of the revolution. The choice will really come when we have paper white screens that are not backlit, that have colour and movie quality motion, are waterproof, so you can read them in the bath, and are light and flexible with rock steady operating systems. This will be the convergence of all media. it will be something you can watch tv with, do your emails with, video conference with Granny with and read your book with. A universal lifestyle machine. It would become a part of you – like one of Philip Pullman’s Daemons. Your life would be backed up on the cloud and available to download to you machine wirelessly at any moment.
By then (ten years?) the book will have become an interesting gift item.
I know this will happen, because that’s where all the technology and publishing corporations are heading. Shifting lumps of wood pulp around the world is not sustainable. Information wants to be free and it will find a way to be free. Once the words are digitised they can not be held back. Children have no loyalty to the paper book. Whatever they are presented with becomes the norm. They will be just as happy with a Kiddie Kindle as they are with a paper book.
What this will mean for authors, I just don’t know. I think there are interesting times ahead. There are two conflicting problems. Authors need to be paid and millions of people are quite happy to write for free. Quality writing doesn’t just happen. Quality is judged, encouraged and tweaked by editors who also need to be paid.
Authors will have to learn to forget about royalties. They will have to find different ways of getting paid. No doubt publishers will turn into content managers, making money out of content in any way they can to provide funds to allow the authors to continue creating.
Oh Dear! I’m getting all sorts of crazy ideas now. I’ll have to think about them for another day.
As we walked home last night, we saw a view into someone’s front room. A young woman sat on her sofa. The TV was on but eyes were glued to her laptop. This is a normal scene in any household now. This has happened in the last three years. In ten years time, books will be strange objects that old people are interested in.
It makes me shudder to say it – that’s my living going down the drain – but it’s coming, sure as electric light turned candles into gift items.
I love soap operas. Especially online soap operas. I get some of my best ideas from watching people go at it in drama. This is old news from the Arts Beat Section of The New York Times. A few months old actually, and it involves Publisher’s Weekly. One Sara Nelson, formerly the editor-in-chief of PW, had — notice the past tense — been laid off in a very ”quick” restructuring by Reed Business Information. What does this mean? Well, perhaps you should read for yourself. Better yet, just fast-forward to the comments by some of the smelliest people you’ll ever meet. Yes, grown adults with money and living on Lexington Ave. or Penthouse Duplexes do this kind of stuff, too.
Top Editor at Publisher’s Weekly is Laid Off:
Cited from the Times, and in italics below…
Such nonsense being spouted in these comments….
Speaking as a long-time member of the publishing industry, PW ceased to be relevant, important, or even interesting years ago (for the last several years, most editors and agents I know haven’t bothered to give it more than a very occasional and cursory glance), and Sara Nelson did nothing to turn it around. Publishers stopped advertising in PW because there was ZERO return on investment.The big accounts (who now generate the vast majority of sales) don’t read PW to get the scoop on what publishers are planning so why pay to advertise to gain the attention of the few remaining independent bookstores, when you’ll never recoup the cost of the ad in increased sales?
Nelson was an industry joke, as indeed is the whole magazine, which was outpaced many years ago by PublishersMarketplace.com as the primary source for industry news and information. I’m sorry for the few remaining fans out there, but the publishing industry (which is, after all, ostensibly the audience for this trade rag) wouldn’t even notice if the magazine stopped publishing tomorrow. — what magazine?
OR:
To What Magazine,
Even though you are a “long-time member of the publishing industry” you should avoid speaking for others. I’m guessing you work in some ancillary department. Or perhaps you are a freelancer. Or perhaps Sara Nelson once was mean to you in high school.
In the publishing company I work for we all read PW; Sara Nelson had a great persective on the industry and she was often quoted (as the voice of reason) in articles in other periodicals. It really is a shock and a shame that she was let go.
— sparky
AND:
Hi sparky, no, actually I’m a senior editor at one of the major houses.
Sara’s perspective alone–which in any event I found more often risible than “great”–hardly makes a magazine worth buying, and more importantly, advertising in, and PW offered very little else. What do you read it for? Industry news? It was long ago superseded by a combination of Pub Lunch and PW Daily so that no actual industry news has been broken in the print magazine for years. Bestseller lists? Also easily available and rarely relevant. Reviews? My publicity dept circulates the PW reviews of our books, which are occasionally useful, but again, it’s been years since a starred review in PW was a crucial buzz generator for a new book. Blogs long ago usurped that function and now the PW reviews just serve as back-cover blurb copy. Oh, everyone at my house subscribes to it for the sake of appearances, but I’ve noticed that it languishes ignored in in-boxes week after week…. — what magazine?
THEN MY FAVORITE:
Effective immediately, the entire book-publishing industry will be converted to an avatar-based Internet game. Players will be free to barter or swap their unlimited return credits for all kinds of virtual merchandise, non-existent employment opportunities, ersatz promotions, expense-accounted lunches, and even sexual favors. The object of the game is to eliminate as many as your competitors in as short a time as possible through vicious gossip, byzantine corporate reorgs and downsizings, and character assassinations. The last two competitiors standing will face off over lunch in a web-enhanced facsimile of the cloak room at Michael’s restaurant. — Danton
BRAVO, DANTON!… AND THEN…
What a gutless wonder you are, Mr. or Ms. “what magazine?”, to post such vicious, shortsighted nonsense and not have the intergrity to attach your name. I’d say your “major house” is minor just by your affiliation with it. Your day will come, and, judging by your personality, sooner rather than later.
Sara, Daisy, you fought the good fight and have brought tons of illumination to this business. I’m sure you’ll flourish in the future.
Carlin Romano
The Philadelphia Inquirer
SURPRISE APPEARANCE BY CARLIN, BUT WHAT MAGAZINE STILL WINS:
To “what magazine?”
Perhaps in the next round of industry-wide lay off when you are laid off – it will be sooner than you think (I am psychic!) – you will have plenty of time to think, and you will have a different perspective.
I used to read PW on line, and I always found interesting, entertaining, and enlightening information in the magazine: about new contracts, authors’ agents, book tours, publicity, new writers, etc. Unpublished writers often derive encouragement reading about the contracts signed for huge sums. I know I used to marvel about the lucky writers who found famous literary agents willing to represent them.
Sara Nelson has earned very good reputation, and at PW she was without a doubt a star. She was laid off only to save money, I think.
— Yesh Prabhu
THIS GUY ABOVE SOUNDS JEWISH, THEN:
Sara Nelson and Jane Friedman both belong where they are: out of the business. Neither were visionaries, leaders or good managers. Neither understood the book business and both were entitled and grandiose. They spent most of their time gossiping about the real winners in the business and they PREVENTED innovation. The reason the publishing business is in the toilet is because people like Sara Nelson and Jane Friedman didn’t have a clue about how to move it forward. PW was an industry joke. Sara and Jane were industry jokes. These two were hell bent on destroying innovation. Jane Friedman killed the goose that laid the golden egg—Judith Regan –and Sara tried to roast her.
Now they have each other for consolation. — Jeff Gander
THE TRUTH, AND THEN:
For me, the sign that PW had gone way past its prime was its monthly features on “30 under 40″–30 notable people in the publishing industry under 40 years old–which it ran last year. I think the feature was meant to make the magazine look young and hip, but ended up making the industry look old and decrepit. Most of the people PW choose were in the 35-39 age range, and one or two even were 40. Few seemed like innovators. Sadly, other websites that are edging PW out of its market aside, I think that PW is so caught up in their antiquated business model that they can’t even really see where the publishing industry is going, much less craft a vision for what it should be.
I have no strong opinion about Sara Nelson in particular, but the magazine is definitely out of date. It often reads like one big advertisement (they regularly sell their cover for ad space, except for when they can’t find buyers) and the “news” is both unfocused and a week too old. If PW doesn’t come up with a new business model soon, Sara Nelson will be a symbol of more to come for them, I fear. — Michael
In closing…
There is a reason these people in their fifties and sixties are out of work. Sometimes even their forties. They chose old-school (bad move), and all hegemonies must fall to give rise to new ones. New methods. They fail to compute the economy and also the future of publishing. They fail to envision true creative spark and evolution. The same way JD Salinger’s Holden Caulfield character is just a whining preppy to the younger masses. It just doesn’t go anymore. One must change with the times. I hope Sara has found employment since then. I sincerely do. :/
Kundera’s Identity. I read this book before. If I am not mistaken, I read it in French. Now, it was in English. It is not as gripping as the other Kundera books but it is worth the ensuing meditation, nevertheless. And somehow it did not come alone. It’s a bit scary when I think of how often many things gravitate and converge at the same time. I finished the book while sipping a beer and watching the rain on the Donaukanal, in Urania: we went to the movies, yesterday. Kinomontag! We saw Alle Anderen, with Minichmayer. A good film. Both the book I just finished and the movie we saw were somehow dominated by the same theme – being someone else. But I’ll write more about this with another occasion. It’s one of the things I want to do from now on – take a bit of time and not just jot down whatever happens to cross my head but do a bit of analysis, elaborate a bit, bring up some new ideas, connect some old ones, make something new…
This week I got my first issue of The Economist. I cancelled the Time subscription (which I had for about 6 years now) and I started something new. And? How do I like it? Well, there is a lot to read. And it’s English English (which means a couple of more words/phrases to learn every now and then). But I miss the pictures, the wide-angles, the focus/blur play of the Time. Oh, well, I guess I see enough pictures every day at NY Times’ Lens blog and almost every week at Boston’s Big Picture. They should be enough, shouldn’t they? At first I thought I will not manage to read the whole thing in a week (and do the rest of my other reading chores as well) but I think it’s going to work out.
What else do I read, actually? Following a short BBC film on , I started reading The Naked Ape. Yes, this is popular science and it was written in the 60’s and, yes, I knew most of the stuff already but I still find it interesting. Leafing through, at least, could be refreshing and, at times, does make me laugh (the guys has a sense of humor). I think this week I’ll be done with it and then, I’ll do some Paul Auster (The Brooklyn Follies). Hope to get some straight, good storytelling (what Auster always delivers) out of it…
And there is always reading from the blogs – quite a lot of it, actually. Every day a small trip around the world, reading stuff from people I do not know and learning from them, feeling with them, hoping with them. Whether they write about books, food in SE Asia, a funeral in Romania, philanthropy, bike rides on the country side, traveling, cell-phone photos of an empty bin bag as the only thing that moves in forgotten American cities, clever ‘events’ in Romania/Bucharest (sometimes I wish I were there), I do not let them go away unread. Sometimes more interesting than others, sometimes happy, sometimes sad… If nothing else, it’s a good exercise in building up characters. But there is plenty…
I wonder if any of them reads what I write. But it doesn’t really matter.
Paintings from the States. Yes, they are here! Unpacked them like a kid unpacks his toys. They seem alright (except perhaps one of them, which looks a bit too stiff – perhaps a fake; but first it needs a good clean-up). I hope they’ll sell well!
And cooking: aubergines in mustard sauce (Indian). The mustard seeds were rather old and they did not really taste that much but it was good, nevertheless. I still have yellow fingernails from turmeric (the curry mix I made from scratch, btw). Finished it up in the morning (yeah, I do this kind of things once in a while)!
