I’ve been watching quite a lot of MTV Cribs recently and apart from Alex James from Blur, whose house was fab, I have to say that I haven’t been very impressed with the things people buy when they are stinking rich.  It made me think about what I would buy if I were stinking rich.  This is the showy, ostentatiously ‘me, me, me’ stuff you understand.  If I were disgustingly rich I have lots of plans for charitable stuff and helping people out, as I’m sure most of us do.  Except those idiots who say that their life isn’t going to change and die bloated on takeaway pizzas in front of thirty years worth of Bill episodes on Blu Ray, obviously.  So, take it as read that I will be kind to the planet, animals, people with one leg and all me mates.  Here is the list of outrageously selfish things I would buy if I were as rich as Bill Gates

On Cribs they always show you their cars.  Here is what I would have:

• A retro Morris Traveller Van thingy, you know the ones with the green paint and the wood panelling.
• A purple bubble car just big enough for me and a packet of hobnobs
• An ordinary Morris Minor for every day purposes
• A tandem
• A really old car, like Brum, made big.  I don’t care what type it is really, I just think they look lovely with big old headlamps and stuff.
• A penny farthing (just for a laugh)
• A routemaster bus (and all the outfits. I want to work the ticket machine)

No twenty four inch rims or industrial sized Hummers for me thank you very much.

They always show you their fridges too.  I have a pale blue Smeg fridge which I love.  It’s wildly impractical, but I love its bulbous shape and its general pale blueness.  If I were rich I’d get them to make me a bank of blue fridges and freezers which would mean they were actually big enough to hold all the food, but would still look funky and retro.  I would also have an ice dispenser, because I like ice and I like having it dispensed.  I always feel decadent when someone dispenses ice about my person.

Inside the fridge they always have either:

• Organic food pre-prepared by their chef who follows their every move in his own customised Bentley
• Disgusting amounts of junk food, sausages on sticks and t.v. dinners
• Only drinks
• Nothing at all because they never eat in

My fridge would be a walking advert for Ocado and Selfridge’s food hall.  There would be a lot of San Pellegrino, because it’s very nice.  There would also be a lot of food. I mean, a lot of food.  I like food A LOT.  It would all be nice food (Jason and the kids can have separate fridges), but I would be going for quantity AND quality.  People would win competitions to come and nibble things out of my fridge, that’s how good it would be.  I'd have an ice cream maker too because I've always fancied one of those.

There would be no fridge magnets of any kind.

Alex James has a library.  It looked like a great library.  My only problem with it was that it was rather small.  I would like a library, but when I have a library it will be an actual library, with a librarian, and fires and big step ladders and huge chairs and bean bags.  There will be no television of any kind.  It will not just be full of old books, it will be full of every kind of book.  There will be an Amazon delivery every hour.  I will definitely have the entire Oxford English Dictionary for starters, and not on CD Rom.  I’ve always wanted to own the OED.  That would be so cool.  I will have a separate kids section with smaller shelves and chairs for midgets.  I will leave the library to the nation when I die.  It will be fab.  I will have library stamps too.  I like the idea of doing the stamping.

I’m definitely having a pantry too.  A big one with slate floors and interesting looking cupboards full of stuff that you might want to snack on in the night.  It will have a big table with a marble top in case I want to roll pastry, or make cheese, or just lounge about on a big marble topped table in my Manolos, wearing my Philip Treacey hat.

My kitchen will not have granite work tops I don’t care how fashionable they are.  I think they’re naff.  I’m having real tree wood, gently oiled by my horny handed gardener and man about the estate.  As far as oven’s go. I’ll have whatever Gordon Ramsay’s got thanks.  We won’t bother with a separate dining room, we’ll just have a huge fuck off kitchen which would be the size of most people’s houses.  There will be sofas and comfy chairs and a big no nonsense wooden table, none of these round circular things with matching napkins and plates the size of Mars.

There will be a huge integral tea urn with hot water on tap for endless hot beverages, sod the Kristal champagne.  There will be mugs for everyone (except my best friend Rachel who prefers a cup and saucer).  There will be much Emma Bridgewater.  It is likely there will be quite a lot of Nigella.  There will also be extensive trips to that lovely cookware shop I can’t think of the name of which is now on Marylebone High Street but which is also near Bibendum (Ah! Divertimenti).  We will need a lot of cupboard space.

There will be lots of paintings and arty stuff.  I may even get Tracey Emin in to do an installation in the hall, as long as it doesn’t upset the children.  Andy Goldsworthy can sculpt the garden and Diarmuid Gavin can prune the hedges into the shape of space ships.  I want a daguerreotype, preferably that one that Chuck Close did of Kate Moss if it’s available.  I’d also like a Stanley Spencer because they’re very soothing.  I’d like that Epstein sculpture of Jacob and the Angel, but I don’t think that the Tate have finished with it yet.

I’m having an artist’s studio so that I can give it a go.  I want one of those potter’s wheels and a potter to teach me how to pot as well.  I had a go once, it was brilliant.

I detest the gym, so we’re not having one of those.  I am having a proper swimming pool though.  An indoor one with non hairy floors and lots of fun stuff.  I’d quite like one like they’ve got in the Sanctuary in Covent Garden.  It’s got a swing over it.  How cool is that?

In Cribs there are invariably rooms for show where nobody actually goes in them.  These always seem to be dining rooms.  We won’t have that problem as we always use every room in every house we’ve ever lived in, usually for several conflicting things, all at once.  We will have lots of useless furniture though.  I am mad for Charles Rennie Mackintosh, although I prefer his painting to his furniture.  I do love his chairs though, even though they are bloody uncomfortable.  I will have to have some of his chairs so that we can all avoid sitting on them.  I might have a chaise longue as well in some ridiculously expensive material.  It won’t matter about the material, because you can’t actually sit on them properly anyway.  They just look louche and fabulous.

I will have a walk in wardrobe.  I know it’s very common, but there’s something brilliant about the idea of having whole rooms devoted solely to your extensive clothing collection.  Mine will have lots of lovely things in it including:

• Lots of Dior by John Galliano
• Lots of Alexander McQueen
• Lots of Armani
• Ozwald Boateng suits
• Philip Treacey hats
• Christian Louboutin shoes
• Manolo Blahnik Shoes
• Paul Smith everything (and some carpets and stuff)
• Alice Temperley things of great beauty
• Ghost exquisiteness
• Coast and Fenn Wright and Manson just for mucking around in
• Hundreds of pairs of Fat Face socks
• Mulberry handbags
• Undies courtesy of Agent Provocateur

I don’t do jewellery so you’re safe from my list of blingtastic stuff.

I’m having a big bathroom but you can keep your whirlpool jets and gold taps thanks.  Jason and I once stayed in the suite at the Malmaison in Leeds which has a giant square bath bigger than a king size bed which is so deep you can almost swim in it. You had to fill it with a big stand pipe thing and it had huge shower heads in the ceiling in clusters.  I’m having that one.  It even had waterproof pillows.  I’m having those too.

I’ll have another bathroom with a huge roll top bath in it for the days when I feel like being Victorian.  I’m also having another bathroom with one of those baths I saw when Boy George had money and wasn’t selling t-shirts down the market.  He had a huge copper bath that looked a bit like the one in the painting The Death of Marat.  And I’m having a wet room and a Hammam and loads of Jo Malone stuff to put in them.  In fact I will be known as that batty old lady with a hundred bathrooms but who still smells of wee and Yardley Lavender.

They always have cinema rooms in Cribs.  Given the fact that Jason has spent the last twelve months cannibalizing our living room into a cinema it is inevitable that we will have one too, despite my lack of enthusiasm.  I’m decorating it though.  I want it to look like a Fin De Siecle Paris brothel, but with comfier seats.  That’ll learn him.  I think we’ll have a theatre too, and invite travelling theatre troupes to come and perform Ibsen after breakfast.

We will have a branch of Starbucks just off the hall, where most of the Cribsters seem to put their non usable Versace themed dining rooms.  I will not have Versace themeing anywhere.  I think Versace is cheap and nasty.  Nor will we be having any Swarovski crystal anywhere in the house.  Instead we will have one wall of the downstairs loo painted in that blackboard paint and a box of chalks handy so people can write down their thoughts as they pooh.  It will be very therapeutic.

One of the other loo rooms will be wallpapered in tube maps of the world.  I like to think of travelling while I am on the toilet.  It helps to pass the time.  My mum and dad have their downstairs loo decorated in ordnance survey maps.  It’s very restful.

Floors will be stone and wood, not shiny.  I don’t do shiny.  I like hand woven rugs.  Kilims are nice even though they aren’t very fashionable any more.  I don’t care.  I’d like some Bill Amberg leather flooring as well, with underfloor heating.

Other important features of the house include:

• High ceilings
• Lots of windows and light
• Secret passages (but not naff old fashioned ones, cool, Napoleon Solo type ones)
• An underground lair
• Underground passages to access underground lair
• Swings indoors (but not in bedrooms, just for mucking about purposes)
• Corridors you can ride a bike down for when it’s wet outside
• A room with a bouncy castle and a trampolene in it
• An orangery, one with real oranges in it, and pineapples and lemons and ferns and cool, hairy plants, with glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly.
• A Bat pole
• Some kind of slide for when the hips are too knackered for the Bat pole.
• An indoor stream with loads of pretend ducks and sticks for hooking them out.  I like those themed ducks.  We'll have one of each.
• An entire soundproof floor of the house for the children
• A ballroom with a great sprung floor and fabulous acoustics where I could have nights of excessive dancing.  It must have a glitter ball
• A sound proof room with the biggest drum kit in the world in, so that I can take drum lessons at last.

Outside the house would be:

• Woods with wildlife
• An entire play village like Petit Trianon at Versailles
• Lots of watery based stuff
• Walled gardens with a secret garden for the kids
• Orchards
• Organic fruit and veg
• A herb garden I can wander around with my trug wearing my Philip Treacey hat and waving secateurs.
• A huge playground for the kids with tree houses and dangerously cool stuff like they used to have in playgrounds when I was a kid
• A sculpture park
• A potting shed where Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Diarmuid can plan their next move.  Hugh will be my advisor on the estate and provide me with piglets and chicks and such like.

And that’s just for starters.  It’d be so cool they’d have to do a week’s worth of Cribs just on me!  It’d be awesome, and I’d invite you round for tea if you asked nicely.

In the new Indiana Jones movie, the titular hero tells his students to "get out of the library". A humbug on you, Dr. Jones! I looked you up in Scopus and nobody cites your work. I cross-referenced the journals you've published in in Ulrich's and none of them are peer reviewed... or indexed! I've pulled up their impact factors in Web of Science and their scores are the pits!

Sarah Jessica Parker's library-related advice to Sex and the City/Carrie Bradshaw devotees? It's quite a bit more practical. Find it in this video at 2:44:

Sage words, madame; I salute you. Special thanks to Siobhan and Jeff for the heads-up.

:: Bibliography ::

Ryzik, Melena. UrbanEye: Sex and the City. New York Times. http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=1a94f19eaf6d603d17278a602a1e53103ef45184 (31 May 2008).

is a total, absolute must read!! I am barely half way through but I am deeply moved by the sincere simplicity of telling stories that this pulitzer prize winner has.

Last night Ima and Abba took me to the Hebrew Book Fair at the old train station. We rode the bus and got off right at the entrance to the fair. We went through the security check, and a whole world of new Hebrew books was right before me. Wow! 

While Abba was looking for his books, Ima patiently walked with me from booth to booth so I could look at the books. Each publisher had their own booth, and most of them had some children's books. Abba found some books, and I found some, too. The book of children's fairy tales at the right is one of the ones I got. I also got one of Bible stories, which Abba read to me last night. 

It was pretty late by the time we got home, but well worth it. 

After eating a nice steak and watching the ghosts of Yankees past, I made my way across the bridge again. All of this was a loop. I thought that by quitting my job I would give myself some time of pattern breaking skills - that I would find adventure in every turn in life, but that was not the case. What I found was that humans were adapt at giving themselves routine.


Now, instead of the routine of catching the same train so I could sit in the same chair in front of the computer and look at the same web sites while trying to look like I was working, here I was walking the same routes across bridges. A true adventurer indeed. Still, after taking a little time to notice my surroundings, I saw that most of the cars were those from the late 70s. They were long Lincoln's and Cadis with some Chevy's mixed in as well. No Japanese cars at at. The kids walking by me had huge afros and tight pants and it was nowhere near Halloween.


Time was moving again, though I couldn't figure out why I wasn't aging and how the people around me staying the same. Well that wasn't entirely true either. I mean, everyone else in the city was changing, getting younger or somehow having who they were and what they did move around. All except the people in my building. They all stayed the same. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the typewriter at all. Maybe it was the building that was trapped in time and the rest of the world around us was changing while we all stood still? What would be the reason for that? I don't believe much in that kind of activity and time travel is the stuff of late night movies and old TV shows. But this wasn't time travel at all. No, this was ..


Ghosts. I saw him on the corner of the bridge again. Man. I wasn't ready for that at all. I guess you are never ready to see ghosts. Most people when they get to my age stop believing in such things. In such events. For me I just started.


"Thanks for helping out my mom. She needed it. Don't think she would have lasted riding those trains much longer."
"She said you drowned."
"She said that?"
"Is it true?"
"I guess it is. I don't really think about what happened in the past."
"But that means you're dead. How can you be sitting here talking to me if your dead. That doesn't mean I'm dead too, does it?"
"No. It just means that when we die, we don't leave. We just remain, for the most part, unseen. Unseen until people need to see us. Then we're everywhere. For you, I guess you just passed by that graveyard too much and were ready to see all of us."
"All of you? There's more?"
"Who do you think you've been talking to on this block? What about the girl in the panties across the street from you? She's been in that apartment for years. That old man who used to live next to you used to watch her all the time. Damn, he died looking at her. Fool fell off the fire escape."
"I just saw him come back today. Guy was smoking a pipe."
"Guess that's the advantage of being a ghost. Still, it's not all that exciting to tell you the truth. I mean, you'd think that after giving up all your possessions and not having to go to work would make you happy, but it gets kind of old. That's why I like the missions you've been sending me on. Hell, you did good with my mom as well. You'll be just fine when you pass away."


I turned around and looked back at the Stadium and then at him, but he was no longer there. The cars were still old. I made my way back to the apartment building. Nobody on my block was thinking about - DAMN I THINK I'M LOST IN THE STORY.


So what do I do with this character now. He's working with ghosts who travel back in time and fix the lives of the people he meets? Does that work? Is it the story I want to tell. Something needs to happen to move things around a little bit.


I walked up Edgecomb to this little cafe that had just opened up the block. Not sure what it was before. Not even sure if I was in the before time. I think it was still the present because up until that point, I hadn't written anything about it. I sat down without anything to smoke and without anything to read and just sat there drinking a cup of coffee. To tell you the truth, coffee is drug enough for me. I have had my time with coke, herbs, speeds, X, Scripts and the rest. Enough of those already. there is no need. Stayed away from needles and I'm happy about that. At this point, the coffee is enough. I think that comes with age. Be sure you have good enough friends that don't let you get too deep. Might as well taste though - it is America after all. Most other countries make you pay for it. Here, you can turn it into experience.


So across from me was the Bronx and next to me was a suit woman talking into her balckberry and looking like she was talking to herself. She noticed me and didn't take the time to smile until she needed a light for her smoke, which I had quite as well. I had nothing.


"Perhaps it's a sign I should quit," she said.
"You have to take those when you can get them. They don't come around as quick as you think."
"That's a pretty forward comment to give to someone you just met."
"Never know how much time you have on this planet, right?"


I guess you could say that I hit it off with the woman who was to become my literary agent pretty well. We like each other right away, which is important for two people that needed to spend so much time together.We would be spending a great deal together over the next few years.


She showed me her card and I told her right there about the book I was writing, what I had done before and how I had ended up here. She listened as if she were documenting everything for a press release.

DAMN THAT SUN FOR COMING UP RIGHT WHEN I'M STARTING TO ROLL. A NEW CHARACTER HAS COME TO LIFE THOUGH. NICE.

OFF TO WORK.

To Be Continued . . .

More Details: http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=2614

William Borroughs crea un manuale sulle droghe, utile e lucido nella parte scritta dopo la disintossicazione, ma illeggibile nella parte esaltata da Fernanda Pivano (a cui va tutta la mia stima per le sue traduzioni e traghettamenti): è diffcile seguire le allucinazioni dell'autore e comprenderne il significato nascosto, inoltre la lettura a livello superficiale non coinvolge perché non ci sono variazioni di tono.

La tecnica di scrittura non è così rivoluzionaria e, di sicuro, non è neanche paragonabile al mio Alach Uinic.

 Since this is the time of the year when many of us are agonizing over which programs and curricula we're going to use for the fall school year, I thought it would be appropriate to bring up the topic of textbooks. With the popularity of Charlotte Mason I doubt that there is a homeschool parent around who hasn't heard about "living books" and the importance and joy of using them in your homeschool. We particularly enjoy using living history books in our homeschool. Living books bring topics to life and go into much more detail about various topics and people than a textbook usually does. A history textbook, for example, might devote one paragraph to Eli Whitney, but you could go to the library and find whole books about him. Because living books are more engaging and include more information from many different authors, they do seem like the better choice. Using living books in your homeschool does take more time and sometimes more money, though. You must make time to go to the library and choose your books or you have to purchase them. Then, you have to make time in your school day to read the books to your children or schedule time for them to read the books themselves. If you have many children under foot, setting aside chunks of time for reading aloud may be next to impossible. If your child dislikes reading, you may have a struggle on your hands as well. Rest assured, using living books isn't for everybody. Textbooks may have been given a bad rap, but it really is okay to use them. Teri Maxwell's article, A Voice For Traditional Christian Textbooks, says it all. (Thanks, Kysha, for providing a link to this article on your blog a while back.)

Warmly, Mama Bear

I have abandoned the book Nineteen Minutes for now and no, I don't really feel guilty about it, for once.  I just feel disappointed because I did not feel the same way about this book as I did Picoult's Change of Heart.  I never felt a connection with any of the characters and the story line was too depressing for me.  That's all I have to say about that. 

Now I am trying to decide on what to read next.  Last night the hubby and I stopped at the PX to kill time before seeing The Chronicles of Narnia ~ Prince Caspian .  I did manage to find three books in their minute book section. 

My Best Friend's Girl by Dorothy Koomson

Frannie & Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. 

I read Frannie this morning.  It was a short story that first appeared in The New Yorker Magazine in 1955.  It was not quite what I was expecting.  I don't know what I was expecting though.  It was ok, but I guess being a huge fan of The Catcher In The Rye, set a certain expectation for any of his other work.  It was about a Yale student named Lane and his girlfriend Frannie and their first visit together in a few weeks.  She had taken the train to visit him at school for the weekend from her school and after picking Frannie up at the station they went to lunch at a restaurant.  There, they are silently trying to decide if they are still excited by this relationship.  After one sided conversations on both parts you are led to believe that they don't make it past this weekend together.  The dialoge was interesting but very strange.  Lots of "goddam"s and "I'm not kidding"s heavily peppered throughout the story. 

Now, I'm off to a fun night of Karaoke with the hubby (no, he doesn't sing but he's my #1 Fan and claps better than the rest of 'em) and our friends Gale & Jim.  I'm listening to some Aretha Franklin to get warmed up. 

I hope you have a fun weekend ahead of you.  Happy Friday!!!

<!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } -->

Beberapa hari setelah aktivitas di sekolah berakhir, rumah kembali menjadi pusat peredaran. Kalau pun keluar rumah, itu juga karena saya tidak ingin mati kebosanan hanya karena melakukan hal yang sama setiap hari. *sigh*

Namun tetap saja kalau dihitung perbandingannya, intensitas keberadaan saya di rumah masih jauh lebih banyak dibanding berkeliaran di gramedia hanya untuk sekedar melihat buku-buku baru dan menuliskannya di wishlist ataupun hang out bersama anak-anak ayam yang sedang beradaptasi dengan dunia baru setelah beberapa pekan lalu kehilangan induknya.hihi..

Positifnya, perhatian saya pada keadaan rumah jadi lebih. Bunga – bunga dan pohon sekarang sudah bisa mendapatkan hak untuk hidup lebih layak. Karena air yang saya beri ke mereka tidak asal-asalan lagi. Lantai rumah juga jadi lebih sering dipel. Dan tentu saja prestasi terbesar adalah tidak ada lagi pakaian yang bertumpuk. ^_^V

Sayangnya, ketika semua pekerjaan rumah sudah selesai, keinginan untuk duduk dan memegang remote control di depan kotak yang mengeluarkan suara dan gambar warna-warni itu kembali muncul. Arghhhh.... Tidak bisa bohong saya merindukan semua gambar bergerak itu. Dari anime, kartun, Siaran Berita,Talkshow, Serial terbaru bahkan dengan semua commercials break alias iklan T_T. padahal sebelum sebelumnya tidak pernah seperti ini. saya masih bisa bertahan. Masih ada KOMPAS utnk mengakses semua kejadian di luar sana. Radio yang memungkinkan saya mendengarkan siaran Dagiek-Desta. Tapi rasanya sekarang berbeda. Saya tetap ingin melihat orang –orang yang begerak di kotak hitam itu.

Yah, sudah lebih dari setahun TV di rumah hanya bisa difungsikan bersama DVD player. Lain tidak. Masalahnya terletak pada antenna yang udah beberapa kali diganti tapi tetap saja tidak cocok. *sigh* . Begitu dinyalakan yang ada hanya layar hitam. Bahkan semut-semut hitam dan putih tak terlihat.

TV memang benar-benar beracun. bahkan ketika saya yakin saya bisa hidup tanpanya. Virus-virus itu kembali menyerang ketika tahu bahwa penghuni rumah tak lagi punya banyak hal untuk dikerjakan. Bahkan buku-buku di rak dan semua games di komputer kalah telak. Kalau sudah benar-benar tidak tahan, rumah sepupu akhirnya jadi tempat pelarian. Hihihi..yah, hitung – hitung silarutahim ma Oom dan Tante.

SOS...