Itisi

Want to bring out your inner poet? Then, wander over to Attila the Mom’s and take a look at the poetry competition she is running. The theme is women, but men can enter too. I have already composed my entry – oh yes, it’s good, in fact it would make John Betjeman jealous, and it took me ages. As long as fifteen minutes! The voting is secret so I won’t be posting that here. However, here is one I made earlier:

There was once a young lady called Meryl,
Whose mood swings made her terribly feral,
Her husband named Herbert,
Ate all of her sherbert,
And now he is living in peril.

And now for some more weird local news. A man in Yorkshire has been taken to court for mowing his lawn while naked. The chap in question lives in Scarborough, and as a former resident I can promise you that even in July, it is not warm enough to do anything outdoors while in a state of undress. Not only is there a constant chill wind coming from the sea, but at the first sign of any sun, a cold, damp mist rolls in, blanketing the entire town. This does make it easy to spot tourists though, they are the folk clad in shorts and a layer of goosebumps. Greenhouse Girl also blogged about this, but her post includes a photo of Brad Pitt – no, he has his clothes on – but reading about nekkid gardening, while looking at his pic creates all sorts of interesting imagery in one’s mind.

This weeks reviewer is Mamma Loves, who urges us all to avoid Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross. Pay her a visit to find out why.

If you would like to join the Gasbags and perform a valuable public service by alerting your fellow bloggers to books, films and tv programmes they really should avoid, then go here.

Because men keep telling them this much is 6 inches – this joke works if you imagine I’m holding my thumb and forefinger a couple of inches apart. It seems weather men do the same with snow.

I gather many of you have some. We don’t. The weather man promised 15 centimetres, we got about 1cm and that melted 30 minutes later. I am miffed.

Turning the radio on first thing this morning (I wanted to check the schools were open, many have closed for the day) I heard reports of immense amounts of snow coming in, and at about 7.30 the announcer stated that it was snowing in Yorkshire. I looked out of the window, and saw nothing but frost. A little while later, it did snow, slightly, but had barely settled before it melted away.

It was quite amusing to listen to the reporting though. I was reminded of the scenes in the film The Fog, when the dj in the lighthouse is directing the residents of the town away from danger. Anyone would have thought some terrible fate was about to befall the country:

“There is snow in Northampton, it has started snowing in Nottingham, but Manchester is clear, Manchester is clear!”

I half expected someone to urge us all to head for Manchester in case the nasty old white stuff got us. ‘Stay out of the snow people, stay out of the snow’.

Anyhow, I suspect I know why we have no snow here. This lot came from the south – obviously southern snow is not of the same standard as northern snow – ducks to avoid missiles thrown by southern readers.

Finally, we have some proper winter weather which gives us the opportunity to indulge in the fine British pastime of moaning about the climate. By heck, it’s freezing. It was -9 here this morning and I have actually had a reason to wear the scarf I bought two months ago. Snow has been forecast for this weekend, but I’m taking that with a pinch of salt. Those pesky forecasters have lied to me once too often.

Now for your amusement and edification are few random links from my bookmarks which may help banish the mid-week blahs.

If you would like to have a stab at creating your own videos, try this. I haven’t had a go yet, but it looks pretty simple.

This is funny (contains mildly adult content)

On the other hand, this is cute

Autodidacts might like this, this and this

Having a bad day? Just be grateful you aren’t soluble.

Discover the strange things other people believed as children, and add your own.

If none of the above appeals, grab some bling for your blog.

And with that I leave you

For this week’s Gasbag Roundtable, I chose to review the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella.

A year or so ago I entered a competition on a website I visit occasionally not expecting to win anything, but, to my delight, a couple of weeks later I received an email announcing that I had won the above mentioned series of books! I was thrilled! But my joy was short lived. With hindsight, I suspect I may have been palmed off with the booby prize.

The Shopaholic series relates the oh so amusing (not) adventures of the eponymous heroine, one Becky Bloomwood, a woman who loves to shop. I had heard of these books and believed they would be right up my street, after all, I love to shop too. How wrong could I be?

One Monday evening I curled up on the sofa, a mug of Horlicks at hand, and began to read. Two or three pages in I realised that this was going to be much harder work than I had anticipated, but decided to stick with it. After all, a lot of books start slowly, but build up to become something really enjoyable. These don’t.

It didn’t take me long to figure out Becky and I were never going to get along. Why? Because she is the most god awful, air headed, whinge bag. I’ll give you an example of the thoughts which rattle around Becky’s empty little head:

“God, my nails look fab. I had them done at the spa – little pink butterflies on a white background. And the antennae are little sparkly diamonds. They are so sweet. Except one seems to have fallen off. I must get that fixed-”

Oh yes Becky you must! I mean, the world might come shuddering to a halt if you have a bad manicure.

And so it goes on. Becky whines her way into marriage, to New York and on the discovery of a long lost sister she whines because said sister doesn’t like shopping. Oh how tragic. At some point someone has a baby, but quite frankly, I was losing the will to live and didn’t read that far.

The horrendous Becky would, perhaps, have been bearable if the supporting characters were normal people who provided balance and contrast, but they don’t. All seem to work in finance or PR, they name drop with impunity, and even have monikers such as Tarquin. For goodness sake, who is called that?!

The characters would have been more tolerable if there had been an element of development, or redemption, but sadly there isn’t. In fact, if anything, I found them more annoying with each successive book, and developed an urge to slap Becky as, with each new chapter in her life, she discovers a whole host of fresh trivialities to obsess about. Maybe, that is the point, maybe these books are not supposed to be humorous. Perhaps, they are really an ironic study of post-modern consumerism, laying bare the decadence and over-all meaninglessness of the 21st century, western life style. Hmm, perhaps not.

The Shopaholic series reminds me of Sex in the City with all the life and humour sucked out. Populated with irritating, pretentious morons, whose lives revolve around shoes and knowing the right people, they are best avoided by everyone who doesn’t happen to be an irritating, pretentious moron (with an unlikely name), who believes having the right pair of shoes is the be all and end all of human existence. Actually, they are just best avoided, full stop.

If you would like to join the Gasbags and perform a valuable public service by alerting your fellow bloggers to books, films and tv programmes they really should avoid, then go here.