Image via Gael Martin's flickr.
Book update:
Dom Joly “The Dark Tourist”:
This book was something of a landmark for me. It was my first ever e-book. I read it entirely on my iPad and found the experience to be wholly positive.
My minor technological triumph aside, “The Dark Tourist” is a great book.
Dark Tourism is tourism with a macabre twist; visiting places that are “off the beaten track” for good reason. The opening chapter sets the oddball tone for the book, with the tale of Joly’s ski trip to Iran. He then plays crazy golf in North Korea and gets crazy-drunk in Cambodia.
It isn’t all fun and frolics though. His adventures are often countered with sensitive observations of countries bound by tyrannical regimes or recovering from past atrocities. Joly’s description of Cambodia’s killing fields and meetings with former Khmer Rouge officials are genuinely unsettling.
When writing of his home country of Lebanon, there is a true affection. He depicts stunning landscapes baring the pock marks of war, and pokes fun at the national “trigger happy” mentality.
His American road trip, visiting famous assassination sites, is intriguing but seems somehow less “dark”. Maybe this is because the places he visits are now common tourist traps. The strangest parts of the chapter are his observations of tourists visiting ground zero. Apparently, no New Yorkers want to visit.
Are some things too raw and horrific to ever be seen as tourism? Is it right for sadness and suffering to become the fodder of an entertaining travel book?
Caitlin Moran “How to be a Woman”:
I didn’t want to read this. You know why? Twitter kept telling me to. Twitter brings out my inner contrary five year old. Tell me to do something and I instantly decide that I will not do it, even if I, deep down, really want to. That said, no one was like “YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK”, it was more of a weeklong back-slapping love fest headed by Lauren Laverne. These things make me uncomfortable.
I was also feeling uncomfortable having read some tweets that suggested Moran had declared modern feminism to have “ground to a halt”. This is not at all true. There are so many bold and brilliant women out there, acting alone or as part of a wider group. These women are feminists and they are very much in motion!
I waited a week and let the furore die down. I like Moran. As a female writer from Wolverhampton, it is nice to know that someone else has been there, done that and done a bloody good job of it.
Moran writes with unflinching honesty and her views are strident. In this book, strident is a good thing, as are big knickers and bountiful pubes. She wants women to tell the bullshit (a more strident version of the patriarchy) to piss off, before laughing at it long and hard (hahahaha, long and hard?! In your dreams, patriarchy!!!)
Brunette update:
- I have two grey hairs. They feel horrible. I’m going to pluck them out. Then, I’m going to dye my hair every month for the next 40 years (at least).
- Timotei shampoo smells good.
- I’ve tried every fragrance of Batiste dry shampoo and can confirm that the original is the best.
And that is the end of the book and brunette bulletin.
Coming up, my thoughts on washing up liquid and a review of Andrea Dworkin’s “Intercourse”!*
BBxxx
*Not really, though it can be arranged if demand is high.
Two things:
1. It makes me sad that, as a brunette, you can’t use the Timotei for blondes. It’s sparkly. That wows me every morning.
2. I’d quite like a Dworkin review. Probably just me though.