Reading: Tina Fey: Bossypants     Tina Fey is pretty high in the Bookish Brunette list of icons (I’ll publish this list in full one day). She’s clever, funny and cool as hell. She also wears glasses and has brown hair – traits that make us, essentially, the same person.   Bossypants was in my pile of books that I was reluctant to read because everyone else was raving about them (see also: How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran). In these cases, my inner contrarian acts out and I find myself willing to read anything, including the back of shampoo bottles and People’s Friend magazine, instead of what I really want to read.   I caved late one night and purchased Bossypants to read on my iPad. Oh my, this book is good. It is like an inspirational handbook for every nerdy and ambitious woman out there, though I don’t think Tina would agree with that. She’s too cool to try and tell people how to live their lives. The book recounts Tina’s childhood and her early days in improvisational comedy. She is honest and direct when it comes to her success in the male dominated TV industry. Her account of the Sarah Palin phenomenon is hilarious in how it depicts the madness of a TV juggernaut alongside her anxieties over planning her little daughter’s birthday party.   Tina Fey has worked her ass off the get where she is on her own terms. I plan to do the same. Thanks, Tina.   Michel de Montaigne: On Friendship   I blogged about this dude a while back, when I was pondering my own tendency to be “on the fence” about certain things. I picked up a copy of On Friendship from the book market on the South[.....]

    Reading   Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta   The end of the world as we know it? Is it? Really? If it is, I feel fine. Obligatory REM gag out of the way, I must stress that I’m not really buying the whole “Google/Facebook/Twitter has changed the world” schtick. Yes, they’ve changed some people’s lives, but there are still people who genuinely don’t give a crap. Take my Dad – his world is very much like it was pre-Google. He gets up, has a cup of tea, takes the dog for a walk, reads a book about sharks or Nazis, watches a documentary about sharks or Nazis, has another cup of tea, plays with the dog, reads the Screwfix catalogue… …you get the picture. The only people for whom the world really has changed are Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and the dudes who invented Twitter whose names escape me. They are really bloody rich now and full of the smug satisfaction that comes with being told that you’ve “changed the world” on a daily basis. Bravo.   Everything “changes the world” now, just like every event is “historic” and every celebrity or handbag is “iconic”. I’m bored of it all. Here’s something that could change the world: perspective.   Rant over.   The subtitle is my only real beef with Auletta’s book; otherwise it is a really intriguing and inspiring story of how two nerds changed the internet (note: not “world”). His investigation is thorough and balanced, grilling Page, Brin and Eric Schmidt along with their rivals and former employees.   It is quite cute how utterly clueless, naïve and arrogant Page and Brin were when they first started out. They made rookie errors and had no idea[.....]

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,[.....]

Here’s the idea: being the bastion of good taste and all round smashingness that I am *gazes lovingly at glitter tiger ornament *, I’m going to post a “stuff that I love” column every week. It’ll be kind of like my “Reading/Watching/Listening To” posts but covering a more diverse range of stuff. I’m also going to have a “Blog of the Week” category going on – so look sharp my blogging buddies! It could be you! (I can already feel the nervous anticipation.) Fashion Deadly is the Female A brilliant boutique in Frome, Somerset. They specialise in faux-vintage pin-up girl style clothing. Want a perfect wiggle skirt or pair of tutu knickers? Look no further. They win extra cool points for their adorable Chinese Crested dog called Gomez. He was curled up on A THRONE, WEARING A RED JUMPER when I visited the shop in February. Their online shop is great and the dresses on offer are absolute knock-outs. Trench Coats Time to send my trusty camel coat to the dry cleaner.  Trust me, it needs it. Hello trench coat! Time to go frolicking in the rain together. Read my trench coat tips here. Food Marks and Spencer Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate The sort of chocolate that many people just don’t get. The salt-caramel-chocolate combination fries some poor folk’s brains. This is good because you get to eat more of it. TV How to Make it in America One of those trendy “insider” types of shows from the people responsible for Entourage. It follows two friends, Ben and Cam,as they attempt to set up their own denim brand. The rely on their street-smarts to get them out of scrapes  and keep their American dream alive. The opening credits set the Nylon magazine readin’, vintage t-shirt wearin’, dive bar drinkin’, obscure vinyl[.....]

Mop of wild yet subtly groomed hair? Check. Statement coat with vintage references? Check. Incongruous choice of footwear? Check. A penchant for natty neck wear? Check. Well done, Sir! You can now go and star in your own action packed BBC comedy drama. Dr Who, Sherlock and now Dirk Gently: the quirkly dressed male protagonist with ‘unconventional’ methods is taking over our screens. But why are producers so keen to draw a link between a brilliant mind and a bold wardrobe? My general rule is that anybody with wacky and outlandish dress sense tends to be a bit of a dick (Gaga included. Oooh! Controversial!). That’s not to pass any judgement on their crime solving abilities or skills at the control panel of a time machine. They always strike me as so eager to ‘express their otherness’ through superficial signifiers that they forget about the important stuff, such as original thought and personality. Granted; the same rules don’t apply in telly land. It relies on caricatures. An unconventional wardrobe is a handy visual shorthand for an unconventional mind. Yet whilst for wackily dressed women this normally means unbearable and unhinged ditziness, for men it equals brilliance. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. Any aficionado of mid to late nineties American teen movies will recall that the guy who turned up to prom wearing trainers with his tux was normally a complete ass-hat. Ducky in ‘Pretty in Pink’ is another fine case in point. But I digress. I blame David Tennent and Jarvis Cocker. Or at least the person who decided to dress David Tennent like Jarvis Cocker in Doctor Who. Cocker is a well dressed chap and Tennent is a total hotty. Thus, Tennent in the wardrobe of Cocker equals amplified hotness. The glasses! The dowdy geography teacher striped suits![.....]

OK, there was no plan to post again today. However, I AM IN THE ZONE. Reading: 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: The most intriguing scientific mysteries of our time by Michael Brooks Check me out! Reading science books; clever stuff, eh? Writing about science makes me nervous. What if Ben Goldacre stumbles upon my blog and exposes me as the thicko that I truly am? What if I sound like some pseudo-intellectual smart arse? Anyway, these fears are highly irrational, and science really dislikes things that are irrational. So I’ll just get on with it. The decision to read this book came after I’d drunkenly launched into my favourite ‘but how do they know?’ rant about science. This is essentially my adult equivalent of the toddler ‘But why?’ phase. It is infuriating for all involved, though at the time of ranting I’m normally so full of gin that I’m convinced that I’m on a par with Bertrand Russell in terms of my philosophical insights. After being humoured for a good 30 minutes by a patient and scientifically minded friend, he calmly told me that he admired my scepticism and recommended that I read this book. We then went on to win £3.00 on the quiz machine. These two facts aren’t related, but we rarely win more than £1, so it seemed worth a mention. I’m currently only three chapters in, and whilst I’m still a bit sketchy on the concept of QED, I’m finding the book very interesting. It is refreshing to read about things that science can’t currently answer.  The most exciting part is that scientists are challenging universally accepted principles in a bid to explain some of these mysteries. In the introduction Brooks describes how the scientific community will need a ‘paradigm shift’ in order to tackle some of these unanswered questions. This appeals to me[.....]

NOTE: I started this series of posts back in the Spring.  It had a promising start (seriously, read this post about Ludwig Bemelmans and you will be entertained and informed to the max!), but then life and stuff happened and I forgot about it. Yesterday, I decided that the time has come to resurrect this series. There’s something special about dark nights and curling up with a good book. I hope you enjoy it. Friday 5 November Weight: 9st 6 (but my skinny jeans still fasten so I frankly don’t give a fig), alcohol units: 0 (yet, though that bottle of Leffe in the fridge is getting more and more tempting), calories: approx. 700 – digestive biscuits are a source of wholegrain goodness, right? Number of minutes spent performing useful activities: significantly less than number spent vacantly staring out of window drinking tea. 3p.m My Flat Writing about Helen Fielding is not easy for me.  I don’t really know much about the woman other than what I can glean from ‘About the Author’ paragraphs and Wikipedia. She’s clearly very clever and an astute social commentator. I’m also in complete awe of her comic talent. That said, I have only ever read two of her books.  After much deliberation, I have established the problem – Helen Fielding is not my literary hero, a character she created is. The character is, of course, Bridget Jones. So far, so cliché. In recent years, Bridget has become a lazy stereotype of womanhood. She is pop culture shorthand for many things I can’t abide – the woman as a weight obsessed, squeaky voiced ditz; sobbing into her Haagen Daaz one minute and manically screeching along to Gloria Gaynor the next. But that is not MY Bridget Jones. My Bridget Jones has been a constant friend since[.....]