Out to lunch

Today I used my lunch break to pop into town and buy a wedding gift for our friends in Tokyo. As I entered the department store I was forced to make my way through the lingerie department in order to reach my destination. I hate it when that happens:
 
Purchase made,  I scoffed a disgusting burger [...]

Newcomer

From a book I’m currently reading:
“Initially the community may welcome us warmly - even overwhelmingly. But in every culture the newcomer is still exactly that - and newcomers by definition don’t fit in yet. Our basic position in the new community is one of statuslessness. We carry knowledge from past experiences - often including special [...]

Shelf life

For a while the appeal of box sets of tv shows escaped me entirely. My attitude was that it was only worth buying something if you were confident that you’d get your money’s worth by watching it several times over, exploring all the special features, and so forth. Even then, I found it hard to [...]

The point of art

From a book I’m currently reading:
“But art, if it means awareness of our own life, means also awareness of the lives of other people - for style for the writer, no less than colour for the painter, is a question not of technique but of vision: it is the revelation, which by direct and conscious methods [...]

Bookish

As some of you may know, I joined goodreads recently. In the past I’d written a couple of reviews on Amazon, but this seemed like a good way to keep them all in one place, and also a way of actually encouraging me to write something about what I’d read, even if only a few [...]

Intercultural dialogue

It’s been a while since I read a book that made me laugh out loud. The author is a Canadian, hitch-hiking from one end of Japan to the other.
“An old man approached me. He was tiny and tidy and as wrinkled as my thumb after a bath. He seemed to be shrinking back into himself [...]

Are you human?

From a book I’m currently reading:
“We were all terrible when we were little. Did you ever see how vicious and monstrous kids are to each other? And I’m not just talking about in the sandbox either, where they bang each other over the head with their trucks! Teenagers…God, teach them for a while if you want [...]

Character sketch

From a book I’m currently reading:
“Upon first meeting him, shallow men tended to dismiss him out of hand, and he took great pleasure in allowing them to do so - for he was, in fact, a man of great depth, intensely conscious of his own superiority, and his veiled demeanour was like a thousand-foot drop [...]

Reading time

I remember reading an interview with Jeremy Irons a while ago discussing his role in the film Kafka (claim to fame – I know (and worked with) the camera assistant who worked on the shoot in Prague). When asked whether or not he’d read much of Kafka’s oeuvre, he said no, and that he didn’t [...]

Simon recommends

If you only see one French black and white animation about the Iranian revolution this year, make sure it’s Persepolis.
Original, visually sophisticated, moving, humane, and, perhaps surprisingly, laugh-out-loud funny.