Top Five Book Related Irritations

The first half of Robert Jordan's latest series, pictured with an average Jordan reader.

Following a most eloquent review of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein on Squib's page I sullied the comments section venting my annoyance that the monster of said novel is often mistakenly referred to as 'Frankenstein'. Frankenstein is of course the nut-bar doctor who creates the monster, and the monster is the monster, neck bolts, murderous intent, poetry and all.

This widespread monster/Frankenstein confusion has led to many hours blathering on to people who have much better things to do than listen to me blather on about the monster/Frankenstein confusion, so for the good of the human race (or the small part of it forced by social convention to share a table with me at the pub) I thought I'd vent, once and for all, my Top Five Book Related Irritations. I promise from now on I'll only talk about these with my imaginary friends using my internal voice.

Book Related Irritation Number 1 As above - The Frankmeister and the monster: Sometime in the nineteenth century a clever clogs called Mary Shelley went on holidays to Switzerland with a bunch of chums including Byron and Shelley (her squeeze). They hung out at a delightful mansion-type place, and spent the evenings telling ghost stories, drinking mead and playing Truth or Dare. Over the hols this clever clogs Mary Shelley wrote a novel starring a doctor, a Dr Frankenstein, who pilfers graves and sticks all sorts of body parts together to make a 'monster'. This story is called Frankenstein; Frankenstein is the doctor, the monster is the monster.

You (as I) have a moral obligation to hit anyone who gets them confused over the head with a wheel of cheese.

Book Related Irritation Number 2 Quotations in other languages: I'm fully aware that I am linguistically impoverished and am ashamed that I can only speak English, but to all those multi-lingual academics out there, it's not very nice to rub your gargantuan language stores in my ashamedly uni-lingual face with quotations in other languages.

Let's say we're all happily reading a journal article about the cultural significance of intersections between Jane Austen and twentieth century views on cultural materialism. Is it really necessary to break into:

A closer semiotic analysis will show, as Foucault states, that: "Le Francais yibbity yibbity croissant yabbity yabbity en baguette yappity yappity Je suis ici pour."

This is almost always followed by something along the lines of: "Now that we understand Foucault's argument, let us move on". Screw you, snobby multi-lingual writerly types.

Book Related Irritation Number 3 Pages of praise at the start of books: I love a good book as much as the next kettle and I'd be stoked if, say, Graham Greene were to endorse any book I penned ("An intricate and delightful novel," say), but did Louise Erdrich's Tracks have to have 10 pages of praise? The guy who discovered penicillin didn't get 10 pages of praise.

Book Related Irritation Number 4 Series: Series should be banned, or else there should be a universal rule that says the first book in a series cannot be published until the author of the series has finished every book intended to be in the series. Has Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series even reached the half way point yet? Bah, reading series is like joining the army: an unnecessarily painful and drawn out experience.

Book Related Irritation Number 5 The magic bean: Every book-type festival or launch I've ever been to has inevitably led to a Q and A session which is fine until we get to The Question, which is always some variation of: "How do you, [insert celebrity author here], write?"

Sometimes the question focuses on the weight and grain of the paper the writer uses, or type of pen, or the angle of the sun that comes into the writer's writing room in winter, or whether the writer drinks tea while writing, and if the writer feels the position of the handle of his or her tea cup has any bearing on whether he or she writes comedy or tragedy, and whether the time the mail is delivered or the whether the writer grows vegetables or decorative plants in his or her garden makes any difference to the likelihood of getting published, and etc.

If you ever hear anyone asking one or all of these questions at a book event, please pour your drink in their lap then hit them on the head with your wheel of cheese. You have a moral obligation to do so.

Ah, that feels much better. I invite you to share any book related irritations you've been harbouring; it's very therapeutic. I've got my wheel of cheese ready to whack who or whatever irks you.

Home appliance cheats, compiles headlines

Just a quick sticks one... big day tomorrow, etc.

Today's Top Cornball Headlines:

1. "Pene for your thoughts, Tom": Yep, Tom Cruise acting creepy around former love-chunks Penelope Cruz at an Oscars after-party.

2. "Lonely Planet tells staff to pack their bags": You guessed it, this one ran in the business section.

3. "No waltzing for Heath's Matilda": I genuinely thought we had an unspoken but general agreement that no waltzy puns would be attached to Heath's little squirt. Shame on you, large media outlet.

Tomorrow: a close analysis of this article: "Robbers loot Greer's home: Academic says female cops at her home looked like cabaret artistes." Oh happy headline days! Bring on the new dawn!

We have all this to look forward to tomorrow. Thanks SMH for bringing us such photo-y goodness. My my, legs 11 indeed.

The things you do

I've now finished the second of the making-millions-working-from-home books that I borrowed from my favourite local library, and have picked up what I'm sure will be useful skills for some kind of home-based business.

I can now throw around such small biz acronyms as 'SOHO' ('small office, home office') with gay working-from-home abandon, and provide anyone with a rundown of just what the Corporation's Act expects of me personally.

[One thing that I haven't so much learnt as once again thoroughly enjoyed is snorting at such embarassing generalisations as the following, which appear with alarming and disappointing regularity in the business world: I haven't seen such flagrant sexism and imperialist dog-ness since The Benny Hill Show and/or The Goodies. All we can hope is that Mr Bossman is kind enough to Mrs Beancounter as to only oppress her on Tuesdays and Thursdays.]

But none the matter, I'm sure Ms Make-it can look after herself (provided she doesn't hook up with Mr Snakeoil), so back to the many things I've learned and the changes I've made that show just what an impact these SOHO books have had.

I no longer meet friends for a beer and a chat but provide refreshments to my chosen focus group (who represent my target market) in order to conduct market research on them. I no longer spend slothful, wasted evenings on the couch quoting lines from Top Gun and The Simpsons but rather enjoy many giddy hours on the computer building spreadsheets and itemising my deductible and non-deductible expenses (non-compulsory uniforms had me stumped for a while there - exciting stuff!).

But perhap the biggest change has been what is my newest and I'm sure most endearing trait of seeing all printed images as possible elements in what will surely be The World's Greatest Logo Ever and lying, stealing and cheating to procure them.

I've been ripping out pages from magazines in paediatricians' waiting rooms if I see borders that I like, and pocketing coasters from pubs if they happen to have even the slightest hint of a pretty, spidery-lined motif.

But my proudest and most enterprising image-collection moment came when I saw a woman walking down a random street in my local area drinking a coffee in a take-away cup that had a quite lovely Arabesque pattern printed on it. Knowing that this cup was in fact my graphic designer's holy grail, from which fount all logo-related inspiration would flow, I decided the right thing to do was to loiter nearby while she finished her coffee, to choke back my "Stop! Litterer!" when she threw her empty Arabesque-patterned cup under a tree, and then to wait until she was out of sight before carefully collecting my cuppy treasure. It was definitely the right thing to do to take it home, wash and dry it, cut out the bottom, flatten it, scan it and send it to my designer.

On reflection I can see the precise moment where I crossed the line.

The King of Musicals

I've been trying to think of a way to describe, in the few short words that make up a post, just what fabulosity is in store for me in 58 short days when I go to see Jerry Springer: The Opera. I couldn't put it any better than this blurb from the Opera House's website:

A pre-op transsexual… A man with nappy fetish… A pole-dancing housewife… Dancing Klansmen… The Devil… And a Jesus who admits he’s just a little bit ‘gay’…

A cast of 21 performers, with an 8-piece band, play a succession of lowlife characters, each desperate for their own ‘Jerry Springer’ moment. They fight, they cuss, they reveal their secrets – all via a sung-through score that ranges from pop and Broadway to classical and contemporary opera.

“It’s got tragedy, it’s got violence, there are people screaming at each other and you can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s perfect for opera.” Richard Thomas, Conductor

And oh my lordy David Wenham is Jerry! Be still my beating fun-stick.

How ever will I hold down my job, perform home economics, and remember to wash and dress myself when such a transcendental, transformative experience awaits? (Seriously, any suggestions welcome.)

The only thing that would top off the show itself would be a pre- or post-show interview with the pre-op transsexual, the chap with the nappy fetish, or the pole-dancing housewife, etc.

I reckon it's so gonna happen because my brother's uncle's sister's nephew snogged a guy who knows the chick who used to work behind the bar in the restaurant across the road from where the guy who donated his left testicle to the infertile couple who were on the real Springer show in June a couple of years ago used to have noodles after work. It's all coming together beautifully.

Highway to Nowhereville

A street number, doing what it does best.

I had an appointment this week and I decided, most irregularly, to drive.

It should have been easy enough to get to, my online map-thing said it was only 9.1km and 16 minutes away, but by the time I finally reached my destination I felt like Burke and/or Wills and was ready to eat my camels (if only I had thought to bring some).

So after a significant period of time and a rather unpleasant detour that involved rain and walking in it, I arrived, almost an hour late, sputtering and stammering to the receptionist about the stupidity of town planners everywhere.

She laughed good naturedly and said, with nowhere near enough sympathy for my wrong turns, lost hours and wet socks, "oh yes yes, it's the darndest thing, the numbers on this road restart every time it hits a new suburb".

What? Whose crazy-arsed idea was that? Street numbers are supposed to go up! And they're supposed to go up in order! It's their thing! It's what they do!

What kind of roads-based policy maker would come up with the idea of restarting the numbering in every suburb? An evil one, that's who. Next they'll be handing out addresses like 'Over the Hill and Far Away,' 'The Bridge at the End of the World,' or 'Earth', none of which are going to help me get from A to B.

I can't wait until the robots take over the world; they'll sort this shit out.

Tea, tee, t...

Photo by a clever person here.

A cheery hi-dee-ho to Squib who tagged me with a meme and the letter T. So here are ten T-based things about me:

1. Taffeta. I've never had enough taffeta in my life; I've never had any taffeta in my life. This has been a source of sadness for me since I stopped ballet after two weeks when I was five. While one of my proudest childhood moments was being told I was as sure-footed as a mountain goat I now think my single-digit years would have been all the better for a few metres of taffeta.

2. Tomatoes. I'm allergic and that sucks. It's one of the universe's crueller allergies, and completely pointless as far as I can see. No-one wins, especially not me.

3. Tchaikovsky. I have always been obsessed with the spelling of this word. Instead of humming tunes with my internal voice I spell out this word, as well as 'Nietzsche' and 'triptych'. I do an odd thing with numbers too, but I got 'T' for 'Tchaikovsky' not 'O' for 'odd thing with numbers'.

4. Timetables. I find them very satisfying. I like ticking things off.

5. Tents. I love camping but have always run into trouble with tents. One tent was so short I had to sleep diagonally, another let the rain in. I would like to be friends with tents.

6. Travel. Tied up with my love of timetables and my masochistic thing with tents. I have a savings account to go to Antarctica with $16 in it.

7. Tin whistle. I love the tin whistle. I played as a child. I even went to a summer tin whistle camp. I also love wooden recorders but they're even less suitable for joining any variety of rock band than the clarinet.

8. Telemachus. I started reading The Odyssey to my son when he was born. He's now almost three and I'm up to page 316 (he lost interest on page five). Odysseus of the nimble wits has returned to Ithaca and is about to exact his revenge on all and sundry, with his good son, the thoughtful Telemachus, by his side. Telemachus doesn't know that Odysseus is Odysseus. This is a very good story.

9. Telephone. My relationship with the telephone is inverse to my age: the older I get the less highly it rates on my 'awesome way to spend an hour' list.

10. Truth. I once told someone that I was endeavouring to pin down postmodern truth. It was my most embarassing moment ever in the whole, wide world.

Toodaloo.

Couch comfort

I've taken poorly over the last few days so have spent considerable time convalescing on the couch.

I've been attempting to pass the time reading the second of the work-from-home books I borrowed from my favourite local library but at 540 pages plus innumerable end-notes it's too weighty to hold open. To fill the hours I've moved on to Allan Pease's Body Language which, at 228 light-weight pages, has been a much easier read. Also, the bright yellow cover is pleasing to the eye and has been invaluable in raising my spirits.

The book is full of fabulous early '80s-style line drawings. In amongst the purely descriptive captions like 'Figure 82: Open body and open attitude' are little gems like this below:

Figure 83: This woman is probably cold, but she may wish to go to the bathroom.

Indeed, this is not a posture we'd want to read incorrectly: I could be fetching the poor woman a blanket and beanie while she's quietly wetting her pants.

This chap has been captioned as representing the male version of the ankle lock but I think he's actually in the middle of a staring competition and has just realised he needs to go to the toilet:

And the bladder condition of this chappy should be our least concern: if we ever meet anyone displaying this expression we should run away very quickly before the laser beams start shooting from his eyes:

This book has everything the convalescent could want; I recommend you become sick immediately so you too can enjoy it.

And then the mechanical engineer said to the astrophysicist...

Get the new season nerd line here!

A friend of mine is a bit of an armchair physicist and has been reading up on different types of electric motors over recent weeks. I often have to sound the 'nerd!' alert when such readings take place, but no matter, the neighbours are used to it.

My Friend the Nerd (as we shall call him) often reads snippets of his scientific findings out so happily we all benefit from his learning and add to our stores of under-used pub trivia answers.

From these recitations I have learnt more about Kuiper Belt objects, how to teleport photons, and just what kind of concrete can absorb carbon than your average kettle could ever hope to know.

But one thing I didn't know until today is just how funny physicists could be. In the course of his investigations into electric motors My Friend the Nerd came across some lecture notes from John Storey, Professor of Physics at the University of NSW. Professor Storey's interests include infrared and millimetre astronomy, Antarctic astronomy and energy efficient vehicles, making him possibly the coolest dinner party guest on the planet (and probably in the Kuiper Belt too).

Let me share with you Professor Storey's comments on printed circuit motors:

Sometimes called "pancake motors", these are a particular cunning motor configuration whose operation is in some ways is easier to visualise than that of a conventional motor. They fit into confined spaces (say inside a car door, to make the windows go up and down) and, because the rotor is light and has little rotational inertia, can accelerate to full speed and stop again very rapidly.

This feature isn't so important for car windows (unless you’re into drive-by shootings), but is essential for industrial robots and other servo mechanisms.

Unless you're into drive-by shootings! For all the years I spent at uni and all the arty farty subjects I studied I never came across a lecturer who was a. as creative in his or her jokes, and b. as bloody funny.

I raise my photovoltaic array to you, Professor Storey.

Good cop, bad cop

Whenever two people get together to do anything there's a universal law that says one will be sweetness and light while the other will be just one small step above George Dubya.

So it is with the two authors of the work-from-home book I've been reading. It starts off benignly enough with a few pages from the lolly pops and raindrops author, who ruminates pleasantly on a few stats about advances in technology and the number of people who want to spend more time with their family instead of commuting, etc.

Then we move onto the "let's get ready to start thinking about getting ready to start" chapter, which begins with a few little exercises like make a list of all the skills you've acquired from past jobs / lives / time-travel experiences, and clearly here the bunnies and kittens writer is still at the keyboard.

Then wham! The evil twin-author must have sent the sunbeams and fairy-floss writer flying off his or her swivel chair and snatched up the keyboard because there's a definite change of tone on the next page:

Find out what friends and family really think about your plans. The people who know you best can often surprise you with their insight into your potential.

[Ok, sounds positive-ish enough. Let's keep going.]

Often their opinions are unexpected; they could perhaps be fundamentally negative about what they perceive as a risk-laden venture, which could cost you, and possibly them, dear if it all goes wrong.

[Ok again, not so positive but he or she is encouraging us to think about the risks involved with starting a home-based business, I get that.]

They could come up with strong reasons why a particular idea is not, in fact, so bright.

[Starting to get a little na-sty. I'll tell you who's not so bright.]

They may also reveal an inherent lack of faith in your ability to be successful at all.

[Screw you buddy!]

Bah. I'm setting up my lemonade stand no matter what they say.

The business of books

I recently borrowed a book from my favourite local library about running a business from home. It covers everything the potential homebody workabee might want to know: how to pick the right business (as a wild guess I'm thinking a home-based brain surgery business might not be the one for me, seeing as how I'm not a brain surgeon); how to organise your desk (invaluable for mass profits apparently); and how to stay motivated and productive (what's not motivating about having the freedom to stay in bed all day?).

Anyhoo, so it looked like a gem of a book and I couldn't wait to get started reading.

Sitting down last night with a nice cup of business-motivating tea I opened the book and what did I find inside the front cover but a little business card, completely unadorned apart from a few simple lines of text:

Opportunity
to create

the most profitable
business

Turn your annual income
into a monthly income
within 6 months!
1800 blah blah

Yeah sure it's probably some crazy kind of diet shakes and vitamins business, but what an enterprising approach: going to libraries and slipping your business card into subject-related books!

Just think of the potential applications: leaving little notes in Pritikin diet books saying "Opportunity - to create - the most delicious burger experience ever! - turn your tofu into take-away tonight!"; or slipping a card about your reconstructive surgery business into the Sharks of Australia book; or your anger management brochure into the Sharemarkets for Fun and Profit book.

I'm keeping an eye out for flyers advertising counselling practises specialising in overcoming delusions of grandeur in copies of John Howard's biography.

Nothing going back to bed can't fix

I think I've woken up in some kind of alternate, bizarro world today. You know the kind of day where something bizarro happens and you unintentionally adopt the appearance of a stunned mullet, stutter out a few "ums" then wonder if you've got your own Truman Show going on? That's my world today.

I've had three of these moments already and it's barely morning tea time.

First up I spent a good minute and a half in a chemist reading a box of contact lens solution wondering what in Obama's name a 'rewet' was. "Roo-ette? Roo-ette?" Having had a discussion earlier in the morning about suet my mind leapt straight to that then on ruminants then on to porridge, none of which helped at all with regard to 'rewet'.

Then it dawned on me: "Oh re-wet! Right, yeah yeah, I get it now. This lens solution will help me 're-wet' my contacts. Ok." On reflection I think both the label copywriter and I are responsible for this meaning malfunction; who doesn't use a dash in re-wet? Who sometimes reads things a little too literally?

Anyhoo, this was followed closely by moment number two where the bizarro-ness was all Cityrail's. On a corridor in Wynyard station, at about eye level, is a wall mounted eye-bath. As far as I'm aware this particular corridor, or any corridor in the station for that matter, isn't renown as a danger spot for lemon juice fights so I'm at a loss to explain the presence of this eye bath in this location.

Bizarro moment number three is thanks to a story with this headline: "Crackdown on nude hikers". Apparently nude hikers in a particular part of Switzerland will soon be hit with fines of 200 Swiss francs if caught hiking sans socks and undies. All power to nude hikers, I say, and I'll certainly be buying shares in Swiss suncream companies, but what led to my "um... ok" moment was that the author signed off with "It was not clear where the naked hikers would find the money, although hikers often carry rucksacks." What was the subeditor thinking letting that one through? When will such naffness end?

I'm glad it's not Groundhog Day.

Gah!

Piccie from here.

I had the great pleasure of spending today, the whole day, in a large fluro-lit room that could easily have been mistaken for a common room in a prison, say, if only the wooden skirting boards hadn't been quite so decorative.

While not literally a prison, it was prison-like nonetheless.

And what oppressive force caused this day-long sentence? That's right! A professional development day! While I'm still at a loss to explain the words 'professional' and 'development' in that phrase, I can confirm that it took all day.

In the sea of 'blah blah' that washed over me today, here are three things that I learnt:

1. If you're in agribusiness and have trees maturing in 18 years time you might want to have a think about climate change, or at least pretend you have when someone asks you a question about it;

2. An insurance salesperson with a broken foot is not ironic, it's karma; and

3. The funniest sentence uttered by anyone anywhere in the world about the whole global financial crisis chestnut is this: "Asset prices may fluctuate with, you know, your market forces."

Yep, they'll do that. Gotta watch your market forces. Won't someone lock me up and spare me anymore learning?

You had me at 'hello'

Today's most unexpectedly delightful headline:

The Slumdog debate: is it poverty porn or honest, cathartic art?

'Poverty porn' - how marvellous!

Grouping a disparate bunch of online and print-based ramblings under the banner 'debate' - ingenious! Just like bringing together similarly disparate nuttiness under such terms as 'The Arms Race', 'The Financial Crisis' and 'The George Dubya Debacle'.

Ooh! And my favourite part of this lovely headline is that it announces a discussion about the nature of truth (aesthetic, epistemological, ontological)... in a daily newspaper!

Happy, happy headline days.

My kind of philanthropy

Bill Gates releasing a teeny tiny swarm of mozzies intent on bringing down the electronic age's most bankable names.

I'm all for crazy rich people doing philanthropic things with their money, particularly people who regularly come across their name and the word 'billionaire' in the same sentence.

I don't pretend to know anything about the Gates Foundation (for all I know it could be a front for the Let's Club Baby Seals Society) but I liked the point Gates was making on this particular day; pity the online newspapers kept losing it behind the couch.

So the sticky is that at a conference in the US this week Gates gave a presentation on the Gates Foundation's malaria eradication program. During the talk, he released some mosquitoes into the lecture theatre and said "not only poor people should experience this".

Fair call for a good cause. Malaria is a nasty, nasty disease that kills between one and three million people a year, mostly kids living in poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the most suckful things about it is that it hits the lowest income groups hardest because they don't have the resources to deal with it. The disease then in turn worsens their poverty because it means time out of work, school, etc, and all the losses associated with that.

And while I'm up here waving my arms around on the Malaria Eradication Soapbox I should tell you that the lowest income group in Malawi spend a whopping 32% of their annual income on treating malaria, compared to 4% of households with low-to-high incomes. 32%! That's nuts.

So boo malaria and hurray the Gates Foundation malaria eradication program.

What really got me about the media coverage of the 'event' was that the words 'malaria eradication' appeared once in each story (if at all) while the bulk of the copy was taken up with name-dropping and advertising for the conference.

Yes, yes, yes, Bill Gates released a "swarm" of mosquitoes into an audience that included "high profile members of online networking service Twitter"; and oh wow the story was confirmed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar on his Twitter account and gosh the official conference Twitter profile confirmed the mosquitoes were real; and can you believe that previous speakers at the conference have included such famous people as Bill Clinton, Al Gore and a coupla Nobel laureates; and yes in case you're thinking of a conference-related holiday this year this particular conference is being held in Long Beach, California; and lastly, just so you know, Twitter is a "micro-blogging service where people post short, text-only comments or updates on what they are doing".

Fascinating, I'm sure, but what about the malaria? Wasn't that the whole point? Sheesh, maybe that point is still hiding behind the couch.

Ok I'm over it

What's this?

"Yesterday...the man from Majorca acknowledged that seeing his friend and rival...break down after their latest final...had tempered his own joy."

"[It] was tough situation, a tough moment for him more than me," Nadal, who was moved to comfort a weeping Federer, said yesterday. "But for me, too. Roger is, we have a relationship and was tough moment for him … too much emotion is there yesterday, no? But probably in the future when we see that moment on the TV it's going to be nice, but when you live that moment, it's tough. Because I can't enjoy 100 per cent the victory because I saw him cry."

Ok, now what's this?

Ha ha ha plop.

That's me laughing my head off at the poor emo-heads at the top of world tennis.

Having at first felt sad for my dear wouldn't-hurt-a-ladybug friend Roger Federer I've quickly developed sporting compassion fatigue.

"I can't enjoy 100 per cent the victory because I saw him cry" - bah! Try reading the newspaper; that'll make you cry! Try getting to sleep when the temperature moves from a scorching 38 degrees during the day to a still and sticky 30 degrees at night! Try wearing a hat on a windy day!

Come on boys, suck it up. At least you've still got your millions of dollars, your sponsorship deals and your fly-around-the-world-playing-a-happy-game-of-racquet-and-ball lifestyle. Doesn't sound too bad to me.

Hang in there big guy

As I went to sleep last night I had this train of thought looping around my head:

"I can't believe Nadal won. My poor Rog, I do hope he's ok. Tough game, man, tough game. And the heat! Pah! Poor Rog. Nadal Naschmal. What is he, like, 14? But Rog, how good was he? I mean, yeah sure, not quite good enough to win, but really, what's winning? Ok so winning was kind of the point, of this and other elimination-based competitions, but can't they change the rules, just for Rog? Huh? For Rog? I can't believe Nadal won. My poor Rog, I do hope he's ok..." and etc.

The very last thing I remember thinking was: "You know, they should so just put a photo of Rog in the paper tomorrow. Forget Nadal, or at most just give him a little photo and Rog a big one."

And they did.