blog2

Hi all, My holidays end this week - next week I will back at work in my part-time library position - so I finally got around to doing some of the things that I need to do while I've got the extra time. I visited the optometrist and finished up getting two new pair of spectacles, one for reading and one for watching TV etc. The pair I was using for reading has now become my computer glasses and the pair that were my computer glasses don't really preform any function any more. I will be interested to see if I make fewer typos now I've finally swapped computer glasses. The shop had a buy one, get one free deal for the glasses so there purchase didn't break the bank. I finally went looking for a new pair of runners. It would have been nice to get a pair similar to my last pair which lasted for 13 months and about 2000 walked kilometres. We had a new Athlete's Foot open in Wang and they had a sale on last month, but their sale prices were more expensive than Sportspower...

Hi all, I went and saw the new science-fiction/horror flick Cloverfield last weekend and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys monster movies. It contains plenty of thrills and frights, but very little humour. Its gimmick, like the Blair Witch Project, is that it is filmed as if filmed on video by one of the main characters. So the camera jiggles around a lot, especially when they are running, and lingers on ears and boots. If you sit there hoping that the film will revert to normal cinematic conventions, it doesn't. Like the under-rated science-fiction film "Signs", the film follows one group of people and there are only fleeting glimpses on televisions as to what the authorities think is happening. The film leaves a lot unexplained, so it's up to the viewer's imagination to fill in the gaps: this is not a film for someone who needs everything neatly resolved and explained at the end. Graham.

Hi all, A number of articles I have read lately have questioned the novel's future. One article in the Age concerned a report from the National Endowment for the Arts in the US. It said 19% of 17 year-olds and half 18-24 year-olds never read for pleasure. The article did not have figures from previous years for comparison. I know I read very little from about age 16 to 30. During my last two years of high school I suffered the usual dislike of books because of the way we had to analyse them and come to the same conclusions as the teacher and examiners (They have not heard that the Author is dead and it's up to each individual reader how he or she interprets a novel, a scene, an action, a smile.) At Uni I read LOR and the six book "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" for pleasure and that was about it. And then work came along, along with the hassle of finding my place in the world. I actually think it is normal for people in these age groups not to read for pleasure, with ...